In Britain apple crumble is the everyday pudding, the one every grandmother makes on a cold Sunday and the one the British still name their favourite. My English friend Margaret makes it with no oats at all, and she serves it with hot custard, never ice cream.
Prep25 min
Cook40 min
Total1 hr 15 min
Yield6 servings
CuisineAmerican
In this article
Why this apple crumble works
Ingredients
How to make apple crumble
Tips that make the difference
Variations
Storage and make-ahead
Frequently asked questions
My friend Margaret grew up in England, and she says that if you serve apple crumble with ice cream at a British table, somebody will quietly get up and go make the custard. Crumble is the national pudding there. Polls about Britain’s favourite dessert come back with it at or near the top year after year, and Margaret says that is because it came out of hard times. During the war, butter and flour were rationed, and there was rarely enough for a proper pastry crust. So cooks rubbed what little fat they had into some flour and sugar and scattered the rough crumbs over the fruit. It turned out better than the pie it replaced, and it never left.
Margaret is also very firm that crumble is not an American crisp. Hers has no oats and no nuts. It is only flour, cold butter and sugar, rubbed together with the fingertips until it looks like rough breadcrumbs, piled over sliced apples with a little sugar and cinnamon, and baked until the juice bubbles up through the cracks and the top turns golden and crunchy. Then comes the custard, made on the stove from milk, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, hot and pale yellow and poured from a jug over every bowl. This page gives you both, with her measurements.
Why this apple crumble works
- Rubbed in, not stirred. Rubbing cold butter into the flour with your fingertips makes a sandy, crunchy topping that bakes crisp.
- No oats. A plain flour crumble is lighter and more buttery; oats make it a crisp, which is a different pudding.
- A deep layer of apples. The fruit cooks down, so it should start piled high.
- Apples left peeping through. Where the juice bubbles up, it caramelizes on the crumble edges.
- Real custard. A stirred egg custard is thin enough to pour and soaks into the crumble the way cream never does.