The Crumble thread - just because we can

[Bledlow]

I'm very keen on apple & blackcurrant, as well as rhubarb, but home-grown supplies of blackcurrants & rhubarb have run out for this year. 

Still, apples are plentiful.

What fruity delights do you like to top with crumble? How much crumble to fruit? And what do you pour over it? Do you eat the leftovers cold, or heat them up? Do you keep the crumble simple, or add such exotica as flaked oats or ground almonds? White sugar or brown (& how brown)? Butter or something animal-free?

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Crumble is half flour, half oats, butter, brown sugar. Favourite fruit is apple & blackberry, but rhubarb, apple, pear, or any other crumble-suitable fruit will do. I prefer hot with custard, leftovers are eaten cold, not reheated.

[nikki]

ho yes, definitely plenty of brown sugar involved.

I live alone, but The Lady Downstairs Wot Does The Garden will sometimes gift me a carrier bag of something suitable for crumbling. In order to prevent soggy crumble, I've taken to baking the biscuity goodness separately, keeping it crumbly in tupperware and then applying to the reheated fruit at the appropriate moment(s).

Slightly wrong, but needs must.


Also, IMO, the ideal ratio is anything in the range
crumble > fruit

[graculus]

As one gooseberry bush on the allotment produced over 30 lbs of fruit this year I foresee a lot of gooseberry crumbles. They will have to fight for their turn with apple and blackberry/blackcurrant as the tree in the garden is bearing a bumper crop.
Topping is generally a mix of linseed, sunflower seeds, medium oatmeal, white plain flour and porridge oats, white sugar and stuck together with sunflower oil.

[Emily]

Rhubarb, gooseberry, apple (+blackberry/blackcurrant), plum/damson... pretty much any stewable fruit is a good excuse for crumble.  This week's will be plum, I reckon.

Topping usually has oats, sometimes ground almonds, and sometimes also a little bit of ginger or cinnamon.  Always butter.  White sugar in the crumble, demerara on top.  If you're lucky, some of the juice will bubble through on the top as well.

This thread is making me hungry.

[L CC]

I live alone, but The Lady Downstairs Wot Does The Garden will sometimes gift me a carrier bag of something suitable for crumbling. In order to prevent soggy crumble, I've taken to baking the biscuity goodness separately, keeping it crumbly in tupperware and then applying to the reheated fruit at the appropriate moment(s).

Slightly wrong, but needs must.

Slightly? It's VERY wrong.
It's worse than pub 'pie' consisting of stew with a pastry lid.

[nikki]

*hangs head in shame*
*casually notes she won't have to share any Rong Crumble with fboab*   

[Mrs Pingu]

The one true crumble is flour, fat and sugar. None of this oats and nuts nonsense, it's not frikkin muesli y'know.
*runs*

[Martin109]

A vote here for damson crumble - just in season at this very moment, but not for long.

Apparently, in the Midlands at least, they were grown to dye cloth and tan leather, but they do make a lovely crumble... and jam... and damson gin... and damson vodka (apparently)... and pickled damsons... and damson cheese (not actual cheese natch)... and damson jelly... and damson chutney... 

[rogerzilla]

Banana.

You know those ones you never got round to eating, which are a bit too brown to be appetising?  Mash them up with a little bit of water and bake them in a crumble.  Trust me, this works.

[Mrs Pingu]

Ooh, we has loads of spotty bananas. And that would go well with custard....

[David Martin]

Apple and blackberry, but you have to be quite picky about the apples. Preferably a slightly tart eater that is also not too crisp. Beauty of Bath is my current favourite. The James Grieve from the front garden taste great but are a bit too hard to break down.

And Clare is right - flour,fat  and sugar in a 4:2:1 ratio  - not too much but with a light sprinkling of an appropriate spice.

How too eat leftovers? In this house we have no experience of the term 'leftover crumble'

[hellymedic]

Or     (veering OT) microwave the bananas of a minute each and serve with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce...

[drossall]

Strawberry. Probably not the best use for ones of Wimbledon standard, but again, if they're maybe a bit soft, a great way to use them up.

Has special meaning for us. Was served to us on what might be called our first date

And crumble is my favourite pud anyway

[Bledlow]

I do it with flour, butter & brown sugar, sprinkle some more sugar (maybe demerara) on top, about 50:50 crumble:fruit (though I've been thinking of raising the crumble proportion a little). Custard, leftovers* cold - but Mrs B prefers them reheated.

*We generally do a crumble for six between the two of us, & eat it in two sittings.

[mcshroom]

Don't buy Lidl Apple crumble (even if they are selling it off dirt cheap). There's not a massive amount of crumble and under the apple jam (yes didn't find any apples) they've hidden some sort of sickly sponge cake to bulk up the tray

[drossall]

I've had some really bad crumbles in various restaurants lately. I'm almost afraid to order it again. The clue's in the name; it's supposed to be crumbly, not a slight sprinkling of soggy floury stuff on masses of fruit, and not a lightly-disguised pie.

[menthel]

Flour, butter sugar (half brown half normal- gets a bit more crunch) +/- oats. Fave filling is a topic of great debate in our house, some prefer apple and blackberry, whilst I prefer Rhubarb. We had a rhubarb and apple one at the weekend, spiced up with some cinnamon and a couple of star anise whilst the rhubarb was defrosted in the pan and the apples added to half stew. Eaten with custard, ice cream or both as per preference!

[bikenrrd]

Has to have oats in the topping, otherwise it's a crappy crumble.
Oats, flour, butter, brown sugar in a 1:1:1:1 ratio.

We have loads of apples at the moment from the Big Old Apple Tree in the Garden.  So we have had lots of crumbles!

[matthew]

Last weekend we had a punnet of nectarines in the fridge that had been pushed to teh back and frozen. If allowed to defrost they would become mush very quickly so I quartered and skinned them and made a crumble with them.

Used oats in the crumble to add texture on the basis the fruit would have very little so replaced half the flour in my normal 2:1:1 flour, fat, sugar with oats. this proved a little moist so a handful of extra flour was added.

 Worked very well except fro the frost bite in my left hand from the bloody freezing nectarine juice as I preped them.

[Bledlow]

I've had some really bad crumbles in various restaurants lately. I'm almost afraid to order it again. The clue's in the name; it's supposed to be crumbly, not a slight sprinkling of soggy floury stuff on masses of fruit, and not a lightly-disguised pie.

Ah, my great hates in commercial crumbles! Even when they have proper crumble on top of the fruit, there's usually far too little of it.

[Tigerrr]

In theory meat crumble should be good shouldn't it? Has anyone tried that?

[citoyen]

My standard crumble topping is simply oats and butter in a 2:1 ratio. Has to be oats because my wife doesn't eat wheat flour. I tried it with buckwheat flour recently but it wasn't a success - although that's partly because I undercooked it. I sometimes add a little sugar but I don't think it really needs it - the filling is usually sweet enough for our tastes. And I sometimes add almonds and/or hazelnuts but again, it seems like a bit of an affectation.

Has to be at least equal depth of fruit and crumble, if not slightly deeper crumble, and served with lashings of custard.

David M - if you're not getting any leftovers, you're not making it big enough. 

In theory meat crumble should be good shouldn't it? Has anyone tried that?

No, but it sounds like a fine idea. Cobbler works equally well with fruit or meat, so I don't see why a crumble shouldn't.

[bikenrrd]

My mum makes a veggy crumble.  Like a ratatouille, but with a crumble topping with cheese in the crumble.  It's nice.

[drossall]

Yes, meat crumble is good. Maybe not with sugar in the crumble. And best not followed by my favourite dessert (see up-thread).