Easy Blackberry and Apple Crumble Recipe (Vegan) (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good crumble? ›

The Vegan Crumble Topping

A 50/50 blend of regular and oat flour/almond flour also works. Vegan butter: It's best to use dairy-free unsalted butter, though lightly salted works too. Something like Miyoko's or Earth Balance would work great. Melted coconut oil should also work, but it won't taste as rich and buttery.

Apple crumble recipe topping is typically made of butter, sugar and flour which gets topped on the cooked fruit filling. To add an extra element of texture and flavour, oats, coconut, nuts and cinnamon can be added to the crumble mix.

Use the Right Amount of Butter

Too much butter and your topping will become a greasy blob or disappointingly soggy. Some recipes will ask you to cut in cold butter along with your dry ingredients, resulting in pea-size pieces that are sprinkled across the hot fruit filling.

Use cold, cubed butter.

Making the crumble with room temperature or melted butter will cause the topping to spread as it bakes, rather than creating a landscape of craggy, crunchy sweet pieces. Using cold butter will help all the crumble ingredients bind together before baking and then saturate them evenly in the oven.

“I can't stand crumbles that have a layer of floury sugary dust on top. They're supposed to be chunky and craggy, with big pieces of crumble on top. By freezing your topping, it makes it harden just slightly and that means the texture will be nice and crispy when it's cooked.”

It's a much loved family pleaser, whatever the season and whatever fruit we use! Using our rapeseed oil means no rubbing in butter with flour and oats, so takes minutes to make. All so much quicker to get your crumble on the table.

Yes. All flours are essentially plants crushed into a powder form that can be used to bake and cook a variety of foods. What types of flour are vegan? The vast majority of flours are vegan, from white to oat and everything in between.

The main reason your crumble topping isn't crunchy is probably because you haven't used Demerara sugar. Although, it could also be that you've got your topping ingredient quantities wrong: either too much or not enough flour and butter alongside the sugar.

Make filling: Combine blueberries, brown sugar, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Pour filling into the prepared baking dish. Make topping: Combine brown sugar, flour, oats, butter, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in a medium bowl; rub mixture between your fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle topping evenly over blueberries.

What is the difference between a crisp and crumble? ›

So what's a crumble vs. a crisp? A crumble is just a crisp without oats in the streusel. It may feature nuts, but the streusel topping is usually a simple combination of butter, flour, and sugar that is more clumpy than that of a crisp.

Put 175g plain flour and 110g golden caster sugar in a bowl with a good pinch of salt. Slice in 110g cold butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like moist breadcrumbs. Shake the bowl and any big bits will come to the surface – rub them in.

Then, make sure to bake the crumble long enough so that the fruit filling comes to a profuse simmer at the edges of the pan. This shows that the cornstarch has been activated enough to thicken the juices, turning them supple and silky.

You need to stop rubbing the fat into the flour so efficiently! Leaving lumps in it is what makes those lovely crunchy bits. I also recently read that crumbled ginger nuts make a lovely addition.

Making Crumble Topping

First, adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the flour mixture makes the crumble topping more tender. Second, using cold butter and working it into the flour mixture makes for a pastry-like topping reminiscent of pie crust.

The good news is that light and dark brown sugar are interchangeable: You're not going to ruin your cookies, your crumble, or your banana bread by swapping one for the other.

Classic crumble

Sometimes simplicity is best and a basic crumble topping of sugar, flour and butter is all you need for the perfect pudding. In Raymond Blanc's popular apple & blackberry crumble, the topping is pre-baked so it retains a light, crumbly texture and doesn't stick together.