Feeling Autumnal

The nights are drawing in, the air is noticeably cooler and one can justify wearing welly boots and cosy coats. I can safely announce that it is definitely comfort food weather! So, today as a welcome to Autumn I'm going to post a recipe for raspberry and apple crumble. It's a classic, a Sunday dinner staple and so easy!

When making a crumble I do not measure out how much fruit I need, I go by dish size. The one I used for this was roughly 12"x6". I just put the blackberries in to about halfway up the dish and use roughly 1 large cooking apple cored and sliced. 

Ingredients for the Topping:                         Ingredients for Filling:
240g plain flour                                                        fruit of your choice, enough to fill half way up              
120g castor sugar                                                     the dish (roughly 500g berries)
120g butter, cut into cubes                                     2tbsp+ castor sugar
                                                                                     1 large cooking apple

Method

1) Sift flour into a good size bowl and add the butter. Then you need to rub in the butter to the flour. Use the tips of your fingers and rub the butter through your fingers with the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Click Here for a video on how to do this! 

2) Stir in the sugar to the mixture with a metal spoon. 

And voila that's the topping ready

Tip #1 Make the topping before you prep the apples to save them discolouring.
Tip #2 Have sink of hot soapy water ready for washing your hands! 


Put your fruit in the dish, blackberries/raspberries and apple, or just apples. But you need to sprinkle about 2tbsp of sugar if not a little bit more over the fruit. It's all down to your personal taste. I only used 2tbsp for the raspberries and it was a bit too tart. Once done, sprinkle your topping on. Make sure that all the fruit is covered and press down lightly with the back of a spoon. 
Cook on 180℃ for about 40mins until the top is golden. 

When making just an apple crumble I like to add a handful or two of sultanas and a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of mixed spice. It gives that extra flavour. You can also put a little bit of the spices in with the flour to make the topping more flavoursome. 

Being in Cornwall, my first choice of accompaniment for a crumble is Cornish Clotted Cream, but ice cream, double cream, even crème fraîche.  

So enjoy! I hope this makes sense and I'd love to see pictures of your crumbles :)