The Humble Crumble.......why so difficult?

After almost thirty years as a chef I still find it hard to come to terms with the fact that apple crumble is not considered to be one of the best desserts ever invented........Yes there may be the delicious chocolate fondants, the light as air meringues, the soufflés and mousses with a multitude of flavours and fillings, the cheesecakes, the steamed puddings, the crisp pastry tarts, yet all of them, in my opinion, fall short of the humble crumble.

oh the joy of eating a perfect crumble!.....each spoonful a layer of soft fruit, sweet bicuity crunchy goodness bathed in silky vanilla custard....... a communion of textures and flavours in each mouthful.

Dare I venture to say, that I suspect the reason this dish is treated like a second class citizen, is that my fellow chefs find what should be a simple dish, extremely hard to make.......There, I've said it!
Some may argue and shout indignantly in their denial, but the fact of the matter is, I have only ever had what I consider to be a properly cooked fruit crumble maybe two or three times in my eating and cooking career......cooked by other people that is!

I have had crumbles made with every fruit and topping imaginable, once I even had mango and pineapple with a passion fruit custard and muesli crumble topping, and believe me you don't want to go there!

Getting the fruit base right is the relatively easy part, the topping is another matter, and this seems to cause the greatest difficulty!

I have experienced crumble toppings that have tasted like sawdust....either too much oatmeal or the use of wholemeal flour was to blame, ones that were a buttery flour powder just scattered over the top where someone had forgotten to put in the sugar, ones that came out practically burnt on top and hid a gooey raw dough underneath, and even one delivered to the table uncooked which my brother, who is also a chef, had the displeasure of sending back!

I have had crumbles in small dishes, big dishes, little crock pots, huge show off  bowls where a big spoonful has been slopped upside down into a pool of custard, and even glasses where the fruit was at the bottom and the crumble topping, which had been cooked separately, was dusted on top......what madness was this? I asked myself.

When I see a fruit crumble on the menu there is a momentary excitement which quickly changes to doubt.....should I be brave and order my favourite dessert?     shall I risk a possible disappointment?
With the parting shot of a bad dessert, the meal you have just eaten regardless of how delicious, fades into dreadful insignificance......my fellow chefs should be aware of this!

A good crumble is a perfect blend of soft fruit, not overly sweetened, with a sweet,crunchy, chewy, biscuity top.

Whether you should cook the fruit or not depends on the type of fruit and its moisture content.
Red fruits such as blackberries or raspberries will leech out a lot of liquid during baking and could cause a soggy crust so there are steps you can take to prevent this...... By mixing a little cornflour with the fruit, any juice that seeps out will thicken and stop the crumble topping getting soggy.

Hard fruits such as apples and pears should be cooked lightly beforehand as you could find the crumble topping is cooked but the fruit beneath is still hard or that the apples or pears have a high
moisture content.
I always partially cook hard fruits before making my crumble.......this way I can see how much water there is in the fruit and how much they need to be sweetened if at all....it is very much hit and miss trying to sweeten raw fruit!
You can pre-cook the fruit by peeling and dicing it into bite size pieces, placing it in a saucepan with a little knob of butter, cover with a lid and cook over a low heat until the fruit begins to soften, if there is a lot of moisture you can then add some cornflour.

When it comes to getting the crumble topping right it all boils down to the correct ratio of dry ingredients to butter......one would never and should never use margarine to make a crumble topping!
For perfect crunch you should always go for the good old fashioned traditional recipe of flour, butter and sugar and leave it at that....yes you could add rolled oats or nuts or even wholemeal flour but you are playing with fire and risking a ruination of your crumble!

How you make the crumble top has a lot to do with it too!
merely rubbing butter into flour and sugar by hand will not guarantee that desirably crisp crunchy texture, it's really about how far that process of 'rubbing in' is taken...... it is somewhere between sandy texture and approaching the formation of a biscuit dough, and the only real way to achieve this is with that trusty kitchen tool.......the hands free mixer!

If there was ever a piece of kitchen equipment I would recommend anyone to invest in, it's the mixer. They come in all shapes and sizes, and budgets!
forget your juicers, your blenders, your smart espresso machines, the hands free mixer is your tool!
It is only with the muscle of electric power that a truly great crumble top can be made.

Once you have weighed your ingredients and put them in the bowl, you begin by mixing on a medium speed with the 'K' hook....yes it looks pretty much like a k!

When the butter has been 'rubbed in' and achieved a sandy texture we need to take it a stage further.

The trick is to keep rubbing it in until it begins to form small lumps, as if we are aiming at making a sweet pastry dough.


Once we have reached this point we have to switch tactics, we want to continue rubbing in but we don't want to form a dough, so we change to the 'whisk' attachment.

As we continue to 'whisk' on a medium speed small little balls almost like minuscule biscuits, begin to form, and when we scatter these over the top of our fruits they will hold their shape during baking, resulting in that all desirable perfectly crunchy, buttery biscuity topping.

Now the only decision........custard? or cream?


You can find my Autumnal Apple & Pear Crumble recipe HERE!