Apple crumble was a regular dessert feature in my house growing up and I have always loved it.

My husband jokes that he knew that he was going to marry me when I brought him a bowl of it as sustenance during exam study time at uni! That was a looong time ago – tomorrow we celebrate 16 years together, so it seemed like a good time to bring this one out again 🙂

Over those many years, I have added to my mum’s recipe, adapted it to suit our diet and boosted its nutritional value. I hope you enjoy it too!

• 2 tbsp vegan butter/coconut oil
• 1 cup rolled oats*
• 1 cup puffed rice OR GF rice bubbles
• 2/3 cup plain flour (spelt or GF) OR almond meal
• 1/3 cup coconut sugar
• 1 cup toasted seeds**
• zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon/mixed spice
• 2 large tins sliced apples (or home made stewed ones if you are more organised!). Pear works well here too.
• 2 cups frozen blueberries or raspberries

*To make this a coeliac friendly, replace the oats with an extra cup of puffed rice plus 1/4 cup rolled quinoa

**I like the combination of 1/3 cup each of pumpkin, sunflower and hemp seeds – but use your favourites.

Start by mixing together the seeds and toasting them in a pan under your grill until they are golden brown – watch them carefully as they only take a few minutes. Toss them to make sure you get an even coverage.

Place apples and berries in a large greased baking dish.

Sprinkle fruit with the lemon juice, zest and the cinnamon. Then set aside.

Mix together all of the dry ingredients and then pour over the almost melted butter. Stir until well combined and evenly coated.

Evenly spread the crumble mix on top of the fruit mix and then place in to a preheated moderate oven for about 40 minutes, or until golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

Serve warm, on its own or with the custard or ice cream your diet allows.

This makes quite a large crumble … well, because everyone loves crumble and this often comes to family gatherings – there are a lot of us! If you don’t need quite so much, it’s easily halved. Or better still, just make this size, and gradually eat it for dessert for the next few days 😉 It lasts well in the fridge, but is better reheated in the oven than the microwave as it will keep the crumble topping more crunchy.

Enjoy 🙂