It’s December!
That means it’s Christmas season, and for most of us, that also means celebrating friendships and kinships over food. I don’t know how to make fancy dishes like roasted turkey, honey-baked hams or Christmas logcakes, but I do know a really simple and healthy ( at least this version is) dessert to share, especially if you need to whip up something “Christmasy” in a short amount of time, either for potluck or for a meal at home to usher in the festive mood.
This dessert only has 4 tablespoons of raw sugar (yes I promise I’m not lying!) and is a great way to make use of fruits in the fridge if you simply have too many of them sitting around, which was happened to us in our case! With a bag of red apples from almost a week ago, some painfully sour green ones which were painful to eat on their own, and plums which didn’t have a long lifespan, I decided to whip up an Apple & Plum Cinammon Crumble for the Hungry Husband.
Food for Love:
The Filling:
– Apples (red ones, green ones, yellow ones-they’re all perfect. And you’ll be surprised at how wonderfully sour green apples turn out when caramelized). I used 5 apples altogether.
– Any other fruits you have (I used a lemon, 4 tiny plums and some dried apricots and blueberries. If you have pears, peaches and cranberries, I’m sure they’d work lovely too!)
– Cinammon
– Nutmeg , Ginger powder, Vanilla (These aren’t absolutely necessary and aren’t typically found in other apple crumble recipes, but I think the extra spices give the dessert a good kick, while the vanilla adds a lovely aroma to balance out all the flavours.)
– Raw sugar
The Crumbly Crumble
– Plain flour
– Muesli (Courtesy of Cliff’s mum, mailed to us from Canada. Again, this isn’t entirely necessary but beautiful if you do have some. Granola works perfectly as well.)
– Butter
As you can see, all the ingredients can be found in any plain ol’ kitchen!
The Act:
- Summon all the amazing colours in your fridge!
2. Chop and dice them.
Some people have a knack for coring and slicing their apples with mechanical precision. But I’m a new wife so I simply chose to dice them because it’s easier that way and I love eating apple cores, heh!
If you’re slow in cutting them, soak them in some water so they brown less quickly.
3. In a non-stick pan, caramelize 2 tablespoons of raw or brown sugar over low heat.
If you have a sweet tooth, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail against your primitive instincts to add more sugar like all the other tonnes of recipes you’ll find out there which promise you the most delectable, diabetes-inducing apple delight.
At the end of the day, what I want for Cliff and my family is a dessert that’s naturally flavourful and something they can enjoy with a bit of ice-cream instead of everything screaming SUGAR.
Squeeze in some slices of lemon, your dried chopped apricots, blueberries, prunes or raisins.
4. Now let all the flavours simmer in your saucepan over low heat.
Add in your cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder (I can imagine freshly grated ginger would be lovely as well).
5. While this is happening, don’t laze around!
Yes, it’s time to make the crumbly crust!
But before that, preheat your oven at this time to 160-180 degrees Celsius.
With a cup of flour in a mixing bowl, a third of a stick of butter, and another two tablespoons of raw sugar, use your hands to knead in the butter into the flour. Oops, did I forget to say you’d need to be a little more hands-on for this? Heh, I hope you didn’t just get a French manicure!
The trick about this which I completely missed is that unlike other recipes, your butter has got to be cold.
Mine wasn’t- I very intelligently took it out pre-emptively to warm to room temperature and so suffered the consequence of having a less crumbly texture.
But, as all desperate and new cooks do, we think of ways to salvage situations.
I revived the crumble by adding Cliff’s Mum’s amazing Canadian muesli which contains pumpkin seeds, oats, raisins and wheatgerm, adding a beautful texture back to the crumble.
Healthiest thing in the world, really. Yup, it didn’t have added sugar either.
6. By this time, your apple and fruit mixture should be nicely softened and cooked.
Your kitchen will smell simple AMAZING at this point and you’d wish all your soaps, shampoos and body lotion smelled like that. Pour it into a baking dish.
7. Line the top with your Crumbly crumble mix!
(Don’t worry, yours will turn out better than mine, heh!)
And toss it into the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until you are intoxicated in the Christmasy cinnamon fragrance emanating from your humble oven to fill your entire house.
8. If you’ve used fruits like plums, you’ll see your apple crumble drenched in a beautiful crimson sauce.
9. With all the natural sugars from the apples, plums, dried apricots and blueberries, this dessert is delightfully sweet on its own.
But what’s a warm Christmas Crumble without some cold ice-cream to go with it right?
So go ahead, serve your Apple & Plum Christmas Crumble in a deep dish with some Vanilla ice-cream
& have it guiltlessly!
10. I wanted to give Cliff a treat so I got vanilla ice-cream with nougat bits in them,
and I couldn’t help but drizzle the top with the caramelized fruit juice bursting out from the bottom of the Crumble.
Enjoy this Crumbly Christmasy dessert!
