Incredible but true...I can't make apple crumble. Please help rehabilitate this MN'er

[worriermum]

I thought apple crumble was the easiest thing in the book...right? Well mine was flat, tart (as in sour, not as in a pleasing contrast of tastes) with a crust that was simulatenously glue-like and dusty. Mortifying, especially as DP insisted on being polite.."erm no, I quite like it...". Please tell me it was a shite recipe (off the net) rather than a shite baker. No, I know the truth... I'm off to fall on my wooden spoon.

I find that adding an egg to the crumble bit improves it immensely. If I just make normal topping it seems to be floury and oily. The egg makes it all crunchy and biscuity.

delias recipe is scrummy (I don't add the almonds!) but it's done with demorara sugar so more crunchy.

try this
butter
oats
wholemeal flour (not a huge lot, should be more oats)
unrefined sugar
pine nuts
linseeds, sesame seeds, whatever

you get a sort of flapjacky crumble
you need to add some sugar to the apples if you've used bramley

Okay thanks, those are all good tips and I have printed out the Delia recipe. It seems I underestimated what it takes for a good crumble.

I cook my apples beforehand in a little butter, then at the end add some caster sugar and cinnamon, when its soft its ready to go into the crumble dish. for my topping I use plain flower, oft brown sugar and butter, you can pile the topping on as it will collapse a little when cooking in the oven. I bake for about 45 min at 180 degrees. Keep your eye on it from about 30 mins as you can switch the oven off when it starts to bubble around the edges, leave it in though until you want to eat it.

When strawberries come in season chuck some in - I find apples a bit tart on their own. The other thing you can try is a little bit of very finely chopped mango.

Yum to the mangoes and strawberries. Space puppy, how much flour and sugar? I ask because I used those ingredients AND I piled it on and I got this gluey but dry mush

I wondered about a twist to apple crumble the other day, I was making biscuits and they were all crumbly before I pulled the mixture together, I wondered about putting this mixture ontop instead of standard crumble..

6 oz flour/ 4 oz butter (flora/margarine)/ 4 oz sugar - demerara good. Some cinnamon goes well with apples. Use baking apples, no need to cook in advance if pushed for time, these must be sweetened. A couple of cloves and a little butter in the apple will improve the flavour.
Don't pack the mixture down - just spread it gently.

Make rhubarb crumble instead, no need to pre cook the rhubarb, just stick it in a dish with a smidgen of white wine and a little sugar.

A bulk standard crumble (1/2 fat (unsalted butter) to flour + sugar (same weight as the butter) can be just as nice as poncier alternatives. The trick is to make sure your fat is rubbed in to the flour properly, it should resemble breadcrumbs.

Hi sorry for the delay in responding:
for an oval dish of 29cm x 20cm I use:

300g flour (pinch of salt)
175g soft brown sugar
200g butter (I use mine at room temp. rather than trying to work in cold butter.)

I half this recipe for a smaller oval dish of 25cm x 16cm.

Hope it works for you.

I always replace half the quantity of flour for ground almonds. I sometimes add 1/4 (thats a quarter not 1 - 4!!) teaspoon of all spice or cinnamon to the crumble mix. Always always add cinnamon to the apple mixture.
My DH reckons my crumble is the bestest ever (he chose to tell me this in front of MIL who has been doing baking for years. She looked a bit put out. Even more so when FIL enthusiastically agreed ) It would be funny if she was a cliched MIL who I didn't like, but she's lovely and I was really upset!

Best crumble I ever ate was cooked in my own kitchen - by wendywebers teenage son!