Pudding Baking

Tom Kerridge’s Simple Fruit Crumble

This is probably the best and easiest fruit crumble ever: you’re just throwing a load of frozen fruit straight into a dish and topping it with apple chunks and an oaty crumble mix. Use any frozen fruit you like, except maybe banana!

15 minutes prep, 40 minutes cook

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1kg frozen fruit (I often use a Black Forest mix)

2 Granny Smiths (or other crisp, tart eating apples), peeled, cored and cut into 2cm chunks

4 tbsps caster sugar

1 tsp ground mixed spice

2 tsps vanilla bean paste

Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon

For the crumble topping:

150g cold butter, diced

150g caster sugar

150g plain flour

80g rolled oats

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6. Have ready a deep baking dish, about 27 × 23cm.

Tip the frozen fruit into the dish, add the apple chunks and spread out to cover the base. Sprinkle the sugar and spice evenly over the fruit. Dot the vanilla paste over the surface and sprinkle with the lemon zest.

To make the crumble topping, put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until the mixtures resembles crumbs. (Alternatively, put the butter, sugar and flour into a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until the mix resembles crumbs and then stir in the oats.)

Grab handfuls of the crumble mixture, squeeze together and then crumble the mix over the fruit in the dish – make sure the crumble covers the fruit completely. Bake on a high shelf in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the crumble topping is crunchy and golden and the fruit underneath is softened and saucy.

Remove from the oven and leave the crumble to cool slightly before serving. I like mine with lots of cold custard, but you can serve it with hot custard if you like, or vanilla ice cream or cream.