Recipe | Apple & Cinnamon Crumble (Gluten Free)
Apple crumble is probably one of the first things I learned to bake with my mum. It is so easy to make & it always, always hits the spot. The delicious apple & cinnamon aroma coming from this crumble bubbling up in the oven brings back so many childhood memories. It is typically British, comforting & warming on a cold winter evening. I like to eat mine with a big scoop of crème fraiche or plain yoghurt & a drizzle of honey.
I am still going strong on cutting wheat out of my diet, so I have been on a gluten/wheat free quest to replace some of my favourite desserts. I found this little treasure in one of my favourite cookbooks : Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl, which I read like a novel, it is full of anecdotes about her childhood, career, lifestyle & of course plenty of delicious recipes.
I adapted the recipe slightly as hers was a blackberry & apple crumble (unfortunately, no blackberries in sight at this time of the year so I made it a little more festive by adding a ton of cinnamon & all spice, which by the way is the secret to a delicious smelling kitchen)
In her recipe she uses spelt flour, but because I wanted mine to be gluten free I replaced it by one half of rice flour & another half of buckwheat flour. So far buckwheat flour has been a wonderful replacement to many wheat recipes (yesterday we made a GF version of Lizzie's cookies so I updated the recipe a little...)
I've discovered today that buckwheat (which believe it or not has NOTHING to do with wheat) is proved to lower high blood pressure, and help people with diabetes as it lowers blood sugars - read more about its wonderful health benefits over here. This basically means YOU CAN EAT MORE CRUMBLE - seconds all around...
Ingredients
- 60g of buckwheat flour (1/2 cup)
- 60g of rice flour (1/2 cup)
- 50g of porridge oats
- 100g of softened butter (+ 2 tbsp of melted butter for the fruits)
- 50g of soft brown sugar (or normal brown sugar)
- 2 tbsps of honey
- 225g of cored & chopped apples
- 1 tsp of powdered cinnamon
- 1 tsp of All Spice
Notes
>> Preheat your oven at 180 degrees C (with fan)
>> Mix the rice & buckwheat flour, oats, sugar, half of your spices (half a tsp of each) & softened butter with your fingers in a mixing bowl (or if you're feeling lazy chuck it all in the blender) - you want it to be crumbly (duh - lack of a better word I guess)
>> Place your chopped apples in a pie dish, pour over the melted butter, sprinkle the rest of your spices & drizzle your honey. Mix a little.
>> Cover the apples with your crumble mix & bake in the oven for half an hour (or until it's a rich golden brown colour & you can see the apples bubbling up underneath)
>> Serve warm with a scoop of crème fraiche or plain greek yoghurt (& a drizzle of honey if you're feeling fancy)
*Recipe adapted from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by Sophie Dahl.
**If you need it to be completely GF make sure the flours and oats are GF certified - on the other side if you don't care about being gluten free, & you don't have rice & buckwheat flour in your kitchen, you can replace the two by 120g of plain wheat flour.
**This crumble works perfectly with all sorts of fruits.. You can substitute the apples by rhubarb, raspberries, black cherries, plums, apricots or blueberries (or a mix of two or more of these..!)
