Apple and Blackberry Crumble with Homemade, vanilla custard

This is the ultimate comfort food dessert. It is so sweet and yummy and once you have made this home made custard and tasted it, you will find it very hard to eat custard from a packet ever again.

While most baking recipes need to be followed quite precisely to achieve the best results, this is one of those desserts that you can play around with slightly. Some people add lots of fruit and some people very little. Some like their crumble very sweet, some like it tart. Some people love a thick layer of crumble and some people only like a thin layer of crumble. I have only given you the recipe for my favourite way to eat it. Feel free to play about with these quantities a little to suit your own palate - except when you are making the custard. That recipe does need to be followed precisely.

Another thing that makes this dessert so good is that you can also make the crumble with gluten free flour and hey presto - another dessert that those who are coeliac or gluten intolerant can enjoy as well.

Let's start with the fruit crumble.

Ingredients

Fruit

3 large brambly, cooking apples (I could only find small ones so I used 5)

150g of black berries 

75g of caster sugar

10g of butter 

Crumble topping

60g of chilled butter cut into cubes

45g of ground almonds

90g of caster Sugar

120g of plain flour (or plain gluten free flour for a GF option)

Custard

100ml of double cream
350ml of whole, full fat milk

50g caster sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 and a half level tablespoons of cornflour
Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method

Fruit

1. When I shop for apples for my crumble, I normally buy the three largest that I can find but there was only a punnet of 6 in the shop and they were all quite small so I used 5. 

2. For me, there is nothing more unappetizing than eating my crumble and finding either a little piece of apple skin or a tiny part of the core inside. If you core your apples using an apple corer then I find that it always still leaves little pieces of the core in the apple which manage find their way inside the crumble. So, I peel and slice my apples very carefully so that nothing other than the fleshy part of the apple makes it inside my pie.

3. Now melt your 10g of butter into a pan  so that the butter coats the bottom of it. Add your sliced apples and your sugar and cook on a medium to low heat for 6 or 7 minutes stirring occasionally.

5. Remove from the heat just as the apples start to break down but are not too soft and stir in your blackberries.

6. Transfer the fruit to a 9 inch ovenproof dish

Crumble topping

1.Add all of your crumble topping ingredients into a bowl together and rub them together with your finger tips until they resemble breadcrumbs.

You can also put them together in a food blender and blitz them for a minute or two instead.

Now cover your fruit with your layer of crumble and pop it into a preheated oven at 190 degrees or 170 degress for a fan oven and leave for 25 minutes or until your top is golden brown.

Custard

1. Whisk together your egg yolks, vanilla extract, cornflour and sugar together until your mixture is thick, creamy and pale in colour.

2. Gently heat your milk and cream together in a saucepan until just simmering but not boiling.

3. Very slowly add your milk gradually into your whisked egg mixture as it continues to whisk. If you add this too quickly your eggs will start to cook and you will end up with scrambled eggs.

4. Wipe your saucepan and add your custard mixture back into it and start to heat it on a low heat stirring continuously until it thickens. It will be frothy and foamy at first. This is perfectly normal and the froth will vanish as you stir. Do not stop stirring for even  a second. All custard needs is a bit of time and patience.

5. Eventually your custard will be thick and coat the back of your spoon. It is ready. Remove it from the heat.

Finally, dish up a portion, smother it with custard and enjoy. It's the ultimate comfort food!