Brown Butter Oat Apple Crumble

⏱ 65 min · Serves 6

Soft cinnamon-spiced apples under a deeply golden, nubbly oat topping made with brown butter for a toasty, almost toffee-like flavour. Best eaten hot with cold cream.

Per serving: 525 kcal · 6.5g protein · 70.0g carbs · 26.0g fat

Ingredients

• 150g unsalted butter
• 1kg Bramley or other cooking apples (about 4 large), peeled, cored and cut into 3cm chunks
• 2 eating apples (Braeburn or Gala), peeled, cored and sliced
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 150g plain flour
• 100g rolled oats
• 100g light brown soft sugar
• 50g chopped pecans or flaked almonds (optional)
• 1/4 tsp fine salt
• Cream, custard or vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.
2. Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat and keep cooking, swirling, for 3-5 minutes until it smells nutty and the milk solids turn golden brown. Pour into a bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.
3. Put all the apples in a large bowl with the caster sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice and cornflour. Toss well and tip into a 2-litre baking dish, levelling the top.
4. In another bowl, mix the flour, oats, brown sugar, nuts if using, and salt. Pour in the brown butter (scrape in the browned bits too) and stir with a fork until clumpy, then squeeze some handfuls together to make bigger nuggets.
5. Scatter the crumble over the apples in an even layer, leaving it craggy. Don't press it down.
6. Bake for 40-45 minutes until deep golden and the fruit juices bubble at the edges. If the top browns too fast, loosely cover with foil.
7. Rest for 10 minutes, then serve hot with cream, custard or ice cream.