Toffee, Apple & Almond Crumble

There's not much I can say to this crumble, other than YUM. 

This was possibly the best crumble I've ever tasted. Ever. Okay, I know I say that every time I make a crumble but this was truly delicious. A big bowl of oozy gooey toffee apple goodness.

The original recipe was a Rachel Allen recipe, from her Favourite Food At Home book - a book I have had languishing on my shelves for a few years but have never actually cooked from. I had to adapt the recipe slightly because never mind bread and fish, Rachel Allen seems to want to feed the 5,000 with fruit crumble. Yes, her original recipe is to serve 12. TWELVE. Okay I like crumble and this is a great one but even so. 

So yes, I halved the recipe to make a much more respectable 6-serving size dessert, although as per usual I made a little extra crumble topping but did find that the all-important crumble:fruit ratio was near perfect. I also jumbled up her method a bit as I found it easier to do things in a different order to the one she'd specified!

Make extra of the toffee sauce, it's delicious and keeps for a good while in the fridge. 

Toffee, Apple & Almond Crumble

Ingredients

For the crumble:

175g self raising flour

zest 1 lemon

85g butter, cubed

85g light brown sugar
50g ground almonds

handful of flaked almonds

For the toffee sauce:

125g golden syrup

125g light brown sugar

50g butter

100ml single cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the fruit filling:

6 Eating Apples, cored, peeled, quartered and cut into 2cm/¾in chunks

25g Butter

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4.

Start by making the crumble topping. Place the flour and lemon zest into a mixing bowl and rub in the butter to make coarse crumbs. Stir in the sugar, ground and flaked almonds and place in the fridge until ready to use.

Next make the toffee sauce. Pop all the ingredients for the toffee sauce into a saucepan. Bring to the boil over a medium heat and cook for three minutes, stirring until you have a smooth sauce. Put to one side.

For the fruit filling, melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the chopped apple pieces. Toss in the butter over the heat, for a few minutes until the apples start to soften. Add 125ml of the toffee sauce and simmer for a couple more minutes until the apples are just about cooked.

To assemble, pour the chopped apples into an ovenproof fish and cover with the crumble mixture. 

Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes, or until the crumble is golden and the lovely toffee sauce is bubbling up at the edges.

Serve with the remaining toffee sauce (warmed up!) and ice-cream, custard or cream.

This was truly delicious. I had it with custard one night and double cream the next. I think I liked it best with the cream as the toffee sauce went really well.  It was a big hit in our house!