Requires
  • 100 g + 1/2 tbsp plain flour
  • 85 g soft brown sugar
  • Approx 50 g butter or margarine, room temp
  • 225 g apples (after peeling, coring, cubing. see notes)
  • Optional small pinch of cinnamon
  • Small pinch of salt, esp if using unsalted butter
  • A block or roll of pre-made pastry
Instructions
  1. Mix the dry ingredients for the topping:



  2. Add butter to the flour mix. Rub in with fingers till fully combined but crumbly. Add more butter or flour as needed

  3. Grease a muffin tray. Roll out the pastry to about 2 mm thick and cut into circles to fit into the tray.
  4. Preheat oven 160 °C (fan).
  5. Peel, core, and cut apples. Ideally to cubes smaller than 1 cm.

  6. Mix sugar, flour, and cinnamon together then add to the apples.



  7. Put the apples in the pastry cases and cover with the crumble mix.
    Lightly pack most of the crumble down then top with a final loose layer, or gently drag a fork through the top layer zen-garden-style to make it *crumbly*.
  8. Bake till crumble is golden brown and apple syrup is bubbling.
Notes
  • 225 g is about 2 big apples or 2-3 small ones. Varies.
  • Any apples will work, but green cooking apples are better for keeping crisp texture and not being over-sweetened by the added sugar. Bramley apples have consistently been the best imo.
  • Can substitute some of the plain flour in the topping with rolled oats for texture.
  • If the butter is slightly colder than room temp, cut into cubes or slices.
  • Margarine does EXACTLY the same job as butter. Easier to combine and doesn't really affect taste. Crumble might be softer and you might need slightly less of it. Do what you want.
  • I don't know how long it takes but it's less than 20 min or so probably.
  • Consider briefly pre-baking the pastry in the muffin tray before adding the apple... you could line them with (plain) cupcake cases and use blind baking beans. I do not do this because i cannot be fucked with it
  • Check that the bottom of the pastry is not soggy before deciding if they're fully baked.
  • Should fit perfectly into standard cupcake cases. (wouldn't bake in them though)
  • Highly recommend custard or vanilla ice cream to go with. Better warm, but also not bad cold?