Winter crumble

Everyone loves a crumble, especially when the winter nights draw in and the temperature plummets. To celebrate a cold, crisp winter's day yesterday, I decided to make a good crumble. I'm a big fan of Nigel Slater, and his current TV programme, Dish of the Day. In one recipe, Slater used bananas in his crumble, which I found rather intriguing so decided to use bananas in one part of the crumble just in case they proved too sweet (they didn't, thankfully).

I have an old crumble recipe from a student cookbook I first started using nearly a decade ago, so used that for the crumble topping and adapted Nigel Slater's recipe using only 1 banana, two apples (Royal Gala, from Newark market) and some sultanas. 

The crumble topping needs:

• 200g plain flour
• 125g caster sugar
• 75g butter
• 75g rolled oats

Rub the butter into the flour using your fingers, then stir in the caster sugar and the rolled oats. Meanwhile, slice the apples (up to three) length-ways and stick them in a baking tray (around 30cm x 20cm x 10cm is ideal). Slice the banana into discs, then add around 50g of sultanas. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and 25g of caster sugar over the fruit. Then pour on the crumble topping, put in the oven for 25mins at 180 degrees centigrade and watch the topping become brown and crispy.

Some crumble-making photos:

You don't need to peel the apples, just core them and cut them into segments.

Stir in the sugar and rolled oats to the breadcrumb-like flour and butter mixture.

Cover the fruit in 25g of caster sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. I placed the bananas in one small part of the crumble--if you're not sure of the taste then I'd recommend this tactic.

Crumble mixture covers the fruit.

And the finished product!