Apple Crumble Recipe with Oats (Vegan) (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to crunchy crumble? ›

However, we also love adding porridge oats for extra chewiness, as in these recipes for very-berry oat crumble and American-style apple crisp. Chopped and toasted nuts such as pecans, almonds or hazelnuts also make a lovely addition to a traditional crumble, for taste as well as an extra-crunchy texture.

The Vegan Crumble Topping

A 50/50 blend of regular and oat flour/almond flour also works. Vegan butter: It's best to use dairy-free unsalted butter, though lightly salted works too. Something like Miyoko's or Earth Balance would work great. Melted coconut oil should also work, but it won't taste as rich and buttery.

The main reason your crumble topping isn't crunchy is probably because you haven't used Demerara sugar. Although, it could also be that you've got your topping ingredient quantities wrong: either too much or not enough flour and butter alongside the sugar.

Apple crumble recipe topping is typically made of butter, sugar and flour which gets topped on the cooked fruit filling. To add an extra element of texture and flavour, oats, coconut, nuts and cinnamon can be added to the crumble mix.

A well-made crumb should be firm yet tender, and chewy, with big chunks—like granola. The best way to achieve this is to use cold cubed butter. Using room-temperature or melted butter will cause the topping to spread out and flatten when it bakes, rather than standing pert and perky.

Like an apple crisp, an apple crumble is a baked fruit dessert with a layer of topping. But unlike the crisp, the crumble topping rarely includes oats or nuts. Instead, a crumble's topping is more like streusel, made with flour, sugar and butter.

Most vegans consider sugar a generally acceptable food, but strict vegans abstain from refined cane sugars that are likely to have been processed with animal products. They can, however, consume vegan-friendly raw cane sugar, certified-organic cane sugar, and sugar made exclusively from beets.

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.

If you use more butter than the recipe calls for, the crumb topping will be melted and greasy. If you don't use enough butter it will be dry and floury.

Then, make sure to bake the crumble long enough so that the fruit filling comes to a profuse simmer at the edges of the pan. This shows that the cornstarch has been activated enough to thicken the juices, turning them supple and silky.

Why put baking powder in crumble topping? ›

A crisp contains oats in the topping, while a crumble does not. Baking powder can also be added to a crumble topping (like it is here) to ensure it's extra light and tender.

Cooking notes

I use eating rather than cooking apples for this recipe as they are sweeter and do not need cooking before they are put in the crumble.

So what's a crumble vs. a crisp? A crumble is just a crisp without oats in the streusel. It may feature nuts, but the streusel topping is usually a simple combination of butter, flour, and sugar that is more clumpy than that of a crisp.

The best source of protein, carbs, and lipids is apple crumble. Additionally, this dessert is a great option for weight management because it has a low caloric content. Due to the inclusion of apples, this dessert also contains healthy fats, a good amount of water, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

Making Crumble Topping

First, adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the flour mixture makes the crumble topping more tender.

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.