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My Secret
Apple Crumble
Are you in search of a mouth-watering apple crumble recipe that includes a secret ingredient? Your search ends here! Our recipe is guaranteed to amaze you with its innovative take on a traditional dessert. Give it a try and share your feedback with us!
Indulge in the sweet and caramel-like flavor of our apples, perfectly complemented by a tender and juicy texture. And to top off, enjoy the delightful crunch of our delicious crumble. It's a treat for your taste buds that you won't want to miss!
This super special recipe holds a dear place to me. It's actually a recipe I use in my cottage food home bakery, and with its special, secret ingredient that I'll be sharing with you soon, you will surely place this as a staple on your table, whether it's for holidays or just any occasion.
So, let's go ahead and talk about this "secret" ingredient I use when making this mouthwatering dessert.
Typically, when making a crumble, there is a cold fat that is incorporated that gives it that flaky crumble-like texture. In my recipe I will be using butter as my form of fat, however it will not be cold initially.
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We will first brown our butter on the stove-top before adding it to our dry ingredients. The browning of the butter will immensely enhance the richness of flavor in the crumble topping, which makes this so glorious.
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Another important step for me when making my apple crumble is to lightly cook my apples before baking them. This ensures a beautifully cooked apple, perfectly tender with a slight bite of the apple.
FATS or SKINNYS
No matter how you feel about the fats, they are needed in this recipe! Without it, well, it will fall flat. Fats are needed in many recipes, and when making things like pastry dough, pie crusts or even crumbles we need our fat element to be combined into the flour. Cutting or pressing our butter into the flour will help create a crumbly, flaky texture which is needed in these types of doughs or recipes.
Fat, which is our butter in this case, swoops in like a superhero, coating flour particles and blocking moisture from turning them into a sticky gluten fest (we want flaky and crunchy not chewy!) Gluten, the stretchy culprit behind chewy bread, is the last thing you want in a crumble topping. With a clever "shortening" move, the fat karate-chops those gluten strands, leaving you with a delightful, tender crumble instead of a chewy disaster.
My SECRET Step!
As mentioned above, we need "fat", or our butter to form our crumble. In every single crumble recipe I have ever seen, cold butter is pulsed or cut into the flour. However, in our recipe we have a very special and secret step to making the most amazing tasting crumble for our apples. We will be browning our butter! Browning the butter elevates the flavor to the highest level with a natural nutty, caramelized like flavor to our crumble. When that flavor is added in with the cinnamon and vanilla, the aroma - that aroma can be bottled up into a candle for the holiday season! It is one the best scents in the kitchen once these ingredients have been put together. I always say, at this step, you MUST stop and smell the crumble. You MUST! Do yourself a favor and make this for your holiday table! It is so easy to throw together since there is no pie crust needed, and it is sure to please everyone! Serve warm on its own or warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream and even some caramel sauce for extra added goodness!
We will start off by making our crumble topping. Mainly because we want this to chill in the fridge and firm up nicely before placing it on top of our apple filling.
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1. In a small saucepan, add your stick of butter. A stick of butter is a half-cup of butter, or eight tablespoons. You can use either unsalted or salted butter throughout this entire recipe.
On medium, to medium low heat we are going to melt our butter and stir it every so often, or you can gently swirl it, to start the browning process. This will take about 5 minutes; you want to keep an eye on it.
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The butter will start going through different stages until it reaches that color and flavor we are looking for.
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When it starts to smell like caramel and have a lightly golden-brown color remove it from the heat, but leave it in the saucepan to continue browning in the pan.
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2. In a small bowl, mix together your flour, ground cinnamon and brown sugar until well combined.
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3. When the browned butter has cooled slightly, add it to your flour, sugar and ground cinnamon.
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4. Add in a nice splash of vanilla, about one tablespoon. Honestly, vanilla is one thing I measure with my heart.
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5. Using a heat proof spatula, start incorporating all of the ingredients until it comes together.
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6. Don't skip this step. It's very important.
Take a good smell of that mixture. Aaahh, the sweet smell of caramel toffee goodness.
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7. Wait until mixture has cooled a little more, so you can handle it, and start using your hands to squeeze the mixture together and breaking it up into different sizes for the crumble. Continue this process until you have a nice variation of sizes for your crumble.​
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8. Cover and place in the refrigerator to chill and firm up.
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While our crumble is chilling, let us work on our apples.
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Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
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9. Peel and slice your applies into little chunks about 1-to-2-inch slices or chunks.
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10. Place applies in a saucepan, on medium heat add in your sugar, vanilla, lemon juice a,d ground cinnamon.
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10. Mix all your ingredients together and cover let the apples cook for about 3-4 minutes.
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11. Add in your flour and mix around. Cook flour for about a minute and until sauce thickens.
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12.Place apples in a baking dish and remove the crumble from the refrigerator. Using a fork can help you break apart the crumble if it has gotten too hard.
13. Layer your crumble on top of the apples.
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14. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
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Serve warm and enjoy!
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