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A good fruit crumble is one of my favourite desserts. And while apple crumble is the true classic of this category, I like to mix things up and use all sorts of other seasonal fruits, especially juicy plums when they’re at their late summer best.
Today’s recipe is admittedly self-serving. I love leftover crumble for breakfast, but it feels a bit indulgent and sweet to start the day with on a regular basis, so I wanted to see if I could tweak it to be all wholegrain and less sweet without losing the joy of that classic crispy top and bubbling, slumpy* fruit underneath.
Depending on your own version of what constitutes a healthy breakfast, this crumble recipe is a great result, with far less added sugar and a combination of oats, wholegrain flour and nuts as a base. If not ‘healthy’, then definitely ‘healthier’. It’s still not an everyday breakfast but it’s more nutritious than a traditional crumble and it’s a great treat for when you’ve got lots of good seasonal fruit to use up.
*Is slumpy a word? It’s not in my dictionary, but it’s just so evocative of those soft, unpretty but deeply comforting kinds of foods like well-cooked fruit, or thick soupy stew, so I’m calling it anyway. I like it.
Crumble, crisp or cobbler – what’s the difference?
As best I can figure out, a crumble and a crisp are basically the same thing: baked fruit topped with a short, crumbly mixture of flour, oats, butter and sugar. Nuts are optional but appear in many recipes, including mine. Usually a crumble or crisp has the topping scattered so it’s entirely covering the fruit underneath, forming a crunchy cookie or streusel-like crust over the soft and juicy fruit.
A cobbler is a little different. Cobblers still have a fruit base, but with a thicker and wetter flour-based batter akin to a scone or biscuit dropped over the top with a spoon. The batter forms an incomplete covering with gaps for the fruit to bubble through as it cooks.
What fruit should you use in a crumble?
Today’s recipe is made with gorgeous yellow plums because they’re abundant here at the moment, but you can use lots of different seasonal fruits in a crumble, from apples, pears and rhubarb in winter to stone fruit or berries in summer. Basically, if you can stew or poach it, it’ll work in this dish.
Firmer winter fruits may need a little more cooking time to soften, while fresh summer berries will likely need less or they’ll turn into berry sauce underneath the topping.
Happy cooking, see you here again soon.
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Healthy Fruit Crumble
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb plums or other seasonal fruit such as pears, apples, peaches or berries, peeled if necessary and diced into approximately 2cm/¾ inch chunks (I used a dozen medium yellow-fleshed plums for the photographed dish)
- 2 tbs granulated sugar
- 4.5 oz unsalted butter cold is fine, cubed
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 1/4 cup brown sugar firmly packed
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 cup pecan nuts roughly chopped
- unsweetened Greek yoghurt optional, for serving
Instructions
Conventional Oven Method
- Preheat the oven to 190°C/350°F, fan forced/convection setting.
- Mix the fruit, sugar and two tablespoons of water together in a bowl, then put into a 1 litre/1 quart baking dish.
- Make the crumble. Cube the butter and put it into a bowl with the flour, oats, sugar, salt and spices. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles damp sand. Mix the nuts through, then pile the crumble over the fruit. Don’t press down, you want it to be quite loose.
- Bake crumble until the topping is golden and the fruit is collapsed and syrupy, about 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm with unsweetened Greek yoghurt.
Combi Steam Oven Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F, combination steam setting. If your oven has variable humidity, use medium/50% (if you can’t select steam levels, don’t worry! Just set the oven to combination or convection steam at the correct temperature, and it’ll sort out the humidity for you).
- Mix the fruit and sugar together in a bowl, then put into a 1 litre/1 quart baking dish.
- Make the crumble. Cube the butter and put it into a bowl with the flour, oats, sugar, salt and spices. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles damp sand. Mix the nuts through, then pile the crumble over the fruit. Don’t press down, you want it to be quite loose.
- Bake crumble until the topping is golden and the fruit is collapsed and syrupy, about 20 minutes. Serve hot or warm with unsweetened Greek yoghurt.
Notes
- Serves 4-6.
- Feel free to play with the quantities of sugar in this recipe. As it’s written, this will give you a crumble that’s barely sweet, especially if you use a tart fruit like I have. For a sweeter bake you’ll want to increase the sugar up to double the amount given.
- If you’d like to bake this in individual servings, divide the mixture between 4 to 6 ramekins, and take around 5 minutes off the cooking time.
- I like to serve this with a big spoonful of unsweetened Greek yoghurt, which adds a cool and creamy, but not too rich, element to offset the zingy, hot fruit and crispy topping.
Nutrition
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I’ve been eating much better since the covid lockdown – since I have time to figure out healthy alternatives. I make a cobbler – I use banana instead of butter, and dates instead of sugar, and usually emphasize berries since research has shown that berries are so good for us, while dairy is so bad for us. The calories are so low and the cobbler is so healthy that I don’t even consider it junk food – it is just something good for me to eat. Now I’m thinking about a steam oven (since steam seems to often prevent the destruction of so many disease preventing aspects of food.) I aspire to the diets advocated by Esselstyn and sites like nutritionfacts. Thanks for addressing the use of a steam oven (though, in this case, with the baking, there is no reason that I can see to use the steam at all.)
Great article 🙂