It's cold, dark, cloudy and wet in Melbourne and as far as I am concerned that can only mean one thing - 'crumble season' is now well and truly upon us. As I sit here and write I can hear  hail bouncing off our tin roof and the weather bureau has gone as far as to suggest that 'snow is developing about the nearby hills' tonight.


The kids think it's hysterical and all they want to do is go run outside and collect ice so they can make granita (I know they are peculiar little things)! I have just tried explaining to them that despite it being a snug 22.C inside it really is only 7.5C outside and it's only going to get colder as the night progresses. So I asked Hoover and Fussy to shelve the granita idea until next summer and to go fetch mama a whole lot of green apples from the fruit bowl so we could make some crumble.

I generally like to add something to the apples as they tend to be a little boring on their own. All I had in the pantry was a jar of dried cranberries so I soaked them in a little Marsala before adding them to the apple mixture. As per usual Hoover loved the added feature, whilst Fussy left a pile of cranberries to the side of his bowl.


Cranberry & Apple Crumble

Ingredients

For the filling

170g dried cranberries, soaked in a cup of Marsala or orange juice
8 green apples, peeled and diced
3 tbsp raw caster sugar
10 strokes freshly grated nutmeg

For the crumble

250g organic rolled oats
200g unsalted butter, chopped
100g almond meal
100g brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4

2. Place the diced apples, cranberries, Marsala, sugar and nutmeg in a bowl and gently stir until well combined. Grease and sugar dust a baking dish and place the apple mixture in the base of the dish.

3. Place rolled oats, brown sugar, almond meal and chopped butter in the Magi mix or food processor and pulse to form coarse crumbs. Cover the apple mixture with the crumble and bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Serve with vanilla ice-cream or cream - or both.