The perfect apple crumble

 As I have mentioned many MANY times before my husband has such a terrible sweet tooth, you name it, if it has sugar in he will eat it, he has even been known to dessert hunt in the early hours in the morning, rummaging in the fridge Nigella style! Thankfully for my husband he has a super speedy metabolism, and no matter how much cake and pudding he consumes he never gains an onze. My husbands favourite dessert is usually anything to do with apples, he is a total pomme junkie! When he wants me to make him a dessert he has a particular strategy, he mentions either his mothers or grandmothers desserts, this is so that subliminally it gets in my head, and being the super competitive person I am, I then make it my life's mission to test recipe after recipe until I come up with what I consider the holy grail classic!

 Now here is the science to this recipe, bake the crumble or crisp topping (depending on which part of the world you are from) separately, guaranteed crumble perfection, crisp crumble and soft fruit! You can adapt the fruit to your preference of course but I think half the quantity of tart cooking apples to half firm super sweet apples makes for the ultimate flavour and texture sensation.
 It is not very often my husband is silent, but there was no time for talking whilst he wolfed down this pudding!

For the filling:
250g of pink lady apples, peeled, cored and sliced
250g of Bramley apples, peeled, cored and sliced
100g caster sugar
100g brown sugar
1 tsp almond extract
The zest of an orange
The juice of half an orange
The juice of a lemon
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/4 tsp of  freshly grated nutmeg
50g butter

For the crumble:
75g rolled oats
250g of flour
150g of butter
75g caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Maldon salt

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c
Butter a 20cm by 15cm pie dish. (Zest the orange first as a juiced orange is impossible to zest. Peel, core and slice the apples place them in a bowl and toss them immediately in the citrus juices. Add all of the rest of filling ingredients apart from the butter and then toss well so the flavouring are well distributed. Place a sheet of grease proof, then tin foil over the baking dish and then bake the apples for 25-30 minutes until some of the apples are soft and some are broken down.
 Meanwhile to make the crumble: add the butter, flour and sugar into a bowl and rub the fat into the dry ingredients using your finger tips, this process should continue until it begins to resemble rough sand.

 Finally add the salt, cinnamon and oats, give the crumble a final toss, I like to pinch the dough to make larger chunks of crumble but the is purely preference. Decant the crumble into a lined baking sheet and then cook for 20 - 25 minutes at the same temperature as the filling, be aware that you must toss the crumble topping for even coloration. Once the crumble topping and fruit filling are ready, decant the crumble on top of the fruit, sprinkle a tablespoon of Demerara sugar onto the crumble top for added crunch! If cooking this from cooled I suggest it will need 20-25 minutes to heat through, but is you are cooking this immediately it will only take ten minutes! Serve with custard, it's the law!