This is low-hanging fruit: an easy vegan conversion from a traditional British dessert. Use gluten-free oats in a scattered topping and flour not required. No need to miss out on sweetness now. Get ready to cruuummmbllle!
Coconut oil is lovely rubbed in with the oats and is especially good with apple when it is spiced up with cinnamon. With seeds and/or nuts and grains in the topping, and serving with a soya custard or yoghurt you get all the protein sources too!
You can use any stewed fruit and this one is with classic Bramleys, the most common UK cooking apple. An early ripener, August even, they tend to be available year-round as they store very well. A waxy coating naturally protects the fruit. Plums also taste great with cinnamon added. Depending on the season peaches or nectarines can be good if they are the ‘ripen in the bowl kind’ that never do, also mixed with local strawberries. Rhubarb. Oh yum.
oats are naturally gluten-free but usually processed where gluten containing grains are done, so cross contamination is possible. Buy oats labelled gluten-free if someone has an allergy.
Ingredients eight servings
for the apple filling
- 400g apples
- 6 tablespoons water
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 150g sugar or equivalent sweetener
for the crumble
- 250g gluten-free oats
- 100ml coconut oil even though it’s solid at room temp, gauge the amount from the size of the jar
- 100g soft brown sugar
- pinch of salt
- a further tsp of cinnamon and/or ground cardamom
- 75g walnuts chopped or nuts of your choice
- 75g pumpkins seeds or seeds of your choice
Method
- peel, core and slice the apples (also nice with skins left – more ‘peasanty’). Place in a pan with the water, sugar and cinnamon with the lid on and simmer for 20 minutes til soft but not a complete froth.
- put the oats in a bowl and put dabs of the coconut oil over it. Using your finger tips, rub it in.
- add the soft brown sugar, salt, seeds, nuts and sugars, stirring in
- put apple in an ovenproof dish, scatter the crumble mixture on top and cook in a preheated oven 180 degrees (160 fan), gas mark 5 for 30 minutes