Mini Strawberry & Apple Crumbles

I’ve gone a little crazy lately. See those adorable, colourful, almost too-cute-to-be-real dishes in my photos? Well I found them in a store for an amazing price & fell in love instantly. I bought four dishes that day, two of the blue & two of the purple, because there’s four in my family. Once back home it occurred to me that we practically always have someone else here for at least one meal a day, so a few days later I went back for two more in pink, the final colour. Only to get to the store & see that they now had green ones in stock. I tried to talk myself out of it, but the cute handles & matching colours left me powerless. What can I say? I’m weak.
With 8 adorable little dishes sitting around taunting me all week, I’d been dying to make some individually served desserts. & that’s how these Strawberry & Apple Crumbles came about. Well, that, & the fact that we’re big fans of crumble. But it was mainly an excuse to use the dishes. They just look so cute!



& the whole thing was just amazingly photogenic! The dishes being so adorable, the bubbly strawberry goodness bursting through the perfectly golden & crumbly topping, it’s like this was destined to be the first thing I made in the dishes. Needless to say, the crumble was delicious. But then again, when isn’t a crumble delicious?



It would have just been strawberry crumble, but there were two extra people coming for dessert, so I needed an extra ingredient to up the quantity, hence the apple. Strawberry & apple really are a match made in heaven, they go effortlessly together.



The crumbles were a big hit with family & friends alike, each cute little dish returned to the kitchen scraped completely clean. I served these with some homemade ice-cream plonked on top, exactly how I like my crumble. It was perfection. Recipe below!



Serves 6 (Adapted from Nigella)
Ingredients
- 25g of brown sugar
- 65g butter
- 65g flour
- 100g oats
- 2 apples, peeled & chopped into small chunks
- 2 tablespoons of water
- 250g of strawberries, chopped up into little chunks
- 50g caster sugar
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C.
- To make the crumble topping, combine the butter, flour & sugar in a bowl until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the oats & leave to the side.
- In a pan over a low heat, heat the apple in the water until it begins to soften, about 4 minutes.
- Add the strawberries & the sugar & cook for another 4 minutes, or until thickened slightly.
- Spoon the strawberry & apple mixture evenly into 6 individual dishes & top with the crumble topping.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown & deliciously crispy.
- Serve with a scoop of ice cream plonked on top.