Anne Morgan Delia Smith’s crumble recipes all use the same basic topping, a 6:4:3 ratio of flour, butter, and demerara sugar, but the fruit underneath changes with the seasons. From Bramley apples in autumn to forced rhubarb in spring, every version bakes at 200°C (400°F) for 35 to 40 minutes and serves 6.
I have made all five of these Delia Smith crumble recipes and the technique is identical every time: rub the topping by hand, scatter it loosely over the fruit, and do not press it down. Delia also mentions gooseberry crumble and raspberry crumble in her books, both using the same method, so once you have the topping down you can put it on whatever fruit you have in the house.
1. Apple Crumble
The one everyone starts with, and the one I still make most: Bramley cooking apples tossed with sugar and ground cloves, which is the detail most other recipes skip. The cloves do not make it taste spicy, they make the apples taste more intensely of apple, and the Bramleys collapse into a sharp, fluffy snow under the golden crust.
Serves 6, prep 15 minutes, cook 40 minutes, 380 kcal per serving. My family requests this every Sunday from September through March, and I now make the topping in double batches so there is always some in the freezer ready to go.
2. Rhubarb Crumble
Where the apple crumble is an autumn and winter recipe, the rhubarb version belongs to spring. Delia pairs the sharp rhubarb with ground ginger instead of cloves, and the pink forced rhubarb from January to March gives you the sweetest filling and the brightest colour after baking.
Serves 6, prep 10 minutes, cook 40 minutes, 350 kcal per serving. I skipped the ginger the first time I made this and the rhubarb tasted flat without it, so now I add a full teaspoon every time, exactly as Delia suggests.
3. Blackberry and Apple Crumble
Delia’s favourite autumn variation, and the one that costs nothing if you have a hedgerow nearby. Half Bramley apples and half wild blackberries go under the same crumble topping, and the berries burst into dark purple pockets that run through the soft apple filling. It looks like you spent hours on it when the only extra work was picking the blackberries.
Serves 6, prep 15 minutes, cook 40 minutes, 340 kcal per serving. I scatter the blackberries over the top of the apple slices rather than stirring them through, which keeps them whole and stops the base from getting too wet.
4. Plum Crumble
The late summer crumble, best made in August when Victoria plums are cheap and everywhere. Delia uses cinnamon with plums rather than cloves or ginger, which rounds out the tartness instead of sharpening it. The plums hold their shape as distinct halves sitting in a pool of dark, syrupy juice, so the texture is completely different from the apple version.
Serves 6, prep 10 minutes, cook 35 minutes, 360 kcal per serving. Stoning the plums takes less time than peeling apples, and the crumble bakes five minutes faster too, which makes this the quickest full crumble on the list.
5. Crumble Topping
Not a full crumble recipe but the building block behind all of them: Delia’s basic crumble topping is 175g flour, 110g butter, and 75g demerara sugar rubbed together in five minutes. Learn this ratio and you can put crumble on any fruit without looking up a recipe. It keeps in the fridge for a month and freezes for three, so you can make it ahead and grab a handful whenever you need it.
Prep 5 minutes, 280 kcal per serving for the topping alone. The article covers the oats variation, the almond variation, and which fruits work best underneath, so it is the place to start if you want to experiment beyond the recipes above.
