Low Sugar & Low Fat Apple Crumble

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Apple crumble is one of the most delicious, comforting desserts there is – perfect in winter and perfect in summer with a scoop of ice cream.

The sweetness of the apples works brilliantly with the sweet yet savoury flavour of the crumble topping, and the crispiness of the topping works brilliantly with the softness of the filling. It’s the perfect pud – but how do you make it low fat and sugar free so you can still have it on your Lose Baby Weight healthy eating plan?

Apples are naturally fairly sweet – so make sure you pick a normal apple variety rather than a cooking apple variety, as cooking apples are quite sour and they do need sugar to make them sweet. Using a normal apple means that you could get away with adding no sweetener of any kind to the crumble – and the ground almonds in the topping help to sweeten things up whilst also adding crunch. Here’s how to make a low fat, sugar free apple crumble.

Ingredients

• 4 large apples
• Juice and zest of ½ a large unwaxed lemon
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

Optional: 2 tsp. natural sweetener such as honey, agave nectar or stevia

• 100g rolled porridge oats
• 50g ground almonds
• 2 tsp. flour
• 50g low fat butter

Optional: 3 tsp. natural sweetener such as honey, agave nectar or stevia

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease an oven dish.
2. Wash the apples and peel. Remove the core using an apple corer, or chop into quarters and remove the core carefully using your knife. Chop the apples into small slices.
3. Combine the apples, lemon juice and zest, 2 tsp. cinnamon and if desired, the sweetener. Spread into the bottom of the oven dish.
4. In a blender, place the porridge oats, almonds, flour, butter and if desired, the sweetener. Pulse until blended – the mixture should resemble coarse breadcrumbs. If you don’t have a blender, place the oats, almonds and flour into a bowl. Rub the butter and sweetener into the mixture. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the apples.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until the top of the crumble is golden brown. Leave to cool for around 10 minutes before serving so that you don’t burn yourself on the hot fruit.

Variations:

Some people like to stew their apples before using in a crumble – this recipe will give you apples that are still firm, but if you prefer them softer, you might want to cook them down before putting them into the crumble. Simple place them into a saucepan, along with the cinnamon and a few tbsp. of water. Cook down gently for 20 minutes or so or until the apples are soft – you won’t need to mash them too much as they should soften on their own.

You could also omit the cinnamon and use a different spice, or you could add raisins or another dried fruit to the apple filling. For a lower fat and calorie content, omit the almonds and use more rolled oats or flour. This will make the crumble less sweet, which means you should probably add a sweetener.

Serve With:

You can serve this crumble with anything – low fat Greek yoghurt, low fat ice cream, low fat custard – or you can serve it just as it is.

Recipe serves 4. Calories per serving: 294. Fat per serving: 5.8g.