A message vibrates my phone on the countertop. I ignore it as I peer into the oven, heat billowing out and clouding my glasses. I blink into the dark and hear the comforting sizzle of hot fruit, sniff in the rich smell of browning oats and melted butter. I shut the oven and open the work chat.
The winning crumble has arrived.
It’s from Michael, the owner of Jones of Brockley – where I also work, and the little shit is taunting me. I don’t think there’s a real sense of competition, not really, but my hackles raise just a little anyway. My crumble is almost ready for battle, I take it out of the oven and pat the top with my spoon to make sure it has fused together and it fills the kitchen with the smell of butter and sugar fusing together.
Michael and I have each made a different crumble with the same fruit: greengages and cherries. This is a nod to the winding down of the cherry season and the beginning of the plum parade.
Growing up I don’t think I was ever taught to make a crumble, largely because I cringed at the idea of cooked fruit. I remember my mum making one or two from the cooking apples that would otherwise litter the ground under my swing set with their sweet rot. Swinging to and fro over the decaying bodies was enough to put me off. Of course, I liked it when I finally tried it, but I have surely eaten under ten crumbles in my whole life.
From what I can tell Michael had a much more crumble infused childhood, growing up in what I imagine as an idyllic countryside setting in Devon(?) as opposed to my own upbringing in Leeds. I grew up in Yorkshire but never ate a rhubarb crumble til I was 28 and living in London, shocking. Michael would experience the seasonal gluts of varying fruits much more than I ever did, and crumbles were – as they traditionally often have been – a sweet and delicious way to use up said fruit. And so, Michael’s crumble recipe is steeped in said tradition, growing up with his mum’s delicious recipe, nostalgia is laced throughout his own dish, to the point that his ritual of crumble cooking often involves a phone call to his mum to double check the topping measurements.
My own approach to crumble, as is my approach to many things, is more… playful? A word which may or may not be a euphemism. I tend to use oats for my crumble topping, I rarely stew my fruit, and I suppose in many ways my crumble is reminiscent of some people’s breakfast. It’s simple and, I think, very tasty.
Michael and I decided to put these crumbles head to head, not because either of us are die hard enough about our own recipes or approaches to think they should trump the other, but more because we like cooking and we like eating, so why not?
I carry my hot dish in its dishcloth shroud down the street in the blazing sunshine, not exactly the best day for crumble I’ll admit. A joy of living right near my work is my option to go home and put things in the oven. I’d prepped my crumble the night before, leaving the fruit to soak in sugar, so that I could nip home on my lunch, assemble the little beast and cook it up so that we could have hot crumble for our lunch time treat. Michael cooked his in the morning and brought it in still hot in time for midday.
We dig in.
Michael’s is up first as it’s less oven fresh and so less like to leave blisters on the roof of our mouths, while mine is still bubbling just a little. The topping crumbles, as it rightly should and its shortbread richness next to the jaw clenching tartness of stewed fruit in Michael’s brings me back a little glimpse of my mum’s rarely tried crumble. It’s everything a good crumble should be, the sweet and sour balancing out in both the blend of cherries and honey ripe greengages, the contrast of topping and filling textures. A success!
Mine is up next. Michael starts to plate up for us all, including Olivia who’s also working but was not told about the crumble-off til this morning. A customer comes in. I go out front and do my actual job. I get anxious. Are they bitching about my crumble behind the partition that separates them from me? Is it terrible? Am I the world’s worst crumble maker???
The customer leaves and I rush into the back ready to catch them shit talking my food.
They haven’t tried it yet. I crash my spoon down to scoop up a hearty mix of oaty topping, a mingling of halved cherries and greengage. My crumble is very different, chunky big pieces of fruit, the greengages an astonishingly bright shade of green still, the buttery top holding together like a big old flapjack waiting to be smashed in by my invasive spoon. It’s good.
‘They’re incomparable really,’ says Michael, very diplomatic, ‘they’re just two very different things.’
So there’s no winner.
‘I think I could eat more of mine,’ I’m not trying to be competitive, I just find oats easier on my gut and less likely to give me heartburn.
‘I think I could eat more of mine.’ Michael counters.
Perhaps we are a little competitive still. I must admit though I did go overboard on sugaring my fruit so I can see why you wouldn’t want to eat a ton of it. I wonder if the reason the crumbles aren't really comparable is because mine is a bastard baby and not a true crumble at all. I don’t really care if it is, it’s still tasty.
We intended to eat the crumbles with crème fraîche or yoghurt but ended up ploughing through without either, although I will finish off my crumble with plain yoghurt over the next few days. There was no winner, and no loser, only full and happy bellies. I suppose we both made the crumble that best suited our needs, hence why we would both eat more of our own. Not sure I’d challenge Michael to a duel on traditional crumble though.
Here are both recipes. Mine can be gluten free with the right oats if that’s something your body wants and needs and both can be made vegan by substituting the butter for a vegan spread or coconut oil. Enjoy!
Michael’s Traditional Crumble
The filling
600g Greengages
100g sugar
2 tablespoons of water
15 cherries
The crumb
200g plain flour
100g cold grated butter
50g sugar
The method
Halve and de-stone your greengages, add sugar and 2 tablespoons of water and simmer for 15 mins or until the fruit is soft and a lot of the moisture has gone
Rub together the topping ingredients until you have a sandy breadcrumb like mixture
Halve and de-stone your cherries and plop them on top of your greengages
Sprinkle on your crumb top then pat it down so that it becomes quite dense, about an inch thick, so that the topping doesn’t disperse when you serve it
Cook in the oven at 200 celsius for about twenty mins.
Charlotte’s Low Maintenance Oat Crumble
The filling
600g greengages
200g cherries
150g sugar or to taste - this was quite sweet.
The crumb
150g sugar
150g chopped almonds
150g oats
150g butter
The method
De-stone and half the fruit, scatter the sugar all over. I left overnight but not entirely necessary, if you do though you can pour out the juice to keep and mix with your cream or yoghurt
Using your hands mix together the dry ingredients and butter til its all crumbly
Put it on top of your fruit and bake for 20 mins or until the top is golden and smells like a gorgeous flapjack and you can hear the sizzling song of the fruit, done!
Please feel free to share engross with your pals, cheers!