Rhubarb Apple Crumble Recipe (With Video)

Hey guys, this is Heather from healthyveganrecipes.net. Today, I have a special treat. Well, a special recipe and special treat for me and Phil. I might share some of them, if he’s lucky. So, what I’m doing today is a rhubarb apple crumble because there is a lady down the street, who has a wonderful garden and her rhubarb patch has just exploded, because we’ve been getting so much rain lately.

I think, it’s pretty large to begin with, but anyway, it went out of control and she told me I could go by and pick how much rhubarb I wanted. So, I did, and I got a bunch of it here now. I am going to combine it with some apples, and make a very simple and healthy rhubarb apple crumble. If you want to skip ahead to the recipe, I will post it over at healthyveganrecipes.net.

For those of you who have only seen rhubarb in a pie, this is what it looks like when you pick it. It’s a stem of a plant, it’s a little bit red, and sometimes it has green as well, and there’s a huge leaf on the end — massive. All you’re going to see if you saw the plant is its huge leaves, and its stem has a red color.

Now, the leaf is actually poisonous if you eat it, but you have to eat a lot before it can kill you. But, basically it’s toxic. So, you always need to cut the leaf off. Phil actually cut them off and he didn’t want to use it in the compost pile because he is using the compost for a veggie garden.

I’m not sure exactly if that will cause problems later, but Phil is the garden expert so... You can check out his site at smilinggardener.com if you’re interested in that kind of stuff. For me, all I’m interested in is the stem.

So, what I’m going to do is to chop all these stems up, just say half-inch-long pieces. I almost have the pot full of rhubarb, which is pretty insane. If you do not have access to some pick-your-own rhubarb like I do, you probably won’t have this much at once to make this much rhubarb apple crumble.

So, I’m going to put some water at the bottom of the pot, and I’m also going to add some apples. I’m using granny smith because I really like them, but granny smith apples are a little bit tart, and rhubarb is also a little bit tart. So, if you want to make things sweeter, you can use a sweeter apple, but I like things tart and I like rhubarb and granny smith apples, so that’s what I’m using.

I’m going to chop things up, about the same size as the chunks of rhubarb. Alright, so I’ve got my apples in there as well, and the pot is filled almost to its brim now, and I’m thrilled. It makes me really happy; I’m not going to lie. I also have some water in the bottom, basically enough, just to keep it from burning, which will get started boiling. So, I’m going to put this on the stove with a cover.

So, I got that pot on the stove and I’m going to bring it to a boil, and then turn it down to simmer because I don’t want the fruits to burn. The volume will shrink down at that point, and I am going to stir in my seasoning at least. I hope its going to shrink down a little bit, otherwise I might transfer it to a bowl to get my seasonings in.

Anyway, the reason I’m doing this on the stove because it gives me more control over cooking the fruit. I don’t know if any of you noticed that when you make a crumble, you’ll usually start it with a whole ton of fruit and then you get it in the oven, where all is going to shrink down and you’re left with only a small portion.

If you cooked it first, you’re going to pack the fruit in there — and I like a big rhubarb apple crumble, so that’s what I’ll do because it also takes less time. It’s more time sitting in the kitchen because you are going to cook that, and then put it in a pan in the oven, but overall, but its quicker to boil it first and put it in the oven.

If you do want to do it all in one step, what you need to do is to take your fruit, put it in a baking dish, and then get a little bit of water in there because you still want the fruit to boil and steam down a little bit, rather than just baking it because it will just dry out. And then, you’ll need to mix all the stuff in — which I am going to show you after, put the crumble on top and put in the oven.

The other reason why I’m doing this separately on the stove is that, I don’t know if you noticed, but I have a lot of rhubarb. And if I wanted to put it all in a crumble, it would be a lot of crumble. And what I want to do is to keep some of them separately as a jam or compote, which is a thicker and chunkier kind of jam so I’m not going to worry about it being super smooth.

But, what I can do with these is to put it on my morning oatmeal, or if I’m cooking rice pudding for breakfast, I can put it on top of it. You can also use it for dinner — I can use it as chutney with some veggie burgers, like some spicy lentil burgers, on tacos or taquitos or something like that. It will really add something sweet — tart sweet addition to your dinner.

So, when your fruit is almost done cooking, you can go ahead and get your topping ready, and I’ll show you what I like to do. This is a method of making a crumble topping, which doesn’t use any oil, and you don’t also need to add a little sweetener at all — or none if your prefer.

So, I’m going to take one cup of oats, and put them in a bowl. And then, I got some boiled water which I’m going to add, just enough to moisten the oats. They are going to absorb all this water, and will turn soft, a nice paste for our rhubarb apple crumble. But, you don’t want to get it too wet, because otherwise, it will end up just like the ordinary oatmeal, which I like but it will not get as crumbly as your average crumble topping.

So, there’s my oats. You can see that it’s pretty sticky together — almost like some cookie dough without the flour. So, these are quick oats, meaning they are steamed twice before they get to me, which is not usually how I buy my oats but they’re the only organic ones I could find. If you’re using regular style oats, you may need a little bit more water and they won’t get quite as mushy as this.

Now, I’m going to add some cinnamon to this, just a little bit and if you like, you can add some sweetener here. Oats are naturally sweet on their own, but I’m working for a group who’s a little bit of a sweet tooth so I’m going to add a little bit of maple syrup, which was made by a friend of mine, so a little plug for him there.

Just pour a little bit on there and mix it in. Now, that was not too much at all, you can have more if you like, or if you’re making this for someone who likes things sweeter. But, as much as possible, try to minimize the sweetener that you’re using because you’re going to have a lot of fruit in here, and fruit itself is sweet.

So, my fruit is now finished cooking, and it’s very soft. Rhubarb tends to fall apart when it cooks, and the apples are still visible in there. Things have shrunk down as well, which is good, so I’m going to be adding the seasonings to this fruit.

The first thing I’m going to add is the zest of an orange, what you’ll do its take a “zester” or grater and just take the very fine peel of the outside part of the orange. A zester is very, very handy for this job — this is what it was made for really, but a grater will work, you juts have to be careful when you’re doing it because the white part of the orange that you can see in the little grate marks, which is called the pith, and if you’ll get too far into the pith, it will get bitter.

We don’t want bitter, we just want the very sweet outer zest of the orange. Get as much as you can and stir it. You can see that my fruit has come down from the very top. And then, I’m going to sprinkle some cinnamon in here, and because I have a large pot, I’m going to use a bit more cinnamon, and if you only have a little bit of rhubarb… I’m also adding some nutmeg.

One of my favorite things when visiting Phil’s mom is that she has whole nutmeg with the grater — I’m just putting a little bit in there. Nutmegs have a very strong flavor, so you’ll only need a little bit. We’re going to have a very large pot, so we’re putting a little bit more.

Alright, now, rhubarb is not sweet on its own, and the apples are in there to sweeten things up. But you’ll probably need some sugar. You can take a taste now to see what to add, and I’d already tasted my own and it’s not sweet yet. So, I’m going to add some maple syrup, or you can add any kind of unrefined sugar you like, to make your rhubarb apple crumble a little bit sweeter.

Like I said, I have this maple syrup that my friend made — if I can get a good shot there. It’s a good stuff so I’m going to add some in here. I am getting nervous if I put large quantities of sugar or oil into things, even if it’s a big batch, it makes me nervous.

So you’ll need to stir and give it a taste, and you can just add as much as you need and taste as you go. Alright, I have to add some maple syrup, as much as I didn’t want to, but I have to remind myself, it’s a big pot. This is twice a much as you’d normally make.

What I’ll do now is transfer some of this to a baking dish, and I’ve got my toaster over preheating because I’m going to do a smaller dish, and then we’ll go from there. So, like I said, the nice thing about cooking the fruit first is that I can really fill up this baking dish with fruit.

Now, what I’m going to do here is add a little bit more oats into the fruit, about a quarter cup. Lot of recipes will call for flour here, which you could do as well, but I’m a fan of oats over flour, because they’re a little bit less dense as they’re not as exposed to air in processing, etc.

Give them a stir in, and what they’ll do is to make this a little bit more solid as opposed to the very liquid form that it’s in right now. Then, what I’m going to do is put this topping on here. You can add other things on the rhubarb apple crumble topping if you like, including shredded coconuts, and I often like to do is to add some walnuts.

You can also add other things to the filling — dried cranberries are amazing in this. I don’t have any right now but I’ll probably put some in there. And if you make it a topping, not a smooth surface, some parts would be crunchy and some parts will stay soft, which is how I like to do it.

Alright, so just pop the rhubarb apple crumble in the oven, the fruit is already cooked so you don’t have to wait for that. You’re just waiting for the top to get a little bit brown and crispy. I’ll probably put mine, probably about 15 to 20 minutes.

Rhubarb Apple Crumble Recipe (With Video)

Rhubarb Apple Crumble Ingredients

Rhubarb Apple Crumble Directions

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