A while back, I told you about my vegan, sugar-free brownie experiment, which, despite expectation, turned out to be a surprising hit. What I didn't tell you (or may have, and just forgot) is that I also prepped a second dessert for the day, namely an equally vegan, equally sugar-free apple crumble.
Now, as I may have mentioned, I love a good challenge, and preparing something that was sugar-less and without the traditional cake ingredients like milk, eggs, etc., proved to be an interesting (and welcome) experiment.
First things first, I gathered my ingredients:
- 7 naturally sweet apples (I went with Gala apples);
- Coconut Oil (eye measure, as most of my recipes, probably around 120 grams);
- One zesty lemon squeeze (saucy, I know!);
- Pumpkin spice (or just a mix of cinnamon, cloves, pimento and nutmeg);
- More ground cinnamon, because of course;
- About 100g of flour of your choice;
- 200 grams rolled oats.
Looks to be about it. By the way, I used this recipe as a starting point, but modified as I saw fit (for instance, added waay more oats to make a decent-looking crumble).
Moving on. The first thing you wanna do is slice the apples (takes you a minute, so you might wanna put on some music or something to enjoy yourself. Or whatever. Just revel in the apple-slicing process. You weirdo.
Oh, heat the oven at around 190-200C. Also, peel the apples and core them. Duh. You should know that by now. After all this laborious work is done, you get to line your dish of choice (mine was a round cake dish with about a 25 cm diameter.
Toss the apple slices with one tbsp of ground cinnamon and about half a tbsp of pumpkin spice mix. Also, two tablespoons of lemon juice. Make sure you coat the apple slices evenly with spices, and then leave them as you can see in the dish. Take a walk. Change your life. Who knows.
If you do decide to come back for the rest of it, make the crumble. Mix the oats with the melted coconut oil, flour and spices. The original recipe also suggested incorporating sunflower or pumpkin seeds here, which would probably be really nice, and I did buy pumpkin seeds (phenomenally healthy snack, btw), but completely slipped my mind. Feel free to, though, if you remember. (show-off.)
You want a mixture that is thoroughly combined and thick (you don't want a runny crumble, which was the first thing I got - I mixed the crumble in two batches - that seeped through the apples in a mini baking disaster).
The thing is, you want thicker crumble that will sit on the apples after you layer it on top (which incidentally is the next step). After you've done this, there really isn't much for you to do. Simply cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for thirty minutes. After, remove the foil, and bake for an extra 15-20 minutes, and there you are...
...One Runny (but Quite Tasty) Apple Crumble.
I can't really complain on the sweetness - I thought the apples were enough. I also don't really like excessive sweetness, and love cinnamon, so that might explain why this dish worked well for me. If you don't like cinnamon, well, you should've clicked off two minutes ago.
All in all, I wasn't overly impressed with this one. I have definitely baked waaay better desserts, but if you're in the market for something vegan and naturally sweet, this will tide you over just fine. The crumble was a bit crumble-y, mind, which I suspect might be a dead giveaway, but I was quite pleased with what came out.
The original recipe also uses maple syrup (in the crumble) and I guess you can use something of that nature, if you're craving an extra sweet kick (might also help with binding the crumble topping).
I was fine as was. Anyway, if you've come this far, cheers. If you ended up not returning after you wandered off that one time, good for you. I hope you're free.
