Apple Crumble With Whiskey

By Richard Thomas

Apples are one of the easiest fresh fruits to turn into a tasty desert, and they are also an easy desert fruit to pair with whiskey, two points I’ve already demonstrated with my Bourbon Baked Apples recipe. The next step up the ladder in terms of labor from baked apples is the apple crumble, which is also enhanced by a little whiskey spiking. Apple crumble is a classic British desert, after all, and what could be more British than an apple crumble with a little whiskey mixed in?

Ingredients
8 medium-sized cooking apples (I use Galas, but some recipes list Red Delicious or Bramley apples instead)
Butter, softened at room temperature
Brown sugar
Cinnamon
Lemon
Flour
Whiskey

Peel and core the apples, and then chop them into bite-sized chunks. This is the most labor intensive part of the preparation, so I recommend waiting until after you are done to pre-heat the oven, so as to save energy. With the apples ready, switch the oven on to 400 F/200 C.

Place the apples in a bowl, and add 2 tbsps of flour, a dash of cinnamon, and 1 tbsp of brown sugar. Squeeze the juice from 1/4 of a lemon into the bowl as well, and then stir the contents to coat the apples with flour, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

Now make your crumble topping. Relying on precise measurements for making your crumble is a bit foolish, because how much crumble you need to put a deep layer atop the apples is determined by the baking dish you use. So instead of measurements, I use the following proportions: 3 parts flour, 2 parts brown sugar, 2 parts soft butter, plus a dash of cinnamon. Put however much you think you might need in a bowl in those proportions, and stir vigorously with a spoon until the ingredients form lots of crumbles. If it turns out you need more, add more in those proportions.

Grease your baking dish and put your apples in, spread out in an even layer. Pour the whiskey over the apples now, spreading that out as well. The choice of whiskey is up to you. Bourbon or Tennessee whiskey is a good choice, but I used DYC the last time I made Apple Crumble with Whiskey, and it worked out just as well. Cover the top with a deep, ample layer of crumbles, and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.