Autumn fruits with an oat cookie crumble

Bake your surplus autumnal fruits into this amazing, sweet and crunchy crumble.

The inspiration for this recipe with its thick and chewy topping comes from my friend Ulla's home-made apple crumble. She brought it along once when her family visited us at the summer cottage in Finland. I don't particularly like oven-baked fruit but to my surprise I loved this one.

When I asked Ulla for the recipe she was vague and I let it be – sharing special recipes isn't always easy.

As our veggie delivery box brings more ripe plums, apples and pears in autumn than we can eat, I decided to rescue the uglier ones and replicate her recipe. And because of the thick and chewy oat cookie crust and the potato starch that jellyfies the fruit this recipe is a bit of a game changer!

I tried to talk my partner into eating the last, perfect batch all in one go, but he just looked at me funny.

Crunchy oat crumble

(4 portions)

300–400 g plums, apples or pears – or a mix
1 tbsp sugar
1,5 tbsp potato starch
0,5 tsp cinnamon

Crumble:
100g dairy-free margarine
150 ml rolled oats
100 ml whole grain wheatflour (can be plain, too)
50 ml sugar
+ a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter

Set oven to 200°C and grease a smallish dish with margarine – if you need to use up more fruit, double the recipe and use a bigger pie dish!

Cut plums in halves, remove the pit, and then halve again. Harder fruit like apples and pears should be cut into slightly smaller pieces. Place all the fruits in the baking dish. Combine sugar, potato starch and cinnamon and mix well before sprinkling it over the fruit (poke around so the starch mix spreads a bit, but don't stir).

For the topping, knead the dry ingredients into the soft room temperature butter. The result resembles a cookie dough. Pinch chunks of it by hand to cover the fruit layer.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the topping gets a golden colour and some crunch.
Eat as is or serve with (vegan) ice cream or vanilla custard.

The recipe is based on a contribution to Kotikokki.net.