Easy Apple Crumble with Oats • Recipe for Perfection (2024)

This simple apple crumble recipe is made with rolled oats for a delicious crunchy topping. Includes recipe tips to help you select the best apples! This post contains affiliate links. When you shop through them, a small commission helps support this site. Thanks!

Welcome to my favoriteapple crumble recipe.

It’s like a handfulof cinnamon oatmeal cookies snuggled up with some baked apples. And, believe it or not, it’s actually pretty good for you!

How did I come up with it? Let’s just say that I have been making a lot of apple crumble lately. Correction: I have been making a LOT of apple crumble lately.

I have a more or less continuous sweet tooth and I like to make dessert every day if possible. However, I know that some desserts (like this deep dish brownie recipe) are not really suitable for eating every day because they’re too rich and none of us wants to gain 50 pounds a year.

So, I needed to come up with a dessert that I could have on most days that would be sweet and satisfying, yet would not leave me feeling as though I’d overindulged.

I started from an easy blackberry crumble recipe and worked on streamlining it for easy prep, adjusting for thechange fromblackberries to apples,and also reducing the total amount of sugar.

To improve the overall nutritional value (and because I like the taste of apple skins), I tested sevenvarieties of apples to see which applesstayed firm and flavorful when baked with the skins left on.

Which Apples Stay Firm & Flavorful When Baked with Skins On?

Good options:

• Honeycrispwas the clear winner. The flavor was unparalleled and the liqueur produced by the cooked apples was sublime.
• Pink Lady / Cripps Pink was very firm with good flavor. A solid runner-up.
• Granny Smith, precut and bagged had a classic apple flavor but a softer texture.
• Sonya had a mild, pearlike flavor and soft texture. Although this was softer, some people may like its very mild taste.

Not so good options:

• Kanzihad mushy flesh.
• Granny Smith, cut from whole apples basically turned into applesauce. My own reading suggests that apples held in storage for a long time after harvest can become mushier when baked. The ascorbic acid wash given to the precutand bagged variety helps retain firmness, or so I was told by a CrunchPak rep at the Southern Exposure produce convention I visited.
• Pinata had tough, chewy skins and mushy flesh. It was the worst apple for baking with skins on.

Helpful Apple Crumble Baking Tips

1. Buy the freshest apples. The fresher the apple, the more juice to produce that yummy liqueur that collects in the bottom of the pan and soaks into the crumble topping. Look for “new crop” signs in your grocery store.
2. Use an apple slicer for easy cutting.
3. Don’t bake in ceramic. Ceramic dishes are pretty (that’s why you’ll see them in my photos), but if you bake apples in them, much of the juice will evaporate because of how ceramic retains heat. I recommenda light colored aluminum cake pan if you have one- it’s quick to heat up and quick to cool down.
4. Salt is good. A dash of salt makes the flavors pop.
5. Let it cool completely. As tempting as it may be, don’t serve hot out of the oven. Baked apples benefit from a rest. You’re better off letting it cool to room temperature, then warming it slightly in the oven or microwave. Believe it or not, it tastes even better the second day!

How do you like your crumbles? Do you leave appleskins on or off? What’s your favorite fruit to use in a crumble?