My Disreputable Dad is back from his holidays.  Bronzed and beautiful.

Two weeks in the south of France. They ate in the same restaurant every night.

‘Every night?’, I ask, incredulous.

‘Well yes’, he says, ‘except one.  Their steak frites was incredible.  We tried another restaurant for one night, but it wasn’t as good, so we went back to the original one’.

He’s a creature of habit, my father.

On my visit, we walked around his beautiful garden.  The plum trees are groaning with hard, green fruit.  A bumper crop.

And the apples got so heavy that they actually broke the bough of the tree.

I left with treasure of the appley variety.

Perfect for rustling up a simple apple crumble:

.

Apple Crumble

500g apple (weigh after peeling and coring)

Sugar for sweetening the fruit

175g plain flour

110g cold butter, cubed

110g golden caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees/gas 5.  Then just tumble the apples into a baking dish and sprinkle on a little sugar (these apples weren’t too sour, but taste one to judge how much sugar you’ll need to add).  If your apples are a bit ‘floury’ (like Bramleys can be sometimes), you might need to add a splash of water or fruit juice.

In a bowl, rub the butter into the flour gently with the ends of your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.  Don’t make it too uniform – the odd lump of butter is nice.

Stir in the sugar.  If you like here you can add a handful of porridge oats, some nuts, orange zest, cinnamon… whatever you fancy.

Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for about 30 minutes until the fruit is tender and the top golden.

So thanks Dad.  I’ll be back when the plums ripen too.