Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free)
It’s Day 5 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe!
One of my favourite ways to use oats is in an apple crumble. The trouble with most crumble recipes is the addition of wheat flour, sugar, and margarine. This recipe cunningly sidesteps these harmful ingredients, while offering a satisfying mouth feel and rich apple vanilla-spice flavouring. I’ve cut out the normal first step in crumbles which is to cook your apples first in a pot before baking the oat crust in the oven. In this case, we are going to simplify and cook everything together in the oven in one step. For this to work best we need very very thin apple slices and I’ve recommended a tool below to help with this.
Apples are the stars of this dish, and oats are merely the side players! Apples are very high in polyphenol antioxidants, and have a high antioxidant or ORAC score. They are full of insoluble and soluble fibre that works to remove cholesterol from your body, as well as containing a long list of other health benefits including the reduction in risk for cancer, asthma, diabetes, and osteoporosis. A study by the Journal of Functional Foods showed that eating one apple a day can cut your heart disease risk by almost half! I added apples to my “eat this daily” list about 18 months ago. Now I have at least one every day in my morning signature green smoothie!
Gooey vanilla speckled fruity sauce oozes out from under a mass of fragrant apples topped with a vanilla yoghurt sauce – heaven!
Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free)
Ingredients
- 4 apples cored and thinly sliced
- 1 cup blueberries
- 3 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 Tbsp agave syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1/2 of a scraped vanilla pod
- 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
- Zest of 1 orange
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1
Tbsp
orange juice[/fusion_builder_column]
Crumble topping
- 1.5 cups dry rolled oats choose a gluten friendly brand, if you have sensitivities
- 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
- 1 cup walnuts
- 4 dates
- 1/4 cup dried cranberries or raisins
- 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 3 Tbsp coconut oil
- 3 Tbsp agave syrup
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 160 C (315 F)
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In a bowl, mix your apple slices together with the other 8 things below, and then spread the apple mixture evenly over the bottom of a pie plate or baking dish. I run all the apples through my spiralizer for quick wafer-thin apple ribbons, but thinly hand-cut is fine too!
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Prepare the topping of your crumble by blending together the following in a food processor for about 20-30 seconds
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Now spoon your topping in clumps over the top of your apples in the baking pan. Press gently with your fingers to somewhat arrange the topping evenly across the apples.
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Throw into oven to bake!
MAIN BENEFITS / WHY EAT THIS?
- Apples are health warriors
- Oats, walnuts, blueberries, ginger, citrus fruits and coconut oil are all heart healthy and aid with cholesterol reduction
- Cinnamon is a secret weapon to include in any sweet dish. The large quantity of cinnamon in this recipe will slow the release of sugars into your bloodstream. Researchers are discovering a growing number of cinnamon health benefits, which include its ability to help manage weight and decrease cholesterol. For the freshest, most potent cinnamon, I grind several cinnamon sticks into powder at the beginning of each week, so I can sprinkle this on my oatmeal and other dishes. You can do this easily using a spice grinder, or as in my case, a coffee grinder.)
This is super yummy on it’s own, or with vanilla yogurt (Just mix a vanilla bean into some thick plain greek yoghurt and add a bit of agave syrup for a super fast, healthy, creamy topping!)
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