Apple crumble pie by Yvette

When I was a student, I made lots of apple crumbles. Whenever we'd forgotten to buy desert, I'd just dice some apples, mix butter, flour and sugar into a somewhat lumpy mixture, stick it all in a pan and put in the oven. It always came out hot and tart and delicious. Somehow, I forgot about all that.
So when my birthday was coming up (the one for which I also made the ultimate chocolate birthday cake) and I saw an apple crumble recipe by Yvette van Boven, I knew this was one of the things I wanted to make. I always make an apple pie for my birthday, this year it would be something different. As with all Yvette recipes, this involved a little bit more work than I usually do, but the end result was amazing, as always.

Ingredients:
For the dough:

175 g butter

200 g flour

50 g icing sugar

pinch of salt

For the apple filling:

750 g apples, diced

75 g light muscovado sugar

zest and juice of half a lemon

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon ginger powder

3 bay leaves

pinch of salt

60 g butter

half a jar of blackberry jam (I could not find this, so I substituted with fruits of the forest jam instead)

For the crumble:

125 g light muscovado sugar

100 g butter, in small cubes

175 g flour

Yvette says to use a 25 x 33 cm baking tin; I have no idea what size mine is, but something close to this will do. Grease and line with baking parchment.

First, make the pastry, which is of the shortcrust variety (not one of my strengths).

Combine the flour, icing sugar and salt.

Using a mixer, whisk the butter until it is creamy. Quickly combine with the flour mixture. Push the mixture into the baking tin and leave to cool in the fridge for at least an hour (I had time on my hands, so I made this the evening before).

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Bake the bottom the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

In the meantime, combine the apples, sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, bay leaves and salt.

Melt the butter in a pan. Pour in the apple mixture and add about 100 mL water. Bring to a boil, then turn down the fire and leave to simmer until the apples are done and most of the water is evaporated, around 15-20 minutes. Remove the bay leaves.

Now for the crumble; this part I knew. Combine the sugar, butter and flour until you have the characteristic crumble lumps. I usually start off by rubbing the ingredients together until they form the 'fine breadcrumbs' stage, then combine it into a crumbly ball which I then separate into smaller crumbles again. But whichever way works for you.

Spread a thin layer of jam on the doughy bottom. Pour the apple mixture on top and spread the crumble mixture on top of the apples. Bake (again at 180) for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin and/or slicing.

Forgot to take pictures of the process, but this was the end result.

I would never have thought to put bay leaves in an apple crumble, but that is Yvette for you. The pie was sweet, tangy, with a hint of acidity. It's probably even better with actual blackberry jam, so if you can find that, do use it. It was pretty heavy; the recipe stated 4 people but it was more like 14. It keeps for a long time in the fridge, so ideal for a birthday spread out over several days!