TODAY’S RECIPE: Baked apple & toffee crumble

DELICIOUS, bake. SERVES comforting 6 Ingredients FOR APPLE LAYER 100g raisins 100g pitted soft dates, snipped into small pieces with scissors 85g muscovado sugar 3 tbsp dark rum (or orange juice) 25g unsalted butter 1 tsp mixed spice Zest and juice 1 lemon 4 Bramley apples (800g), peeled, cored and cut into 1cm rings Method FOR 125g CRUMBLE plain flour 100g unsalted butter 50g muscovado sugar 3 tbsp jumbo oats 5g flaked almonds TO SERVE Custard or ice cream

1 Heat oven to 190c/170c fan/gas 5. Except for lemon juice and apples, put rest of ingredients for apple layer into a bowl and microwave on high for 1½ minutes until butter has melted and sugar is syrupy. Toss in apples and lemon juice and spoon into a medium baking dish, making sure dried fruit is distributed evenly.

2 Rub flour and butter together, first into fine crumbs and keep going until it forms a rough biscuit-like dough. Stir in sugar, oats and almonds. Scatter over apple layer, cover with foil and bake for one hour, removing foil for final 30 minutes, until golden. Rest for ten minutes before serving with custard or ice cream.