Banana & Blueberry Oat Crumble

Ingredients

• 150 g rolled oats
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp brown sugar, for the topping
• 80 g cold butter, cubed
• 4 ripe bananas, sliced into rounds
• 250 g fresh blueberries
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• 80 g ground almonds
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Heat the oven to 190°C/fan 170°C. Tumble the sliced bananas and blueberries into a baking dish (around 20x25cm). Add 2 tbsp brown sugar, the orange zest and juice, and the vanilla. Toss gently until everything is glossy and the berries start to weep a little purple juice — that's the sugar pulling moisture out and starting the syrup.
2. In a bowl, mix the oats, ground almonds, remaining 3 tbsp brown sugar, the cinnamon and a pinch of salt. The salt is non-negotiable — it lifts the cinnamon and stops the crumble tasting flat-sweet.
3. Add the cold cubed butter and rub it in with your fingertips, lifting and crumbling, until you've got rough, clumpy breadcrumbs with a few bigger nuggets — those bigger bits are what go properly crisp in the oven. Taste a pinch of the raw mixture; it should read as toasty-sweet with a faint savoury edge. If it's flat, add another small pinch of salt now.
4. Scatter the crumble evenly over the fruit, leaving the surface craggy rather than smoothing it down. Don't press it in — air gaps are how the top crisps instead of steaming.
5. Bake for 30–35 minutes, until the top is deeply golden and the fruit is bubbling thickly at the edges with dark purple syrup creeping up through the cracks. If the top is browning before the fruit bubbles, drop the oven 10°C and give it another 5 minutes.
6. Let it sit for 5 minutes off the heat so the filling thickens slightly — straight from the oven it's molten and will run; rested, it spoons properly.
7. Spoon into bowls, then pour the cold cream over the warm crumble at the table so it pools into the syrup and melts down through the oats.