I’m sharing here my healthy, easy to make gluten free gooseberry and apple crumble recipe. Healthy because I didn’t add a load of sugar, I just added a minimal amount of coconut sugar and used coconut oil and yogurt to bind the oats.

We moved into our new house last November and I had no idea what the two bare spiked bushes growing at the end of the garden were. I was delighted to discover green berries growing on them in May that looked like a teeny gooseberry! I knew we were growing blackberries, but I further discovered a blackcurrant bush, plus an abundance of new plums developing and overhanging into my garden from next door.

Nutrition info:

The pigments in the gooseberry skin provide a rich source of cell protecting antioxidants: anthocyanins & other flavonoids, plus vitamin C. Gooseberries also a great source of the minerals potassium & manganese with smaller amounts of calcium and iron. To check your mineral status, you can book a hair mineral analysis here.

The ripe gooseberries

With the gooseberries turning colour, and the blackcurrants now lovely and ripe, I asked my 12 year old to pick us a bowl full so we could make a crumble. I chopped a couple of green apples and added a handful of blackcurrants to my glass oven dish. I had a lovely gluten free crumble recipe that I’d faithfully used time and time again several years ago (when we had an abundance of blackberries in our old, old house) but could I find it?! So I had to go from memory, and actually, the result was pretty good if I do say so myself! I didn’t want to add a ton of sugar to the already sweet berries, so I used coconut sugar, and kept it to a minimum, and used porridge oats for the crumble topping. The recipe can easily be adapted- I will be making blackberry and apple crumble next when the blackberries are fully ripe 🙂

The recipe

You’ll need:

• a medium sized bowl full of gooseberries
• 2 peeled and roughly chopped apples
• 2 tbsp coconut sugar
• 5 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 2 cups of porridge or rolled oats (I pulsed one cup of rolled oats for a mixed texture)
• 6 tbsp natural yogurt or coconut yogurt to make it vegan
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of Celtic salt

The raw fruit, before adding the crumble topping.

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (160 fan).
2. Add the oats, yogurt, melted coconut oil and 1 tablespoon of sugar to your mixing bowl (or food processor). Mix well until clumping together slightly.
3. Prepare the fruit. Top and tail the gooseberries. Peel the apple, and cut the flesh from the core. Chop roughly into 1cm pieces.
4. Add the raw fruit to the baking dish and mix in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and ground cinnamon. Spoon over the crumble topping to cover the fruit.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden.

Yum!