Homemade: Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Lately I've been making an effort to avoid using sugar in my cooking, or at the very least, use it in small quantities. I guess over the past 12 months we have cut a lot of processed foods out of our diet, and this has automatically meant cutting sugars out of our diet. But the result is, we're noticing the natural sweetness of foods so much more than we used to. I think we don't appreciate the natural sweetness of fruits and vegetables when we add sugar to recipes. Anyway I've reached a point where I can't stand the extra sweetness when sugar has been added, and I'm loving the sugar-free treats. I should point out that what I'm not eating in sugar added to recipes, I'm making up for with my chocolate addiction.

One of my go-to recipes is sugar-free banana bread, using this recipe I found over on Mother Down Under, with some minor modifications. But I've been searching for the ultimate sugar-free apple and cinnamon type of recipe. I didn't really mind what the end food was, as long as it contained apple and cinnamon. I finally thought I'd try the banana bread recipe, but substitute apples for the bananas. It turned out pretty amazing! Not in a bread kind of way, but when I first took it out of the oven, it was more like apple crumble [made me want to smother it in ice-cream] and was best served in a bowl. I let the rest of it [that I didn't eat straight out of the oven] cool in the tin and then it became more slice-like, but still quite crumbly. Anyway all that aside, it tasted divine. And there's no added sugar. Here's what I did.

Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter [approx]

1 egg

5 medium apples, peeled and chopped

1 cup self raising flour*

cinnamon, to taste

handful of seeds and sultanas mix

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a loaf tin.

Melt the butter. Allow it to cool slightly, then add the egg to the butter and mix it in.

In a bowl, combine the chopped apple and the butter and egg mix. Sift in the flour, then sprinkle over the cinnamon [I use a lot of cinnamon]. Add the seeds and sultanas mix, and stir everything together. It will be chunky but you want to make sure all the flour has been mixed in with the liquid parts.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, and squish it down quite well. 

Bake for about 40 minutes.

And that's it. The combination of butter and flour makes a crumbly crust on the top of the loaf, and the centre is soft and moist. The sweetness of the apples is enough without any added sugar. Best to eat it warm. If you're feeling kind, save some to share with your loved ones. Otherwise, best to just eat it all if you can.

* I use gluten free flours in all my cooking.