You’ll love this quick and easy vegan apple and mixed berry crumble, made with frozen berries. Perfect for any time of year, endlessly adaptable and oozing delicious fruit flavours.
Fruit Crumble – A Classic British Pudding
A hearty baked pudding is the epitome of British comfort food. These individual berry crumbles are quick and easy to make, and can be prepared ahead and frozen at various stages of the prep. Also, they are vegan and readily gluten free, so everybody can enjoy.
You can make and serve this recipe as a large family style dish, but I really like serving these in individual ramekins; it makes portion control that little bit easier as there’s no sneaking an extra half spoonful. I also think that a pot for each person is a far nicer way to serve them. Save up the ceramic pots from ready made pudding pots to reuse.
Pudding or Dessert?
It’s another one of those UK vs US thing. I say pudding to describe any sweet course at the end of the meal, but confusingly some puddings can also be savoury – such as a traditional steak and kidney pudding – and all sweet puddings can also be called desserts and vice versa.
And then a US pudding, which is normally a baked custard would, in my book, also be called pudding in the UK.
It’s all a bit confusing. Whatever you call it, simple recipes like this make it really easy to serve something sweet at the end of a meal for the family to enjoy.
How to Make Vegan Mixed Berry Crumbles
Step one – gather your ingredients together so everything is to hand – and to save rummaging in the cupboards once you start to cook. All chefs have immaculate mis en place and it is an excellent habit for the home cook to develop as you are less likely to make a mistake or miss an ingredient out
I’ve used jumbo oats and plain white flour, but feel free to mix it up with a different flour to oat ratio, or try different flours or flakes. Just keep the total volume about the same. Adjust the sweetness if needed.
Step two – melt your vegetable shortening in a small pan over a gentle heat.  Mix the flour and oats together and pour over the melted fat.
Step Three – Mix it all together with a spoon or a fork and break up all the clumps.  I find using melted fat is so much faster than rubbing it in when solid.
Fuss Free Tip – make a double batch of crumble, it takes seconds more work to do this. Pop in a bag and freeze. You can use and bake the crumble topping from frozen.
Step Four – Assemble the crumbles.  You will need 6 x 100ml or 4 fluid oz oven proof pots or ramekins. Peel and chop a Bramley cooking apple and cover the bottom of each pot. Cover the apple with frozen berries (you will need to chop up the larger berries), and then top with a teaspoon of sugar and then the crumble mix.
When all the crumbles are ready, you can either cook them straight away or pop them in the fridge for a day or so, or even freeze them.
Finally – cook at 180°C/375°F/GM5, for about 20 minutes, until the top of the crumble turns a light golden brown.
What I particularly love about these crumbles is the many different ways of preparing ahead of time. The crumble mix is easily frozen in a plastic bag, and the individual crumbles themselves can also be frozen. The only thing that probably not worth doing is cooking them ahead of time as the crumble topping will go soggy from the liquid in the fruit.
I made these crumbles using Trex vegetable shortening, which melts readily making it easy to mix in. It’s a fantastic dairy free alternative to butter for baking; lower in saturated fat than butter, suitable for vegans and also free from hydrogenated vegetable oil, e-numbers, colours and preservatives. It also goes a long way: as it doesn’t contain water, you can use 20% less compared to butter when baking.
To learn more about Trex and for more recipes visit The Home of Family Baking, or try my recipes for Apple and Berry Pie or my Sfoof – or Middle Eastern Turmeric Cake.
A delicious traditional vegan dessert. This is easy to make, especially if you make the crumble topping ahead of time and freeze it. These examples are made with Bramley apples and mixed frozen berries, but it's just change the fruit if you fancy something different.
- 125 g plain flour
- 60 g rolled oats
- 65 g vegetable shortening
- 45 g golden caster sugar
- 220 g cooking apples
- 180 g berries
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Melt the vegetable shortening in a small saucepan.
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Mix the shortening, oats, and flour. Mix it all together with a spoon or a fork and break up all the clumps. I find using melted fat is so much faster than rubbing it in when solid.
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Divide the crumble mixture in half. Freeze half the mixture for future use.
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Peel and chop the apple into 1cm cubes. Cut any larger frozen berries - large blackberries & strawberries - in half. If they're too hard, let them defrost for a few minutes.
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Cover the bottom of six individual 100ml/4fl oz oven-proof ramekin dishes with the apple. Add frozen berries and top with the crumble mixture. Sprinkle sugar on top.
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Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 180°C/375°F/GM5, until just golden brown on top.
- Nutrition details are per serving.
- This is a great prepare ahead recipe: freeze the prepared crumble mixture, or the prepared crumbles.
- It's best not to try and cook the crumbles ahead of time.
- This recipe is 6 Weight Watchers Smart Points per portion
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Recipe post for vegan berry crumbles sponsored by TREX – all opinions our own.
Mirlene
I love crumble desserts! This fruit crumble look very delicious. I have not tried the vegan version; however. I am interested in trying it. Recipe looks very easy to follow.
Helen
Such a good pudding and no flavour lost with using the vegan shortening.
linda spiker
Crumbles are one of my favorite cooler weather desserts. This looks delicious!
Helen
Perfect for the cooler Autumn weather.
Danielle
Yumm! I love apple crisp, and the pop of color from the berries is really beautiful!
Helen
I love the colour of the berry, so pretty.
Lisa Bynum
I like the idea of being able to freeze them for evenings when I get a sweet craving. This looks so delicious.
Helen
I am all about prep ahead and freeze – cook once and eat twice.
Anna
I love this berry crumble recipe for entertaining! They look so cute in their individual ramekins :)
Helen
I love individual puddings.
Harriet
Fruit crumbles are a perfect Autumn dessert. These are delightful, made in individual sizes.
Helen
Perfect for the colder weather now.
Olivia
Berry crumble sounds so yummy. Served with hot custard is the perfect pudding.
Helen
Hot custard is just right to have with crumble.
Linda Holland
Fruit crumbles are a total comfort food, just what you need with the colder weather. Yours look perfect.
Helen
I really enjoy a hot pudding when the weather is cold outside.
Wendy M
I love an easy pudding that can be prepped ahead of time. And I love crumbles. I’m going to need to make these at the weekend. So good.
Helen
I do like to have things ready to go for when I need them.
Amanda
Apple and berry crumble pudding sounds delicious, and so easy to make. My kids would love them, especially having their own individual serving.
Helen
No fighting over portion sizes.
Ester Conroy
Really good that Trex is vegan friendly. And I find it isn’t stupidly expensive, which is great. These puddings look amazing. So want to make them now.
Helen
I found Trex really good to use.
Bryan B
I like that you’ve added oats to the crumble mix. The topping looks delicious. I do like my winter puddings, we all need a little comfort when it gets cold.
Helen
Hot puddings in cold weather is very comforting.
Tammy
Im always up for a tasty pudding. the single serving dishes are a nice touch.
Helen
I like the indiviual sizing, less mess and good portion control.
Ferne L
Such a nice looking dessert. Good enough to make for guests, and always good for a family treat. Lovely photos as always.
Helen
They would make a nice pudding for any meal.
Tom H
It would be really handy to have these ready prepared and ready to go for when you fancy having. Fruit crumble is one of my favourite puddings.
Helen
Fruit crumble really is up there on the list of favourites.
Claire Toplis
Great recipe I love it
Veena Azmanov
I love fruit crumbles and my favorite has got to be berries. This looks so good. Apples and cinnamon would make a perfect crumble this time of the year. Love how crumbly the crumble topping looks.
Jolina
I love your tip about making a double batch and freezing. It means crumble any time! I usually make either berry or apple crumbles but never thought to combine them…delicious!
Denise
What a delicious idea! I love that you used a dairy alternative. So many people can’t handle dairy.
Helen
The Trexworks amazingly well as a diary alternative.
Marisa Franca
I simply love individual desserts and your crumble sounds like a treat everyone in our family would love. The simplicity is so appealing but the flavor and texture is there.
Helen
Individual puddings are certainly the way to go.