In this talk we introduce a general class of singularly-perturbed elliptic functionals Fε and we study their asymptotic behaviour as the perturbation parameter ε > 0 vanishes. Under suitable assumptions, which in particular allow us to bound Fε by the Ambrosio-Tortorelli functionals, we show that the functionals Fε Γ-converge (up to subsequences) to a free-discontinuity functional of brittle type. Moreover, we provide asymptotic formulas for the limiting volume and surface integrands, which show that the volume and surface contributions of Fε decouple in the limit. If time permits, we will discuss the application of the general convergence result to the setting of stochastic homogenisation. This is joint work with R. Marziani and C. I. Zeppieri (Münster).