So I thought I might try something a little bit different for my blog, and give you a few recipes that are really easy to do, taste awesome and go down an absolute treat. Most of these will be from my Chalet host days, and always got a smile from the lovely guests. Sometimes I measure stuff, sometimes I guess…I like to keep it interesting, and keep it creative. If you don’t try something new, you never learn something new. Getting it wrong isn’t failing, it’s learning that you shouldn’t put salt in a chocolate mousse because it tastes foul, you’ll never do that again!
So to start, heres what you need to feed 8 people:
Crumble:
- Demarera sugar – 230g
- Plain flour – 200g
- Butter – 150g
- A few sprinkle thingies of ground cinamon
The apple bit:
- 5 apples
- Demerara sugar – no idea, probably about 100g
- Sprinkles of cinnamon
- Sprinkles of flour
- Some chunks of butter…about 50g
The process
- Start with the crumble, put your flour and sugar into a bowl, mix it up, get your hands dirty…it’s awesome…Mum won’t tell you off for it this time!
- So then once you’ve mixed up, cut up your butter into little cubes, and chuck it into the bowl, and then just squash the squares of butter into the floury sugary stuff, and slowly work through it as though you are trying to break the sugar up into dust, it takes a while, but after about 5 mins of doing this you will see it starting to look like crumble. If you want a fine crumble crumble, use more flour, but if you want nice big chunky crumble use a little bit more butter (I personally prefer the taste of this one too, mmmm, buttery). Then sprinkle some cinnamon into the mix…if you like cinnamon put loads in, if you don’t, just leave it out, remember this is your crumble, it’s totally up to you! Keep mixing til its all an eqaul consistancy. Easiest if you have cold hands, otherwise you hands just get clogged up with crumble mix!
- (This is a good opportunity to taste it, squash some between your fingers and sample it, it should remind you of crumble topping, if not, check you haven’t used salt instead of sugar)
- After this put it to one side and grab an apple. Peel the apple, core it, then cut it up into cubes, I like small cubes, but I don’t reckon it matters…Stick them in a bowl as you go and then once you are done, cover them in sugar, with a bit of flour, and a bit of cinnamon. The sugar makes a nice caramelly taste and the flour makes it gooey….gooy…goowey….stodgey. Stick your hands in and get them dirty again, cover the apple chunks in sugar and flour etc til there isn’t any lumps of sugar sitting.
- Stick them in your dish of choice, I think my dish choice was a bit deep so portion sizes will be harder to control, but it will look awesome through a glass dish 😀 I’m not sure but it might be wise to greaseproof the dish with a bit of butter so it’s easier to clean (the worst part of cooking is the cleaning).
- Throw your crumble mix on top, and the gently press it down (no idea what this does, but lets say it might make it easier for portion control…who knows!?).
- As the piece de resistance, I sprinkled some cinnamon on top (by the way, I like cinnamon…) just to prove that I had a hand in making it…badumtsshhh.
- Stick it in the oven on a medium’ish heat for about 40 minutes (we don’t have numbers on our dials so I can’t tell ya…190 degrees Celsius at a guess!)
- Bring it out, serve up, give your guests some hot custard along side, and if you are feeling very nice, some cream to go with that too.
- Perfect!
Give it a go, don’t be afraid of getting it wrong, because, if I can do it, you can probably do it better! Let me know how you get on!
Photos below of my efforts!
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| I only had a little bit of damerea sugar, so I just used granulated too to make up the weight |
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| Get your butter |
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| Chop it up |
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| Rub the butter between your fingers for a while as though you were sieving through dirt |
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| Until it looks like this |
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| Chop your apples into chunks |
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| Cover them n flour and sugar (I used muscavdo sugar cos I had nowt else) |
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| Mix it up with your hands, the dirty bit… |
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| Nearly there, sprinkle the crumble on top |
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| Get creative! Cinnamon powder sprinkled on top |
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| 40 minutes later, awesome! |
