Apple Crumble

I remember making my first Apple Crumble in Food Tech. lesson in secondary school. I remember coming home quite proud with the fact I made something nice.

Anyway fast forward to present, I recently found the exact recipe to the one I made in my teens and decided to have a go at it, most of the recipes I came across involved baking the uncooked apples with the flour mixtures together in the oven. This one I feel is more easier (from my point of view).

The recipe it from this website: http://allrecipes.co.uk/m/recipe/478/perfect-apple-crumble.aspx

Cooking time: 1 hour 30 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 6
- 6 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
- 250g caster sugar
- 200g plain flour
- 120g butter
- 1 clove or cinnamon stick

Preparation method

Prep: 15 mins | Cook: 30 mins | Extra: 45 mins

1. Put the apple chunks into a pan, add three quarters of the sugar, the cinnamon stick or clove and cover. Allow to stew gently for half an hour, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Keep checking as they can easily burn at the beginning.

2. Check that the fruit is cooked by mashing it a bit with a wooden spoon. The apples should be soft but not puréed.

3. Put the apples into the serving dish and allow to cool. Set the temperature of the oven to 150 C / gas 2.

4. Mix the flour, remaining sugar and the butter with your fingers in a bowl until it becomes like a breadcrumb consistency. Cover the stewed apples with the crumble topping, without pressing down.

5. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown and crunchy. Spoon a helping of crumble into a dish and serve with cream or ice cream.

The end product looks okay, but the taste need a bit of an improvement, but its entirely my fault.

Here's the reason why:
1) I've put 3/4 of the total amount of sugar into the mixture, but it tasted a little too sweet. To be fair I didn't weigh the ingredients out as I don't find weighing scales, I used "weight-to-cup" conversion which is not that exact, therefore it did affect the taste.
2) Stupidly enough I did not realised I only put in 1/2 of the flours needed! (200g I worked out is roughly 2 cups. I only put one cup in!) =_=!
I thought it was odd when the flour mixtures doesn't resemble breadcrumbs, but more like a dry paste! Therefore I added more flours, 1/8 cup at a time until it looks like crumbs (by then I must have added nearly 1 cup!)
3) I baked the crumble for nearly an hour because I was waiting for it to turn golden brown, it didn't and I could see the apple at the bottom is boiling up so I turned the oven off. Probably need to set the temperature higher next time. Still it was ok, apart from a little too sweet :p. oh well, practise make perfect ;)

Here I share my photos with you. Enjoy!

Mary xx