I’m never not in the mood to bake, but over these past few days I decided to tick off a few baking bucket list items – apple crumble and french toast.
My boyfriend and lovingly titled “Fridge Cleaner” (because cooking for him helps me clear out my fridge) had a few days off so we decided to spend it eating luxuriously. Comfort food for dinner, dessert and breakfast? Oh yes please.
I had decided on a Recipe Tin Eats dinner, Sticky Hawaiian Chicken which I’ll talk about later, but for dessert I wanted to do a family favourite – Apple Crumble (or, in the US, apple crisp). My Mum is the queen of family meals, and almost a decade ago, my brother dated a lovely woman and the two of them, and her two kids and many dogs would come over every Sunday for a big Sunday Dinner of rice, chicken, roast potatoes, vegetables and yorkshire puddings followed by warm apple crumble and Dream Topping. It always went down a storm.
When I decided to make apple crumble for dessert, I wanted something flavoursome, with a tasty, sweet caramel and a crispy topping. Fundamentally, I wanted to make something my Mum would be proud of. Yet I struggled to find a recipe I liked and that used up all the ingredients I wanted to use up. So reaching back to when I lived at home, I copied my Mum’s techniques, with a few additions of my own, and there we have it! Ginger Snaps Autumn Apple Crumble. Welcome, Autumn!
Ginger Snaps Autumn Apple Crumble.
Serves 2
Filling
- 3 small apples or 2 large apples: I used Kanzi apples because they’re so juicy and a bit tangy. My Mum always used “cooking apples”, but I’ve seen people include any.
- Maple syrup: Around 3tbsp
- Packed light brown sugar: 3tsp
- Nutmeg: 1 tsp
- Cinnamon: 1 tsp
- Lemon juice: 2tbsp
Topping
- Ginger snaps: 8/10 individual ginger snaps
- 1 stick of butter
- Maple syrup: 1 tsp
How To:
- Preheat your oven to 180°C, or 360°F.
- First, crush the ginger snaps. Typically, you might want to use a blender but I crushed by hand with a rolling pin. You want them to be mostly crushed, with a few larger crumb size pieces of about a centimetre.
- Rub in all the butter, until it’s combined and the mixture comes together in a crumbly and sticky texture.
- In a bowl or jug, add the lemon juice, maple syrup and spices.
- Now move onto the apples. I cut the apples into thin slices, but cubes and chunks are fine as long as they are all roughly the same size to cook evenly.
- Add the apples into the wet mixture of lemon, syrup and spices and mix until the apples are nicely and evenly coated.
- Layer the apples in an oven dish** – one even layer sprinkled with 1 teaspoon of sugar, then another then another. I got to three layers.
- Gently pour over some of the remaining wet mixture to nicely coat it.
- Top the apples with an even layer of the cookies until covered.
- Pour the remaining teaspoon of maple syrup over the crumble.
- Add to your warmed oven and allow 20 minutes to cook uncovered, followed by another 20 minutes with a foil covering***. Take out once you can poke a fork through the apples and feel they are completely soft, and the topping is hard and glistening.
- Allow to cool at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. Serve with ice cream, custard, dream topping or whipped cream if desired.
Enjoy your syrupy, caramelised, sticky, delicious pie!
Notes
**I served mine from a large ceramic pyrex and that’s what we ate out of. You can easily transfer to a bowl if you’re more classy than my boyfriend and I, but it’s a syrupy, soft dish that won’t work too well if you serve from, say, a springform tin. It has to be transferred straight from the oven dish into the receptacle you’ll be eating it, either a bowl or a mouth!
*** Covering with foil is so important with this dish. Because the ginger snaps have already been cooked, they burn very quickly. Mine burnt within 10 minutes at 250°C so I had to start again – uncovered for 20 and covered for 20. The colouring of ginger snaps makes it hard to judge when they’re cooked, but as a rule, if the apples are softened and the top is crisp and no longer sticky, you’re good to go!
Modern Mundane Girl 