Apple Crumble

A craving is like a drug, one that won’t go away until it has been fed. Mine started about a week ago when one of my students told me that her favorite dessert is warm apple pie with vanilla ice-cream and at that moment I knew that I badly needed some. I think I sulked for a day really wanting some and quickly realized that if I wanted apple pie I would have to make it myself.  Apple pie implies making a crust and that also implies baking and you all know that baking isn’t my cup of tea so I researched apple crisp and crumble recipes and decided on making the crumble instead. I realize that I took the easy way out but I promise one day I’ll challenge myself and make pie – that is of course after I’ve taken a course on how to make pie preferably somewhere in Italy with a hot Italian standing oh so close behind me showing me how to kneel dough…

I got home late on Thursday night and quickly ordered groceries and realized this morning that I forgot the ice-cream so I got up, showered and walked into town. It was and is bitter cold, but if you’re like me, determined to make something then nothing is going to stop you. I found my ice-cream and some other stuff that I didn’t really need, got home, took off my boots, walked into the kitchen poured myself a glass of wine (no, 2pm is not too early to start drinking) and started baking.

I found this recipe on epicurious.com and just love what they have. For this crumble I needed:

2 ½ cups of old fashioned oats

1 ½ cups of brown sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes

Nonstick vegetable oil spray (but butter works as well)

4 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, halved, cored, each half cut into 6 slices

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

I pre-heated the oven to a180 degrees, put on some sexy music and started making this dish. I mixed all of the dry ingredients together, added the butter and “rubbed” everything together until it became moist clumps and set it aside. I peeled, cored, and cut the apples into thin slices and not into six slices as the recipe indicated.  I then mixed the apples with fresh lemon juice from a whole lemon (never underestimate the power of a lemon, I was clearly not thinking when I added the juice of a whole lemon), added some ground cinnamon and then realized that I had to add ½ cup of brown sugar into the apple mixture but I had put everything into the dry mixture (removing or trying to remove sugar from a dry mixture is no piece of cake).  I then transferred the apple mixture into a deep dish, sprinkled the topping on top and baked for approximately 50 minutes.

Apart from having added too much lemon, the crumble tasted great and looked good as well. I gave some to my roommates and they loved it and suggested I should make it over Thanksgiving. I ate the crumble with vanilla ice-cream and it was heaven in my mouth. I have one slice left and the longer the crumble sits that better it tastes. I major hit and I’ll be sure to make this again adding less lemon and maybe a bit more sugar (don’t hate a girl for having a sweet tooth).