This is a short crisp post about the apple crisp I made on my return from the UK last week. I am busy these days. Food, fun, festivities … and family! Apologies for the lack of posts but have been a little caught up ever since I got back from the Food Blogger Connect in London. The daughter appearing for her final examinations doesn’t seem to make things easier of course.
I got back to baking pretty soon when I returned. I came back and the son fell to my feet begging me for ‘dessert‘! ‘We haven’t had ‘dessert’ for four days, Mama’, he hollered. Chocolate in bars obviously doesn’t qualify for dessert any more, so I set to make the easiest thing I could in limited time. It had to be a fruit based dessert, and the only fruit at home were apples…
… so I zeroed in on a crisp! Just had to add some ‘London nostalgia’ to my dessert. What I decided to use was the Linswood ‘Milled nut flour‘ from the enviable goodie bag that we got at the FBC ’09.
The bags were organised by no other than fabulous Beth of Dirty Kitchen Secrets, and would have left you drooling! The Linswood site is worth a stop over because it’s brimming with a wonderful array of super foods as well as recipe ideas! Thank you Beth … I do love my goodie bag to bits!! That’s what inspired my CRISP!!
What’s the difference between grunts, slumps, buckles, cobblers, crisps, crunches, pandowdies, and brown betties?
All of these quick and simple desserts are made of fruit topped with a biscuit dough or a crumbly mixture of flour, butter, and sugar.
Traditionally, if the biscuit is stirred into the fruit during cooking, it’s a PANDOWDY.
To be a CRISP, a CRUMBLE, or a CRUNCH, the fruit must be topped with some variation of a butter, sugar, and flour topping.
Typically, a CRUMBLE has flour, sugar, butter, and oatmeal; a CRISP has flour, sugar, butter and nuts; and a CRUNCH has sugar, butter, and breadcrumbs. There are also cake-like (instead of biscuit-like) variations, which include BROWN BETTIES and BUCKLES.
Some of the funny names, which date back to early American cooking, have a British influence (you know, the people who created BUBBLE and SQUEAK). SLUMPS and GRUNTS, for example, both have a large biscuit over the fruit. But a SLUMP is cooked uncovered, so it slumps on the serving plate, and a GRUNT is covered, which steams the biscuit topping and lets the fruit gurgle–or grunt–while cooking.
APPLE CRISP
Serves 8
Ingredients:
6-8 firm apples; (crisp ones, a bit tart are fine)
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsps vanilla sugar or regular
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup black dried grapes or raisins
Topping
2 heaped tbsps plain flour
2 tbsps brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
Method:
Core,peel and dice apples. Toss them with lemon juice immediately after all have been chopped or they turn brown.
Mix in the dried black grapes, walnuts, cinnamon & sugar.
Put into 8 individual ramekins or a shallow pie dish (9” or 23cm or 1L), and press lightly into place.
Mix milled flour, plain flour and sugar with a spoon in a dry bowl.
Put in cold butter cut into pieces and work with finger tips to make a breadcrumbs like texture.
Now toss in the oats lightly with a spoon.
Assemble:
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put this crumble over the apple mixture, pressing down gently to cover the top & seal the fruit in.
Bake till top light brown and stewed apple juice begins to appear on edges/about 30minutes. If the top begins to brown too quickly, cover with foil until done.
Note: Warm in microwave if need be before serving.
