Simple Apple crumble recipe + streusel loaf experiment

Apple surfeit? Don't mind if I do. Yes, it is, yet again, a post involving apples (a lot) and cinnamon (a little). Well, in my defense they do taste great together.
So, while I was visiting my parents, I thought I would make my dad an apple streusel cake. But my mother didn't have any small sandwich tins. She did, however, have a 1lb loaf tin. So I thought I'd try using that.
Unfortunately, she also has a fan oven. Mine is gas and old as the earth. So my time conversions were a little off and it got a wee bit burnt on the outside as you can see below. It still tasted good though.


It also tasted pretty damn good served with cream. I may try serving it with ice cream next time.




So, basically, the aforementioned apple streusel cake recipe works well enough in a small loaf tin, but you do need to fudge the cooking times a wee bit.

Anyway, after I had made that, I had some streusel topping and apples left. I didn't want to waste them, so I thought "Ooo. Apple crumble".
Of course I had no recipe, so I just made one up. Below is the basic recipe, but it can generally be adjusted to taste, I imagine.


Basic apple crumble

Ingredients:

3 apples
1 tsp cinnamon
handful raisins
1 tbsp brown sugar

Crumble topping:

2 tbsp butter
40g sugar
58g plain flour
(these measurements are approximate. If the crumble is too sticky, add more flour, if it is too dry, add more butter.)

Preheat oven to 180c

1. Peel, core and slice the apples
2. Place in a saucepan with the cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar and enough water to cover them.
3. Cover and stew till soft
4. While the apples are stewing, rub the flour into the butter until it forms crumbs.
5. Stir the sugar into the flour mixture
6. Spoon the apple mixture into a 15cm pyrex dish and cover with the crumble
7. Sprinkle some extra sugar and cinnamon on top to taste
8. Bake in the oven for around 40 minutes or until golden brown

This dish is best served warm with either cream or ice cream. As you can see below, it is very popular and when you come back to take a photo of it most of it may have disappeared.

Apple Streusel cake+ recipe

A few days ago, I decided to try out (yet another) apple cake. I do love me some apple cake, yes I do.
Does anything on this blog not have apple and/or cinnamon in it? It would seem not.
Oh well, I hear apples are in this season. Or something.

This recipe originally came from the book 'everyday baking', but as I didn't have a 9 inch cake tin, I halved it and did it in a 6 inch one. I think it came out fine. If you want to make the original size cake just double the recipe and use a 9 inch cake tin.


Apple Streusel cake

Cake:

58g/2 oz butter
225g cooking apples (about 1)
88g/3 0z self raising flour
1tsp cinnamon
pinch salt
58g/2 0z demerara sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp milk

Topping:

58g/2 oz self raising flour
3 tbsp butter
42g/2.5 oz demerara sugar

Greased 6 inch cake tin
Oven pre heated to 180c/350f/G.M4

To make the topping:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl
2. Rub in the butter until crumbly
3. Stir in the sugar
4. Set aside for later
   

To make the cake:

1. Peel, core and slice the apples. You want the slices to be pretty thin.
2. Sift flour, cinnamon and salt into a bowl
3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy
4. Beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture
5. Fold in half the flour mix
6. Add the milk and the rest of the flour
7. Spoon into the tin
8. Arrange the apple slices on top of the cake batter
9. Sprinkle the topping over the apple slices
10. Bake for around 1 hour to 1.5 hours (depending on your oven) or until firm.
11. Cool in the tin
    

New craft bits!

The local craft shop had a sale on today so I got 3 skeins of embroidery thread and one of tapestry wool all for £2.
The thread is in lovely colours, 1 sort of candy corn like, 1 pumpkin-y and 1 lovely mixed green:



The photos don't show quite how vibrant the colours are, but they are pretty strong.
The tapestry wool is a nice antique red. I'll find something to use it in, I suspect.

I also just got given these charm bags from Japan, which will be great for sending jewelry off in.

Healthy apple muffins + recipe

Recently I decided that I wanted to make some muffins. This would be great, but generally muffins are loaded with calories and fat and I'm trying to eat well.
I found this recipe on LJ's bakebakebake community. It's a pretty healthy and quite cheap apple muffin recipe which I ended up modifying slightly.
One thing to note, is that if you are using a silicone muffin tray, this recipe only just yields 5 nice sized muffins. It may yield more in a metal pan. Or maybe it's just that the apple I used was rather small. I don't know. The muffins came out great though. Heavy and not too sweet. Perfect for breakfast.

Easy apple muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 apple (peeled and grated)
  
• 1 egg (beaten)
  
• 2.5 tablespoons demerera sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 9 tablespoons plain flour (approx)

preheat oven to 170c/325f/GM3

Sift baking powder and flour
Mix apple, egg, sugar and cinnamon. Do not use an electric hand whisk/mixer, a wooden spoon is fine.
Add wet to dry and mix until incorporated. Try not to beat or over mix, it makes the muffins the wrong texture.
Spoon mixture into muffin cups 3/4 full to full depending on the size muffin you want. I filled the cups and ended up with medium muffins.
If using a metal muffin pan, don't forget to oil/grease it before adding the mixture. Silicon ones, remember to fill any spare cups with water and stand on a baking tray in the oven.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Insert a skewer into the tops. If it comes out clean they're done! With my old gas oven it took 25 minutes.
Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then take out and cool on a wire rack.

These would probably be pretty easy to make with kids, and they would be a great not too sugary treat!

What this blog will be about.

I've decided that this blog will have general details about the projects I do. These include music photography , baking, jewelery making and general crafts.
I'll be putting up pictures, tutorials, recipes and notes. Check back for further content in future.