Over the past two weeks, my mood had not been too beautiful. It was like the weather, bright and sunny in the morning but the day would be ended with a thunderstorm. Things got a little worse when I tried to boost my mood trying out some bakes. I tried my hands at making a banana sponge cake and a banana crumble. Both attempts failed, which resulted in my mood resembling the onslaught of a hailstorm.
Maybe I can't say that the banana crumble failed, because a fruit crumble is not such a difficult bake after all. But it was my first at attempting a crumble, and since I started with banana, I thought it would be better to give it a little more blitz in the oven. Turned out the banana was a little too caramelized for my liking. Coupled with dry crunchy crumble topping, the banana crumble I made wasn't that palatable. Of course I bought ice-cream to go with the crumble. But my helpful Tiny Man stored the ice-cream in the wrong compartment, ie the chiller instead of the freezer, so the ice-cream melted. I didn't think dumping a gooey mess of vanilla onto the already dry (and slightly burnt) banana crumble would make it look more appetizing.
The other failure, or perhaps it is better to call it a disaster, is my attempt at making a banana sponge cake. In the past, I had made a total of 4 attempts at sponge cakes of various flavors. None of them came out looking anything like a sponge cake. They were either over-baked thus tasting really dry and coarse, or they collapse dramatically once I take the cake out of the oven. I swear I could hear the air hissing their way out of the cakes! Pissssssssssss... ... out comes the air, down goes the cake into a soft pile of "kueh". That was exactly the performance put up by my banana sponge cake, "lau hong" (漏风). It was really quite a shocking sight, and I would have collapsed into a pile of sobbing Mummy, had it not been time to pick the kids up from school ^_^
The apple crumble is thus a cautious attempt to sprinkle some sunshine onto my foul mood, which thank goodness, turned out well. The first time I heard of a fruit crumble was from Nigella Lawson, in her program Nigella Express, when she made this dessert called "Jumbleberry Crumble". Of course the dessert looked so gorgeously moist and delicious, and the crumble topping practically "crumbled" out at me from the television. Another program I love watching is "Great British Food" featuring Tom Norrington-Davies, and he made apple crumble. Seems easy enough, I reckoned. And since apple is supposed to have more moisture, "dry fruit crumble can be avoided" is my guess.
So here's a comforting success, topped with raspberry swirl vanilla ice-cream. This time, I made sure the ice-cream is stored in the freezer!
Apple crumble
(makes 3 individual ramekins)
For the crumble topping
75g cold butter, diced
75g demerara sugar
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
For the apple
3 small China Fuji apples
2 tbsp demerara sugar
small pinch of cinnamon
1 tbsp water
Method
1. Mix the plain flour and baking powder together.
2. Rub the butter into the flour using fingertips until it resembles very coarse breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the sugar and mix well using a fork. At this point, I kept the crumble topping in a ziploc bag and place it in the freezer.
3. To prepare the apples for this fruit crumble, peel, core and roughly chop apples. Cook apples, sugar, water and cinnamon until the moisture is fully reduced and a light caramelized smell comes wafting out of the pot. Let the fruit cool.
4. Preheat oven to 180deg C. Place the cooled cooked apples into ramekins until 2/3 full, top with 2-3 tbsp of the crumble toppings and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the crumble topping is golden brown in color.
I like to let the crumble cool for about 30 minutes before serving it with ice-cream. At least, I know I would not burn my tongue with the sizzling hot moist apples.
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