Milena’s Cooking Adventures
I’m in Denmark again (yes, no one can keep track of where I am, least of all myself), visiting my family and a very cute Danish boy I happen to be going on accidental 6-hour hikes with. :3 I know full well that, although I am welcome in my brother’s household, it is best to pay rent. Copenhagen ain’t cheap, you know. And rent, in this case, involves baking as much as possible. Someone’s gotta bring home the chocolate chip cookies. They aren’t gonna bake themselves.
Yesterday night I made an apple crumble, on a whim. For some reason, apple crumble is always a dish that I have entirely eyeballed– I’ve never used a recipe. In fact, in a move that is very out-of-character for my perfectionistic self, I’ve never even looked up a recipe to see what proportions to use, or what really is in a crumble. Which is a blessing here in Denmark, because translating cups to ounces and tablespoons to grams and some random things into milliliters (???) is a real pain. So just throwing a bunch of things together and figuring out when it feels “right” instead of doing endless math was truly relaxing.
Er, of course, that means that this recipe ends up being a bit… “special.” This, for example, was my “cup” measure:
And the amount of apples that I used was “this bowl right here.”
The good news is that I scribbled down some notes. The better news is that the crumble turned out so well that my brother and his family hinted strongly (okay, there were some clasped hands and pleading looks) that I should make another one the next day.
So I made another one today. After some expert tasting, they declared it “similarly flawless.” That’s right, y’all. The amounts I scribbled down for you from my thrown-together recipe have been tested now. Grab your tinkerbell mugs, folks, cos it’s time to crumble.
Similarly Flawless Apple Crumble
- Apples, cut into slices, enough to fit a large pie or baking dish (I like fuji, or some other slightly tart eating apple)
- Juice of one orange
- 1 TBS brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
- 2 tinkerbell “cups” flour (a tinkerbell cup = a small-sized mug; kid-sized!)
- 1 tinkerbell “cup” white sugar
- 1 tsp salt (or to taste)
- 125g (1/2 cup) salted butter, softened
Preheat the oven to 190˚C/375˚F. Cut up apples and put in a bowl. Add sugar, orange juice, and cinnamon, then stir and let stand while you make the crumble topping.
Dump the tinkerbell flour and tinkerbell sugar in a bowl with the salt, and stir to make sure all the magic fairy dust is evenly distributed. Add the softened (almost melted) butter and work in with your fingertips until it’s a bit like soft sand with some clumps in it (see picture above).
Turn out the apple mixture into a large pie or baking dish. Then take a fistful of topping and squeeze it in your fist. When you crumble it on top of the apples, this will ensure that you get some nice bigger clumps of dough for some great crunch. Make sure to evenly cover all the apples.
Put in the oven for 40-50 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Eat with ice cream. Eat plain. Eat hot. Eat cold. Eat every day. This stuff is flawless.
Eating My Words 