This is peach and apple crumble, both from the farm. The honey crisp apples are juicy and crisp and way too tart for eating, for me, but great for cooking. So after trying a couple for midmorning apple break, I decided to cook them.
It's also a chance to use a couple of tools I like even though they are single purpose. One being this cool apple corer
Also I mentioned possible crisps in our future last time Handsome Son was here and noticed how he brightened up.
So here's the doings.
Note the cinnamon is Ceylon, the real thing. Not the stuff you get at the supermarket which is a poor relation of the real stuff, tougher, harsher. The molasses is to turn the white sugar brown, no need to mix it separately, I just add them in as ingredient, same result.
I do Rose Birnbaum's maceration, which raises the whole thing up an order of magnitude in flavor. It's more to do, but when you've driven to the farm, brought home the fruit, peeled, cored, diced etc and made the topping you might as well do one more thing and make it great rather than just good.
You need all these to macerate the fruit. Then toss the doings together and leave it alone for up to an hour.
Then drain the fruit over a pan and you'll find quite a bit of juice emerging. Rose does the adding in two stages, but I just macerate the lot, fruit, ginger, lemon zest, sugar, molasses, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt all at once. I don't notice any difference.
You reduce that fast, swirling the pan around as if you knew why you swirl not stir, some food chemistry.
Then you've put the fruit in the glass dish, I like a glass dish for this, looks very appealing.
Once the juice, now syrup, is half the original amount, pour it over the fruit.
Add the topping which I improvised, oat flakes, whole-wheat flour, sugar, molasses, melted butter. More dots of butter on top.
Oven 375f. Half an hour with a foil cover, half without. It's bubbling nicely now. Needs a rest before you dive in.
Good for afternoon tea, snack for son, breakfast -- well it's oats and fruit! said defensively.
