Oxford Diary: Apple Crumble

In my boring  home maker avatar I have turned chef. Last week we had picked up a bag of apples which were actually very sour. Since we could not eat them, I decided to try making apple crumble with them. When I was in Canada, my French room mate Pauline used to make apple crumbles often. She used to say that it is easy to make. So I took heart from that advice and ventured forth. Found plenty of recepies and demo videos in the net.

It really is easy to make and awsome to taste. So if you have some sour apples you cant eat go on and try it.

First peel off the apples, and chop them. I had about 5 apples, then I poured about three fourth cup of powder sugar and mixed it with the apples. I read in one of the recipies that cinnamon and clove power makes it aromatic. I have put in both. But I would suggest just put in cinnamon and not clove. Though smelling great, clove was not tasting too well. It tasted too strong.

The chopped apples mixed with sugar and cinnamon powder.

Now for the crumble. About a cup of self raising flour, butter, one fourth cup of sugar. All this was mixed with hand till it almost looked like bread crumbs.

Then get a baking dish or a foil, smear it with butter, pour the apples and then speard the crumble paste evenly. I baked it for 40 mins in 180 degrees. Afterwards I let it cool for 15 minutes and the crumble was ready to eat. Eating suggestion was with vanila ice cream or fresh cream, since I had none at home, I ate it just like that. In fact I am eating this while writing this post.

Getting the coins right...

Have you guys ever have problems with your coins? Well whenever I shift to a new country, the first few weeks go trying to figure out the coins. Initial days in Canada I remember holding up queues in super markets while I tried to figure out the coins and give the correct change. It used to be rather embarassing and the more embarassed I got the more muddled I would be. People behind me in the queues would be shifting impatiently while I would vainly try to see which coin is what. Mostly the teller would come to my rescue and sort through the coins to extract the correct change.

Same thing is happening in UK as well. Like everything else I am getting to know the coins. But this time I have become smarter, I have kept a small coin purse where I keep all the change and only take those out when there is no queue behind me.

One irritating thing in these countries is the usage of one and two pence. Not that you can use these to buy anything, but since they are in circulation they just tend to make your purse heavy.