This is what to make when your apple trees are producing more fruit than you know what to do with, which is precisely what's happening to us right now. There are bags and bags of them. Cookers and eaters. We do wrap some in paper to keep them through the winter, but there's only so much space along with the preserved fruits, dried beans, onions, potatoes, and garlic. Thankfully, it's a tasty dessert so there aren't too many complaints!
If you've recently moved house and can't locate the kitchen scales for love nor money, it's also a winner. You can judge the quantities by eye. Yep, that's what I did here. I used a serving spoon, so one of those hulking great things we use to dish up vegetables, for the majority of my measuring, but when I say 'tablespoon' I do mean an actual standard measure tablespoon. In essence, you need half the quantity of fat to flour and oats when measuring by weight, but seeing as fat is more dense than flour or oats, when you're measuring by volume, you need a quarter. None of these measures were especially scientific.
Reckon you can roll with me on this one?
- 4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- Sprinkling cinnamon
- 4 serving spoons of flour, I used self-raising because it was all I could find (if going by the weighing method, it's 3oz or 90g)
- 4 serving spoons of rolled oats (3oz or 90g, again)
- 2 serving spoons of butter at room temperature (3oz, or 90g. Spot a pattern here?)
- Between 4 and 6 more tablespoons of brown sugar (say 2oz or 60g), depending on how sweet you like things
Method
Take an overproof dish—
pyrex,
enamel, whatever—roughly the size of a sheet of A4 paper and grease it. I just forgot this crucial part, so we'll have sticky pan crumble. Ah well. Layer your chopped apples in the bottom, sprinkle with the two tablespoons of brown sugar and the cinnamon and mix.
In a large mixing bowl rub the butter into the flour and oats mixture and when it resembles weird oaty breadcrumbs, stir in the four (or six, or even more if you prefer very sweet food) tablespoons of brown sugar.
Tip this mixture over the apples and spread it as evenly as you can manage.
Bake in a hottish oven (say 200° Celsius or 400° Fahrenheit) for 30 or 40 minutes. Then serve it hot with cream, ice cream, or custard. It's perfect for keeping out the winter chill.