Apple crumble: Exams and apple crumbles… daughters and fans!

Kanch goes in for a NESTA exam today – that’s the US certification exam to become a fitness trainer (phew, my daughter, just imagine – considering i barely know my toes from my fingers when i’m asked to bring the two together ;)!

Excited call about a couple of hours later saying she’s passed – obviously being the mom that i am and the daughter that she is – my thoughts of celebration turn instantly to food – what shall i make ???

Open the fridge and stare at it for a while before registering a few cubes of cheese, maamidi taandra (aam paapad) and assorted vegetables – none of which look particularly celebratory to me. Panic- till i sight some..many apples! Apple crumble – quick and delicious and easy enough to whip up so she can walk into a house filled with the smell of cinnamon and baking – yay!

Start coring the apples – completely forgot to peel them, btw! – and my thoughts zing back some 4 decades and my mother’s first attempts at baking. Mom, while not very skilled – was an adventurous soul, if nothing else and we’ve eaten many a strange result of one of those ‘adventures’! Still alive to tell the tale. Back in the sixties and seventies, pre-internet and almost pre-cookbooks (okay, okay, prehistoric if you must say so!), there were very few home bakers and recipes were passed around carefully and preciously. My mother, being crock-full of confidence, disdained pieces of paper and preferred to commit recipes to an uncertain memory 😉

She comes back from work one day with a recipe (mindmap!) for apple pie that she’d overheard an Anglo-Indian friend of hers discussing with another friend. Since her mind was at the same time, a bit preoccupied with breech presentations and caesarian sections, she decided to gloss over the parts that she had missed out on. The result was a lumpy thing that fell apart when you tried to pick it up! Mom decided that merely slicing apples was too easy to be quite right so she ground them up. Then again, just 50 or was it 100 gm of butter – couldn’t be quite right, right? Let’s slather it on! I remember feeding bits of apple pie to Tommy, the dog (mentioned earlier in these chronicles), and Tommy being gloriously sick the next day.

Let’s hope this apple crumble doesn’t have the same effect on you 😉

Apples – don’t forget to peel and core – 6 – slice and squeeze juice of about 1/2 a lemon to prevent them from discolouring

Sugar – 3/4 cup

Oats – 1/2 cup

Flour (maida) – 2 tbsp

Cold Butter – 3 tbsp

Cinnamon powder – 1/2 tsp

Whizz all ingredients from 2 to 6 in a mixie till the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs and is not wet. Layer in a flan dish and sprinkle oats mixture in top. Bake at 200 C for 25-30 minutes till done and the crust is golden.

Serve with whipped cream. Well, ice cream if you must but it’s not a patch on the real stuff…