Cooking the Chronicle – Nov 22
For those following along at home, I am thrilled to share that our family welcomed twin boys last week on Thursday, November 21st, the same day the Chronicle arrived in our mailbox with this week’s recipe (“Apple Pie Crumble,” Nov 22). Despite having our hands very full and officially being outnumbered, I knew I wanted to keep up with Cooking the Chronicle and not miss a week.
Working together with my toddler on these recipes has been a special time for us, and with two new babies in the house, I was worried our daughter would feel that she has been replaced or that her Imma and Abba aren’t as invested in spending time with her. So a few days after we got home with the twins, I carved out an hour in the kitchen to spend one-on-one with her.
We practiced peeling and chopping apples, and I am pretty sure I lost a whole Granny Smith to her snacking in the process. We practiced measuring and stirring without flinging flour all over the counter. She loved making the crumble and sprinkling it on top of the par-baked apples.
What I liked about this recipe is that the end result wasn’t too sweet, which I think is the tart Granny Smith apples at work. The recipe calls for 5lbs of apples. This feels like a lot, but when they cook down, it’s a nice even ration of filling to crumble. If you like your crumble heavier on the fruit, I think it would work very well to add in a few extra pounds of apples, any type, just to bulk it up or feed more people.
I personally noted that this is a long bake time for apples that are cut fairly thin—quarter inch slices—so the end result is a filling that is thick and soft. You could easily just cut 10 minutes off the bake time if firmer apples are to your taste, as long as the top of the crumble gets a nice golden brown.
Overall, a yummy and heartfelt thank you to Jessica Grann for a manageable and easy recipe that this freshly postpartum mom of three was able to knock out with her daughter before sitting down for dinner.
An added bonus! The leftovers have made for excellent middle-of-the-night snacking, while the twins sleep quietly.
