Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Individual Apple Crumbles

I am aware that it is the middle of the summer fruit season. I know that apricots, peaches, cherries, plums, etc are all beautiful right now. I also know that Matt greatly prefers apple desserts. I'm not about to make something sweet if I'm the only person in the house who will eat it. My waistline would not appreciate that. So apple crumbles it is. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I combined a couple of recipes and ended up with the dessert I'm making next time Matt's mom and dad come to town.

Individual Apple Crumbles
Makes 2 apple crumbles

For the filling
4 small gala apples, peeled and diced into large chunks
1/4 c. granulated sugar
2 TB all purpose flour
1 tsp lemon zest
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of salt

For the topping
1/2 c all purpose flour
2 TB granulated sugar
2 TB light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/8 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of slat
1/2 stick of cold unsalted butter, diced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all of the filling ingredients and mix well. Spoon into ramekins (the ones that I used were from Crate and Barrel, hold about 10 oz, and are like slightly taller creme brulee dishes). In a food processor or stand mixer (I used my mini food processor and it just barely fit) combine all of the topping ingredients. Pulse or mix until the butter is the size of peas. Loosely top the ramekins with the topping. Place ramekins on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden brown and the filling is bubbly. Serve with vanilla ice cream on top. Note: the filling will overflow a little, so you really want to put the parchment paper down, otherwise cleaning the baking sheet will be a huge pain. I learned this one the hard way.

You can make the crumbles earlier and keep them in the fridge until ready to bake. Bring them to room temperature before putting in the oven.

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