Dude's Des(s)ert Double

Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been over a week since my last confession…no wait, I mean my des(s)ert day. I have not updated the blog within the pre-ordained 1 week deadline, so I stand before you (really I am sitting at my laptop) begging your forgiveness. Working in my favor is the fact that I actually brought in two desserts.

The week before my turn came up, I traveled to England for my Grandfathers funeral. I have a lot of family in England and several of them were nice enough to provide us with lodging and some delicious meals. Each of those home cooked meals was followed by a fantastic dessert. I had my first taste of Crème Brule (which was homemade and terrific), some kind of apple pie/tart/crumble (also awesome), and the most “right up my wheelhouse” dessert of all time; Treacle tart.

For those of you who don’t know, Treacle tart is essentially “sugar pie”. Being the lover of sugar that I am, I can tell you that it was friggin’ delicious. I decided that I would learn how to make one. Here’s how it goes.

First, you have to find something called Golden Syrup. I (actually my lovely wife) found it in the British section of our local supermarket. Golden Syrup is a byproduct of the sugar refining process. It has about the consistency and sweetness of honey, but not the “honey” taste. To make a Treacle tart, take equal parts of Golden Syrup and white, unseasoned breadcrumbs (1 cup of each) and mix them in a bowl. Add a small amount of lemon juice and a little bit of lemon zest (I used the zest and juice of one small lemon). Pour the mix into a pastry crust and bake at 350F for about 20 minutes. I left mine in the oven for about 30 minutes, and it was over done. There is nothing in the tart that needs to be cooked, so don’t worry about under cooking it. The gooeyer the better.

Once the Treacle tart was done, I became worried that it would not go over well with my very American audience. Therefore I decided to make a second more American dessert, Dutch Apple Crumble. Smell that? That’s irony.

Fortunate for me, the Dutch apple crumble also has a lot of sugar in it, maintaining it’s “in my wheelhouse” status. To make the apple crumble, you will need 4-6 apples, thinly sliced. There should be enough apple slices to slightly over-fill whatever pie plate you want to use (Pyrex or Corningware work best). To the apple slices, add 1/4 cup of white sugar, 1/3 cup of brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (more or less if you prefer). Stir up the apple/sugar mix and pour it into the pie plate. For the crumble you will need 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of white sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Mix up the dry ingredients, and the “press” in a stick of butter (or in my case 1/2 cup of vegan margarine). As the butter mixes in the “stuff” will become a little sticky. Use your hands to press it together into small lumps and then break (crumble) them up. Pour the “crumble” over the apple/sugar mix and then bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. You want the crumble on top to brown but not get too hard. The apple mixture will boil and shrink, so don’t worry if the pie plate is over-filled; the whole thing will shrink. The end result will be a squishy on the bottom, crumbly on the top, pie plate full of appley sugary goodness. Enjoy.