One of the more unique aspects of being in the Data School is each data schooler having to cook a dish of their choice (during training) and bring it in on their chosen week to share with the cohort. And the winner is announced at the graduation event, at the end of the 4-month training event.
I ended up making apple crumble for the week that I decided to cook. It was not my initial choice. My first instinct was to make pizza from scratch i.e. homemade pizza base and tomatoes sauce. However, considering the transportation and having to cool and heat it, the potential of the pizza base going soggy and not very tasty. Another option I thought about cooking was a chicken parmigiana. Again, its something that I love cooking but its pub food and it can be commonly found. I decided to make the apple crumble as it was mums recipe and having to move from Queensland, away from my parents I wanted to think about home while I cooked. In terms of the recipe I ended up combing a couple of them. This was my first time cooking this dish and I didn’t get time to do a trial run either.
Without further ado this is the recipe (recipe is for 12-people):
Ingredients:
Apple filling
2 kg Granny Smith Apples
2 tbsp flour (all purpose/plain)
1-cup brown sugar (you can use white sugar if you wish)
4 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
The crumble
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups flour (all purpose/plain)
1-cup brown sugar (the original recipe called for 2-cups you can increase or reduce as you desire)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
250g unsalted butter (melted)
pinch of salt
Method
- Peel the apples and cut into small pieces (soak them in water while you do the other step so that they don’t go brown)
- The filling – Place apples, flour, sugar, cinammon, and lemon juice in a saucepan and cook on medium-low heat until the apples are just soft (add water as needed).
- Pre-heat over to 180°C
- Once cooked place filling in an oven proof dish
- The crumble – Put the crumble ingredients in a bowl and mix so that they form clumps
- Place the crumble over the filling
- Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown
- Once done, let it cool for 10-minutes before serving
- Serve with custard or ice cream
- ENJOY!!!
That’s it, my dish that I cooked. Everyone enjoyed it and to me that’s the important part. The winner of the cooking competition gets company paid dinner at the restaurant of their choosing for themselves and one other person. So, the reward is very much worth the effort. At the end of the day it was a nice way to relax, and do something fun at work from all the stresses of training.