Apple crumble teacake/muffin

So one night at work, K., and I were peckish and we decided to visit the food van. I've only ever heard of it in other nurses stories since I tend to pack my own food for night shifts. They described it as a wonderful place to get food at night, where our only source of sustenance was from vending machines and what we could steal from fridges. They spoke of pies, muffins, freshly brewed coffee and other stuff. This food van appeared outside our hospital, a bit after midnight and stayed there for a few hours as zombified doctors, nurses and wards people arrived to buy food.

Muffinssss. Coffeeeeee.

I had spent several hours frequently calling down to see if they were there and the nurse who answered the phone wasn't happy. It got to the stage that when we called, she would just say, no its not here yet. In the end, K., and I were demanding that the other person call so we wouldn't be identified by the cranky nurse. I managed to guilt K., into calling and this time, on our fourth call, they were finally there!

K., and I ended up taking the back route down there in case we were spotted by the cranky nurse in question hahaha. I got a gourmet cheese, bacon and steak pie and K., got the most gigantic fluffy apple crumble muffin. My pie was fantastic, the pastry on top was delicious and crumbly, with a molten cheesy belly and perfectly seasoned so even my BBQ sauce addled brain decided it didn't need any sauce.

But K.,'s muffin! That muffin! It was enormous! If you link your hands together, interlace your fingers and make a muffin shape with your hands, that's how big it is! I suppose if you have small hands, it was as big as the squarish side of a tissue box. The muffin top was huge. I'm was so immensely jealous of that muffin top since I can't make them for shit. The crumble was simple but delicious, consisting of just sugar and cinnamon, golden brown and almost toffee like, crunching down with every bit. The muffin itself wasn't bad, fluffy, a bit bland and not having as much apple as I'd like.

It was as big as this picture, no joke.

So I thought to myself. Fuck yeah, I can make that shit. I went to the Jan Power Markets, got myself some fresh organic, unwaxed pink lady apples for $6 for $6, I actually bought $12 worth but nevermind. Got myself stuff to make a crumble and trekked back to my boyfriend's house to make a cake!

Oh yeah now its stuck in my head.

As usual I didn't like the recipe I looked up for this cake. Since I was at my boyfriends house, I didn't have scales handy so I just changed all the proportions. So its a modified, or should I be immodest and say its my own recipe? Here is the original recipe, but I'll think you find mine is much easier ; )

We stole an egg off Mr. J, so he got first slice.

Apple Crumble Teacake/Muffins!

Uses: late night snacking, bribing nurses, pretending to be healthy

Ingredients:


For dry cake:

1 cup of SR flour, sifted

¾ cup of white sugar

Cinnamon

These photos are messed, but you get the idea

Wet Stuff for cake:

½ cup of neutral tasting vegetable oil

½ cup of milk

1 beaten egg

1 tbsp vanilla essence or paste

1-2 large fist sized apples, peeled, diced/grated

Apples!

I tried!

For the crumble:

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup softened butter

¼ cup flaked almonds

¼ cup coconut, desiccated or shredded

¼ cup plain flour

Cinnamon


Instructions:
1. For the crumble, combine all ingredients and leave to one side. Should resemble coarse, disgusting sand.

Ooh tasty.

Urgh on second thought = /

2. Heat oven to 180 degrees.
3. For the cake, sift the flour and sugar into a bowl. Sprinkle cinnamon to taste, about 1 tbs
4. Make a well, combine the oil, milk, egg and vanilla essence. Gently mix until just combined, lumps are fine, but you can keep mixing them to get rid of them if you want

Don't overmix, bad things will happen!

5. Add the apple chunks, lightly mix until just combined

This picture might be upside down.

6. Place the batter into a lined, greased cake tin or into muffin liners. Cover the top with some of the crumble mixture, about a tablespoon or however much you want. Sprinkle additional cinnamon and sugar over the tops as desired

I sprayed mine with cooking oil

You will smell this before you see it rise

7. Bake for 25-30 minutes until skewer comes out clean when poked into the cake. Muffins will only take about 20-25.

This muffin was a massive hit at work, I actually made two batches in about two days. This was probably the first time I've had so much interest in an actual recipe besides my peanut butter and choc chip cookies. I got asked for the recipe so much, I printed our 7 copies and they were gone before I left the nurses station. I ended up having to print off more copies and leave them in the break room for people to photocopy. F., and D., was raving about them haha, and like everyone else was waxing lyrical about the golden brown crunchy top, moist cake texture and sweet apple filled centre.

Watch this space too, because I've been tweaking this recipe since I first got it. The first teacake batch that I made at my boyfriend's house had too much flour and had a bad after taste which only I noticed apparently. I reduced it since then and found it didn't make too big a difference. I'm not sure if that taste was partially due to the olive oil I used however, olive oil does make a big taste difference. It was the only oil I had! I've also pondered briefly simmering the apples, and using granny smith ones instead since they cook so well. The pink ladies work well though, they just aren't as sour as I'd like, but personal tastes I suppose.

I also made a pesto gnocchi on this day, but I know a certain Italian girl by the name of T., may read this blog! So I'll refrain from posting my bastardised recipe for the moment haha.