Apple and Pear Crumble

Too many apples, too many pears. Not much time to make a much more elaborate dessert, so it was time to whip up some crumble. Instead of making a large dish this time, however, I made 3 large individual serves.

First, I diced apples (yellow) and pears (green) separately, mixed with some lime juice and zest, and a small amount of sugar. Then I filled each dish halfway with apples, and filled the remaining half with pear. This made for a very nice difference in color before adding the crumble mix.

Then I covered the whole dish with a crumble mix (flour, brown sugar, butter) in which I had mixed some oats for extra fiber and fun. I then decided to make a difference between the apple and pear side, so more oats were sprinkled over the pear half, and chia seeds over the apple half.

Each dish was then baked for about 20 to 30 mins at 130˚C to crisp the topping, and make the fruits tender. These dishes were quite large for individual serves.

Apple crumble recipe over here~

Fresh ginger cake

I don't know how well known it is, but Chinese or Asian people like to make a lot of ginger water (grated ginger simmered in water to release the juice and spiciness) and drink it for health reasons. As I was feeling unwell, I decided to make a small pot of it with our remaining ginger. The ginger was so spicy, I felt like I was drinking fire!

The side effect of making this ginger water is the ginger pulp that remains. I could have made another batch or two of the water to drink, but wasn't too keen on drinking it after the first batch. So I settled to make a cake with the pulp.

I found a recipe on Epicurious that I felt was adequate. I did make some changes to the recipe to fit the ingredienst I had on hands. A quick breakdown: reduced sugar, reduced oil, put more ginger, omitted cloves and pepper, and used Greek yogurt to replace one egg, and a chia seed and water mix to replace the other one. I also didn't have molasses, so I replaced it with dark brown sugar.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (150 g) grated ginger pulp
• 3/4 cup (150 g) dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (130 g) cane sugar
• 3/4 cup (165 g) oil
• 2 1/2 cups (300 g) flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup (71 g) Greek yogurt
• 1 chia egg
• 1 tbs ground chia seeds
• 3 tbs water

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. To make the chia egg, mix the ground chia seeds and 3 tbs water in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 mins until gelified.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix dark brown sugar, sugar, and oil.
4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water, and add into the sugar mix.
5. Stir in the grated ginger.
6. Fold in the flour and cinnamon.
7. Mix in the Greek yogurt and chia egg.
8. Pour into a prepared pan (I baked it in a 9 in. springform pan lined with baking paper).
9. Bake for 45-60 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool for 30 mins before unmolding.