White Tea Apple Crumble

Crumble? Cobbler? Crisp? What’s the difference? Honestly, I don’t know. Even after looking them all up several times I see people refer to different things, different ways. That’s ok.

I’m naming this dish a crumble because to me, it’s a little crumbly just how I like it :)

This is another super simple recipe. While I will do some more in depth recipes too, to keep me on my one blog post a week routine, I need to keep things simple most of the time. The benefit of this is that I can figure out how to use ingredients I have on hand to create yummy things and share that with you too!

So today’s quick recipe, you need:

-Apples

-Butter

-Rolled oats

-Flour

-Baking soda (optional)

-Lemon

-Brown Sugar

-White tea

I used 4 apples for this crumble, they were two different kinds that I got in my weekly product box. In terms of prep, I would suggest slicing them relatively thinly so baking is quicker and cut out seeds etc. Some people peel the apples but I personally love the skin so I leave it on! Feel free to peel them if you’d like!

Tea comes into this recipe at the very start! I brewed up some white tea and soaked the apple for 2-3 hours in the tea! I brewed some Columbian white tea very strong and let it cool slightly before I put the apple in because I didn’t want them to soften too much.

After about 3 hours, they looks like this, tinted with the white tea (compare to above photos) and they had a lovely white tea fragrance and taste. The reason I brewed the white tea strongly is that this is a very subtle taste and I wanted the apples to get as much flavor as possible from the tea!

This dish that I’m using is actually a quiche dish but I like the taller edges so I always use it for pies and other things besides quiche. I also added in a handful of blueberries and blackberries to this for a little variety. Feel free to add your favorite fruits!

For the inside, I sprinkled about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, the juice of 1 lemon and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. I usually use 1/3 a lemon but the lemon I had wasn’t very juicy so I used the whole one. I love tart so the more lemon the better but lessen this if you don’t want it as tart. As for the baking powder, I have made this without it and it was fine.

The topping is very simple also. I leave the rolled oats whole because I like the texture but if you want it less crunchy you can put them in a food processor and pulse a few times. I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed it into 1 cup of rolled oats. I then sprinkled some flour over the oats, just a little like a teaspoon to a tablespoon. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit as evenly as you can and place in the oven!

I baked this at 350 for about 50 minutes. I did 30 minutes then checked on it and did 2 intervals of 10 minutes. After the first 30 minutes, I cute up some small cubes of butter and placed them over the topping to add a little golden brown buttery goodness. Let it cool slightly so you don’t burn your mouth and voila!

A simply crumble for you. The topping isn’t stuck together that much which is how I like it but if you would like it to stick together more I would increase the flour and butter when preparing the topping.

I could see this being pretty good with hojicha or roasted oolong apples as well!

I hope you enjoy tea soaked apple crumble :)

Mini Apple Cider Donuts

Happy November and welcome to a special recipe post! Not only will I be sharing this fun mini apple cider donut recipe, this recipe is part of a virtual tea party I was invited to join in on by Daniela of Tea Cachai!

At the end of this post I will link the rest of the menu from the other tea party chefs so that you can see and create their recipes as well!

If you were around last fall, I made apple cider donuts but I used my large pan! This time, in honor of the tea party I made them mini!

Mini donuts are so awesome because you can eat like 10 of them and it’s as if you only ate one big donut hehe.

For this recipe, I made my own apple cider. It’s super simple. The gist of it is that you cut up a bunch of apples throw them in a pot with enough water and add some spices! I actually had to switch pots after this photo. I have a full post here about how to make your own apple cider.

The changes I made this time were purely out of what I had. I used about 10 tiny honey crisp apples, I added peppercorn, cardamom and cinnamon and didn’t use cheese cloth because I ran out! I also infused this apple cider with oriental beauty oolong instead of green tea.

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If you’re thinking - ain’t no body got time for that- you can also just buy apple cider from the store and reduce it a bit so that it’s stronger!

Last time, I used this recipe to make the donuts with a few additions. Check out the recipe here and below I’ll tell you about some of the changes I made.

  • 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) apple cider ——> I made my own tea infused apple cider

  • 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar —-> This recipe called to use 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 white and 1/2 brown. I used light brown sugar for the entire cup.

  • 1/2 cup (120ml) milk, at room temperature* ——-> I used chasew Milk

  • Bake for 10 -11 minutes ———> while my timing with the smaller pan wasn’t much less, I would suggest baking time of 9-10 minutes

  • I used a mini donut pan instead of a larger one.

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This recipe is great because it’s super simple. You mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients then combine them and bake!

When pouring the batter into the molds, i suggest something with a spout of a piping bag!

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My mini donut pan has 12 spaces and this recipe allowed me to make 5 pans! You could probably stretch it to 6 if you make smaller donuts by not filling the pan entirely.

These are perfect for a tea party because they are simple, quick and a perfect size for a bite sized snack. These are great to dip in your tea, especially if you have a smaller cup and wont fill you up after a few.

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Being Mini, there are also so many fun ways to display them! If you’re an apple lover, this is definitely something that you need to try!

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But hey, don’t ruin your appetite with only donuts! We have a full menu of delicious treats! Check out all the other recipes that are part of this virtual tea party!




German Apple Pancake

My older sister found a video of a "German Apple pancake" a while back and decided she wanted that to be her sweet. In case you're lost I've mentioned in past posts that for Iranian New Year (Norouz) I gave everyone in my family a ticket for a sweet of their choice, some are still cashing in :) 

The recipe is from the site Tip Hero and is accompanied by a really simple and helpful recipe! 

Check out the recipe here.

Tips: This recipe was fairly simple but I would suggest cutting your slices a bit thinner, the outcome will be less chunky. 

Have you tried any good recipes recently ? Share you favorites with me!