Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Crumble and cakes

Crumb cake and Streusel Crumble is the name of a simple topping spread instead of pastry on fruit pies of the dish type with no bottom crust. These toppings are popular in Britain. Recipes for Crumble do not appear in old books of English recipes, nor has it been recorded until the 20th century.

Crumble is much quicker and easier to make than pastry and it seems probable that it developed during the World War II. It is like a sweet pastry made without water. The ingredients of modern Crumble are flour, butter and sugar; a little spice is sometimes added. The butter is cut into the dry ingredients and the mixture spooned on to the pie filling without further preparation... Crumble may have been inspired by a similar cinnamon-flavoured topping traditional in Australia and Central Europe for rich tea bread or cake. The topping is called Streusel, and the cake Streuselkuchen (German streusen, to scatter).

Streusel contains much less flour in proportion to sugar than British Crumble, so that when baked it has a crisp and granular, rather than crumbly, texture and remains firmly attached to the top of the cake. It is spread over a coating of melted butter on the raw cake, which helps it to adhere."

Dust tea

How long should one boil `dust' tea ?

Meena Rao
Borabanda

Dust tea, which is available in the market should not be boiled for too long because it leads to formation of nicotine which is really harmful for health and toxic in nature.

Cleaning cauli

I heard that you should not wash gobi to make manchuria. Is it true?

Neeraj
Somajiguda

Gobi (cauliflower) has to be washed before any kind of cooking to reduce worm count. Place the gobi in salt water for one hour to remove the worms . It is always made sure that cauliflower is washed and free from worms and after wards water is drained out.

PRADEEP KHOSLA

Executive Chef, Taj Krishna

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail