Apple Crumble - Do you think School have taught this right?

[yohoohoo]

DS had 2nd food tech (that's what they call it now [hmm) apple crumble it was.
2 eating apples - didnt show him how to peel it or core it - just told them to chop up and put in dish. Then make the crumble with oats in it, by the time he had doen it the apple had turned brown he said I said perhaps you should of done the crumble first then apple then put crumble straight on top. However the teacher told them to chop apple and layer the apple and crumble so apple, crumble, layer of apple then crumble.

It came home rock hard on top, over done and inside all well yuk...I think the oats made it hard.

Have re-done one this weekend the way I do it (tradition method) and he cant believe how different we did it. Even showed him how to core an apple

Food tech is driving me crazy. Silly recipes for useless things using out of season and expensive ingredients.

Plus DS1 doesn't even weigh out the ingredients. Is that normal? All has to be brought in to school in the exact quantities required

There are two types of crumble topping - I prefer the flour sugar and butter type but in any case that recipe is all wrong.

Sorry for not been back...this week was bolognese. Recipe said boil then simmer for 20 mins. Teacher had to demo it to begin with (usually do this the week before but wasnt in) so they ran out of time so DS only simmered it for 5mins before being told to throw it in a dish and take home to do.

I demo'd this with him on Monday to show him how to chop an onion!

This is why my dc watch me make dinner each night. That's how I learnt the basics too.

It wasn't any better when I was at high school though to be honest. Pasta salad is legendary in my family as creating a recipe for one then making it (during the last lesson) took up an entire half term.

Recipe said boil then simmer for 20 mins.

That's pretty rubbish. Cooking time is at least 2 hours - totally unsuitable as a recipe to do in lessons.

It must be apple crumble week.

DO made it this week too. He was told to bring dried fruit as well as apples. I refused. He had to use 'healthy cereal' for the topping.

He forgot to bring it home on Tuesday so it was already a day old. It's now sitting in the bottom of the fridge. No one wants to eat it. The apples are brown and the topping is burnt. Food Tech is rubbish.

I make my crumble topping with about 50per cent oats, ground nuts, cinnamon and butter. It's delish.

But layering

Layering sounds repulsive. Soggy crumble. Yuk.

It sounds disgusting. Like others, I parboil peeled and cored Bramley apple slices, put them in a dish with a tbsp of sugar, then the crumble mix on top (with some oats instead of flour) as per The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book (modified). It's never hard!

We often laugh about DC's food tech, when he mangled chicken tikka sandwiches (due to butter out the fridge), leek and potato soup (minus potatoes as he could not peel them), fruit salad (broke the knife on the peach stone) and quiche (with onions burnt to a cinder while he made the pastry)! He said he would never make any of those things, as an adult - why didn't he learn to cook the stuff he does eat, like steak with salad, stir fries, etc!

Sounds terrible. I use 1/2 oats, 1/2 flour, but it works fine because the crumble is on top of the apple (Bramley, sliced, not cooked first).

Though even when I did cookery at school in the pre-Food Tech days, it was shit and useless - 3 types of inedible digestives, 3 weeks of shortbread, scones, scone-based pizza. Nothing like how to chop an onion.