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I am new to cooking.

I like to cook in batch because I want to come down to kitchen and pop something in microwave and return to my desk.

I only like apples (Granny Smith) cooked, so I steam them, i.e. wet cook them about a pack of 8 with a cup of water after I have peeled, cored and sliced them.

Then later, when I want a pudding I heat them up in microwave with some brandy butter.

In order to expand my range, I think I'll try cooking some Apple Crumble. Recipes say put the crumble mix on top of raw apple.

Can I put crumble mix on top of already cooked apple? Or will double cooking apple turn it to mush?

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  • What recipes? Are you still planning to microwave this? We need a lot more information.
    – Catija
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:26
  • If you have microwave apple crumble recipe that would be amazing.
    – S Meaden
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:27
  • You'll need to find that in a search engine. We do a lot of things here but we aren't a recipe recommendation site. I'm asking you to make your question more clear. Right now, you spend more time explaining what you used to do than what you're trying to do, so we need to understand better what you want from us rather than what you've done in the past :D
    – Catija
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:31
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    Question is quite clear I think. Can one overcook apple? The rest is context.
    – S Meaden
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:33
  • Well... if one overcooks apple, it falls apart and turns into apple sauce... but lots of recipes for apple crumbles use precooked apples... and the apples used can affect this, too... so a Granny Smith is going to hold up to a lot more cooking than a Golden Delicious... so it's not necessarily going to "overcook"... Without knowing your planned method or what type of apple is called for in the recipe, we can't really answer your question
    – Catija
    Jun 9, 2016 at 18:37

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Yes, you can precook most fruit. Apples are among the best fruit to cook like this as they keep some texture after light cooking. (Stone fruit should be OK - I've used plums. Soft fruit much less so).

If you buy ready made fruit pie filling (and I don't recommend you do) it's precooked. Those of us who grow our own fruit sometimes cook up (and freeze) a batch of pie filling when we have a glut. The main trick is to not precook too much, where "too much" is a matter of taste (some people like mushy fillings; some would rather have a bit of bite) but also depends on the fruit (e.g. the variety of apple) you're starting with.

Do be careful not to keep it too long after precooking - cooked fruit doesn't keep like fresh fruit and is also more likely to spoil in ways you won't spot. So a few days in the fridge, or freeze it.

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    For a crumble with precooked fruit, you basically just need to cook the topping. If the fruit is overcooked by the time the topping is nicely browned, you can try increasing the temperature and reducing the time. (Failing that, yes, precook less.)
    – Cascabel ♦
    Jun 9, 2016 at 20:50
  • @Jefromi I found that precooking lightly worked better from the point of view of getting the filling hot through without overcooking when cooking the final crumble. But I tend to make flapjack-crumble rather than the traditional sort, which might not help.
    – Chris H
    Jun 9, 2016 at 21:17
  • But how are you cooking? Do you think that it is viable to make a crumble in the microwave, the way the OP is used to reheating her apples?
    – Catija
    Jun 9, 2016 at 21:34
  • Also, I don't know that it's a great idea to lump all fruit together. This question is only asking about apples and I'd certainly not want to cook most berries twice... or citrus at all... Is there a specific reason you took a question about apples and answered for all fruits?
    – Catija
    Jun 9, 2016 at 21:50
  • @Catija not really. Mainly because the first bit I wrote was the bit about bought filling. You make a good point, so I'll edit about types of fruit. In fairly confident a classic crumble wouldn't work. I suspect the oat+butter+sugar topic that normally seems to be known as "flapjack crumble" would have some chance of success. Making crumble in the microwave want specified (though it was implied) and would be a separate question.
    – Chris H
    Jun 10, 2016 at 5:35

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