WhodunnitDinners Podcast Season 2: #1 Rian Johnson: fanatical priests, rural New York and apple crumble

Welcome to the new season of the Whodunnit Dinners Podcast 

Whether you’ve arrived at this blog post from the Whodunnit Dinners website - as a player of murder mystery dinner parties - or as a fan of writer/director Rian Johnson, or indeed as a lover of the humble apple crumble: welcome! Like the church in the movie featured in this episode of our podcast - ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ - our doors are open to all sorts. 

This blog post is merely a side dish to the main event - the latest Whodunnit Dinners podcast - which In Series 2 episode #1 centres around the latest film in the Knives Out franchise: Wake Up Dead Man. Rian Johnson is the acclaimed writer and director of the series and Daniel Craig reprises his role as master detective Benoit Blanc, who comes in to investigate the death of a divisive Catholic priest in rural New York against the backdrop of a missing inheritance. The all-start cast includes Josh O’Connor as the main character and chief suspect, alongside an imperious Glenn Close and Josh Brolin as the (seemingly) murdered priest, who goes on to ‘rise from the dead’, hence the title. 

In case you haven’t yet seen the movie, while we discuss it in more detail on our podcast, we try our hardest not to spoil the story, while giving our thoughts on what works well and what misses the mark in the devilishly cunning murder mystery. 

Discover A Great Apple Crumble Recipe From The Podcast

The dish apple crumble does not actually feature in the film, so you might be slightly mystified as to why you’ve got a recipe below. However, as a significant symbol of the plot there is a massive pink diamond, known as ‘Eve’s Apple’, building on the themes of sin and temptation. Helen challenged Katie at the end of the previous episode, without revealing the story title, to come up with a dish featuring apples to complement the story, and she duly delivered. The very simple recipe she likes to use herself is here, for you to replicate yourself. 

Ingredients

4 x dessert apples (or more if you like lots of apple) peeled, cored and sliced

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

2 tsp of cinnamon

75g granulated sugar

50g of butter (chopped into cubes)

100g plain flour

 Method for Apple Crumble

1. Having chopped/sliced the peeled apples, sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon and layout in the bottom of any tin

2. Rub together the sugar, butter and flour using the tips of your fingers until mixed and crumbly

3. Sprinkle into a thick layer over the fruit.

4. Bake for 40 minutes at 180 Degrees C

5. You will know it's done when the juice from the fruit layer starts to bubble up around the edges.

If you’ve found this tasty treat suitably tantalising, you should take a listen to the full WhodunnitDinners episode, which will add more detail to both the food and the murder mystery film. To hear the full Whodunnitdinners podcast go here!