They don’t only keep the doctor away: apples are the perfect snack, the perfect fruit, the perfect baking ingredient.
And they are ripe just now in orchards throughout Kent and East Anglia, all the gorgeous Coxes, Russets, Galas and Pippins, my favourite Granny Smiths, and Bramleys for pies and crumbles. You could not have a more traditionally British produce than apples!
So here comes an apple collection: top 12 recipes featuring gorgeous apples.
Apple crumble is the easiest and nicest autumn dessert, put together in a few minutes and baked in half an hour. Apples and rum-steeped raisins covered with oat and cinnamon crumble are the perfect weekend afternoon treat.
My apple pie is a cross between American and English pie versions. The perfect apple pie with sweetened shortcrust pastry and tart fresh apple filling - the best apple pie recipe I’ve tested. It’s totally worth it to make pastry from scratch.
Rustic apple galette is the French take on apple baking, with a shortcrust pastry base and sliced raw apple filling. There’s no blind baking, no precooking apples – and no soggy bottom!
Apples are not only good for desserts: they go wonderfully well with roast duck or goose. Here, a goose breast is seared in a skillet to render fat, then finished off in the oven. It is served with apple and raisin topping to cut through the rich flavour of the meat.
Goose breast with apples and raisins
RECIPE
Old fashioned apple cake with brown sugar frosting is a simple and delicious dessert. Easy sponge batter is mixed with apple chunks, and the brown sugar icing turns it into a proper tea room treat. It’s easy to make and even easier to eat.
Old fashioned apple cake
RECIPE
Rissoles are croquettes made with minced cooked meat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried or baked. In this recipe they are made with leftover roast duck, and flavoured with apple and cheese. Duck and apples, as I’ve said already, are a great pairing.
Rissoles with apple and cheese
RECIPE
This looks gorgeous, and it tastes just as good. Norwegian apple cake, eplekake, is plenty of apple slices piled atop rich sponge batter and finished with almond flakes, cinnamon and brown sugar crust.
How about apple jam instead of boring strawberry or apricot? Apple marmalade is a thick and gorgeous spiced apple preserve with natural pectin. If it’s never jam today, perhaps we can have some marmalade, eh?
I think that lumberjack cake take its name from its appearance likened to that of a freshly felled tree stump with woodchips on top. But whatever the origin of the name, the cake itself is delicious: a moist and tender date and apple cake with caramelised coconut topping.
Honey cake with dates and apples from Nigella Lawson’s collection is not only suitable for Rosh Hashanah: it’s simply the perfect autumnal cake.
Honey cake with dates and apples
RECIPE
Tart roasted apples make a lovely topping for latkes, crispy fried shredded potato pancakes traditionally eaten for Jewish Hanukkah. I like to make one giant latke for brunch, topped with crème fraiche and those fragrant roasted apples.
Giant latkes with apples
RECIPE
This might be the easiest apple cake recipe in the world, of the 'mix everything and bake it' type. It's fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, dark brown with cocoa and dotted with pale chunks of apples.