WELCOME TO APPLES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 356, 18 April 1946, Page 26

WELCOME TO APPLES

ROBABLY no other fruit gets quite so warm a welcome on its seasonal return as the apple. Even strawberries and raspberries might pall if they stayed on all the year round; but apples never come amiss, at any time. Perhaps we did not realise this until the last five years, when there have been periods of shortage in apples as in everything else. First, and foremost, eat them raw; they are a fine food-especially sturmers. Young people can crunch them, skin and all. Even very young children can be given raw apple scraped out of the skin with a spoon; and older people, who sometimes find digestive difficulty with raw apples, should try eating them with a spoon in this way too. A raw apple eaten with a glass of milk the first thing every morning is well known as a great help in relieving rheumatism. Baked apples are splendid, too, for young and old. Leave on the skin, but remove the core, and bake in moderate oven. The core-cavity may be filled with toothsome morsels such as dates or raisins mixed with a little honey. Individual Apple Puddings This is a real "de luxe" dessert, and not nearly so much trouble as it sounds. Have ready some small pudding basins or cups without handles which do splendidly. Make a light suet crust flavoured with spices, in this way: For 4 little puddings, sift together 142 cups flour, 42 cup wholemeal, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and a good pinch of salt; rub in 40z. of shredded suet, and mix to a light dough with about % cup of warm milk and water to which has been added 2 teaspoon each of clove and ginger flavouring. Roll out and line the cups with this pastry, reserving sufficient for the lids. Peel and core 4 apples, and place one in each cup. Fill the corespace with mixed dried fruits (currants, raisins, etc.), or use the cake-fruit mixture sold ready cleaned and mixed. This fruit should be chopped up finely and mixed with a few teaspoons of hot water flavoured with orange and lemon flavouring. Dab a tiny piece of butter on top of each. Pour over each apple a goud tablespoon of syrup made by mixing a little hot water and honey (or sugar) and flavouring with clove essence. Now roll out the reserved pastry and cut out a top for each pudding. Cover with butter paper, and steam them all together in one large saucepan for 114 to 2 hours. Serve with custard sauce flavoured with ginger essence, You may vary this idea by making the pudding in one big basin. The mixture of flavourings is really super. . Devonshire Apple Curranty One pound of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, Y2lb. grated suet, 4 or 5 large sour cooking apples; 2 tablespoons sugar; 3 tablespoons currants or su!tanas; 1 egg; salt; milk to mix. Peel the apples, and chop up into pieces the size of a lump of sugar. Blend the flour, baking powder, suet, sugar and salt. Add

chopped apples and currants, and mix with beaten egg, and only just sufficient milk to make a mixture of cake consistency. Grease a piedish, put in the mixture, and bake for about an hour. If preferred, grease a basin and fill with the mixture, cover with butter paper and boil for 2 hours. Tenterden Apple Pie This is the traditional apple pie of the County of Kent. Two pounds of cooking apples; lb. sugar, 141b. cheese; some cloves, and some short pastry. Peei core and cut the apples into thick slices. Place a layer in a piedish. Sprinkle on a tablespoon of sugar, then add the remainder of the fruit and Sugar, and the cloves. Pour in 1 teacup of water. Cut the cheese in thin slices, and cover the apples with them. Sprinkle with the. merest suggestion of pepper, and a little nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Roll out the pastry, line the edge of ‘the piedish with a strip of pastry, put on the Pastry cover. Press the edges together, raise them slightly with a knife, sprinkle on a little sugar, and bake in a good oven 40 to 50 minutes. Sensible Apple Charlotte Line dish with thin slices of bread and butter (no crusts). Spread on golden syrup as much as you like. Make a puree of stewed apples; put this into the dish with alternate layers of crumbs, putting breadcrumbs last. Bake in oven till nice brown, serve with custard sauce. Apple Dumplings Slice up 3 or 4 good-sized cooking apples; about 2 breakfast cups cold water; 3% cup sugar; add few cloves if liked. Stew gently for 5 minutes, then add dumplings made as follows:-~1 cup flour, 42 cup shortening, pinch salt, and 2 level teaspoons baking powder. Mix with water and drop in dessertspoonful into boiling apples. Cover saucepan and boil for 20 minutes. Serve with cream, or custard, Dutch Apple Pie Pastry:-'4lb. shortening, Ib. flour, Ya teaspoon baking powder, salt to taste, milk to mix. Use a sponge tin for this pie. Lire sponge tin with pastry, spread with raspberry jam. Sprinkle jam with cesiccated coconut. Chop up sufficient apples and sprinkle with spice and sugar, mixed together. Place on top of coconut. Wet edges and put on pastry top, Brush over with milk, sprinkle with sugar. Bake in good oven ¥2 to % hour. Delicious.