The Healthy, Homely Apple

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 32

The Healthy, Homely Apple

| AT a grand apple season | we are enjoying! How wonderful to have plenty of good, fresh apples. An advertising campaign has _ been emphasising their health-giving qualities so that all the family may realise how necessary apples are, and not be satisfied in giving school children just a couple each-one for playtime and one for after s#\ool. People have been quite surprised at the fine results obtained from following the publicised _advice-the real improvement in their ‘skin, the weight-reducing (or, at any | rate, non-fattening) idea of eating an apple when hungry between meals, in- | stead of cake or pastry; and the clean, | fresh mouth sensation when an apple | finishes the meal. It is true that the whole system is | healthier when apples are eaten regu- | larly-not just for a few weeks, but as | part of daily life. The fancy fruits come and go, but apples are a foundation for | health, giving us calcium, iron, phosphorus, and no less four vitamins. The well-known recipe for keeping down rheumatism is an apple eaten raw with a glass of milk the first thing in the morning! One lady who wrote to me about the importance of apples said: "Even our budgie can say, ‘Billy wants some apple, please.’ So he gets a wee piece and, of course, our canary gets his daily slice. So you see we are all appieconscious." Another good idea is to keep an apple in the pocket of the car for use when the windscreen wiper refuses to work properly in heavy rain. Cut the apple open and rub it on the 'wet windscreen; the raindrops do not | hang after that, to blur one’s vision. | | Special Apple Pudding Peel and quarter about 2 lb. of sour apples, and drop them into a rich syrup made of three cups of sugar and one cup of hot water, and let them simmer till soft but unbroken. Have a sponge ready, made of one-third of a cup of butter, one-third cup of sugar, 34 teaspoon salt, 1 egg well beaten, 1% cups of sweet milk, 244 cups flour, 24% teaspoons baking powder, Cream the butter, add the sugar and egg. Sift flour and baking powder, add to the mixture, alternating it with the milk. Butter a good-sized piedish, and drop the sponge by spoonfuls into it, and with it spoon-. | fuls of the hot apples and syrup, much as one juggles with the mixture of marble cake. Then pour the remaining ‘hot syrup over all. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and bake in a hot oven for about half an hour. It will then be delicious with crisp brown bits of paste ‘risen here and there through little rivers of syrup. It will be crisp and soft, solid, liquid, jellied, spicy, bland and appley all through. Hawaiian Apple Pie One cup sugar, 1 cup pineapple juice, 6 to 8 medium apples, 242 teaspoons cornflour, pinch salt, 1 tablespoon butter. Put sugar and pineapple juice on to boil. Add apples, pared, cored and quartered. Cook slowly with the lid off until the fruit is tender. Keep the apples moving about so that they are covered with the syrup. Lift out and lay in piedish lined with uncooked pastry, Dissolve the cornflour in a little water, and thicken the syrup. Cook about 5 minutes. Add the butter, a little vanilla if liked,

and pour over the apples. Cut strips of pastry % inch ‘wide, brush with milk or beaten egg, and put criss-cross over apples. Bake in

oven 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees for about half an hour, Quick Apple Fritters Two large apples, 1 cup flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon lemon custard powder, 1% teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons sugar. Put flour, sugar, salt and custard powder in basin. Mix to batter with egg and sufficient milk, then add baking powder. Peel apples and quickly grate into batter-use large _vegetable grater. Drop in teaspoons on to hot greased pan, and cook golden brown. Pile on hot dish, sprinkle with sugar, and garnish with lemon slices. Delightful batter also for savouries. Can also be used for frying fish, only use 1 apple and leave out sugar. : Apple Foam ,» Stew four apples in 1 pint of watet and sugar to taste. Set one red jelly (red currant, cherry, etc.), with the juice

drained off the apples and made up to amount stated on packet. When jelly is about half. set stir in the apples and 1 egg white stiffly beaten, and whip all together, and finally put in glass dish to set. Lovely for kiddies. It is much improved when covered with whipped cream, sliced bananas and grated chocolate. Apple Crisp Four apples, 21% tablespoons butter, Y% cup sugar, 3% cup water, % cup of flour. Slice apples into piedish, pour over cold water, and sprinkle with cinnamon. Rub butter into flour and sugar till crumbly, and sprinkle on top of apples. Bake half an hour, No sugar is added to apple-it soaks through from the top. Australian Apple Custard Put 34 pint breadcrumbs into saucepan; pour over them 11% pints hot milk and bring to boil. Add 1 oz. butter. Beat together 1 egg and 2 oz. sugar until light; stir this and 4% pint of grated raw apples into the milk and breadcrumbs, and flavour with vanilla or lemon essence. Pour into buttered piedish and bake in a moderate oven. Apple Crunch Five sliced, peeled, raw apples, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 cup dry breadcrumbs, 13 cup of honey, 4 cup water, % cup butter, 3 cup brown sugar, packed firmly. Combine apples with cinnamon, nutmeg and half