Recipes using Apley apples

We’re awash with apples from trees of all varieties all over the Apley Estate, which are delicious it’s a crime to waste them. Here are 3 of our favourite apple recipes:

1) Tarte Tatin – for my husband Gavin (Lord Hamilton), the apple season means one of his very favourite recipes is coming his way – Tarte Tatin. It’s basically an upside down apple tarte – very simple to make. It’s his birthday soon, so I better get making some ! I last made it for him on his birthday 5 years ago just before Francis was born.

Ingredients:

Pastry: 11oz flour, 8 oz butter, 4oz icing sugar & 3 egg yolks. Roll out onto floured surface.

Contents: 8 large eating apples, 1/4 lemon, 4oz butter & 4 oz golden caster sugar

Method:

1. Gently melt the butter in a tarte tatin tin, stirring in the sugar. Once it starts to caramelise, stir in the cinnamon. Add the apples & leave to cook gently for 10 mins, stirring occasionally to coat them in the caramelised juices. Remove from the heat.
2. Roll out your pastry & prick it all over with a fork. Quickly lay the pastry over the apples. Trim away the excess, tucking the pastry snugly down the inside of the tin.
3. Bake for 20 mins at 200˚C until the pastry is risen, firm & golden.
4. When cooked, let it settle in the tin for 5 mins before loosening the pastry from the edges. Invert a plate over the top & turn out the tarte, with any juices left in the tin. Serve with plain yoghurt or brandy cream.

I had to check my technical tips here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1334/tart-tatin-with-brandy-cream

2) Apple snow – I remember my mother teaching me to make this for the first time & still love it. It’s such a light & refreshingly different way of having apple.

Ingredients & method: Beat 2 egg whites (1 per person) until they form stiff peaks. Make apple purée from cooled stewed apple, possibly adding a bit of sugar if needed. Carefully blend the egg whites into the apple purée. Serve in glas pudding bowls or glasses. For decoration, I used to add a sprig of mint or glace cherries for decoration on top of a blob of plain yoghurt.

3) Somerset Apple cake – this was given to me in July 2006 by my 1 of my sisters in law, when she kindly baked it for Venetia’s first birthday.

Ingredients: 3oz butter, 6oz sugar, 1 orange rind grated, 8oz self raising flour, 1 lb cooking apples peeled & cubed, 2 eggs beaten, 2 tablespoons milk, 1oz candied peel & 1 tablespoon granulated sugar.

Method: Cream butter, sugar & orange rind. Mix 1 tablespoon flour & apple in a dish. Add eggs & milk to creamed butter. Add rest of flour, peel & apples. Blend well. Pour into tin & sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 40 mins in a 9” cake tin at 350˚F.

PS Apley Farm Shop sells all these ingredients !