An apple a day...

We have two apple trees in our garden and one of those has been established for over 5 years now. We have never had many apples from it but this year there has been a bumper crop. It's a Malus Discovery apple tree which was first introduced to this country in 1949 and it produces an early eating apple which doesn't keep very well once picked so needs to be consumed quickly. The apples turn a delicate red colour when ripe and have a crisp, juicy flavour with a slight hint of strawberry. We have enjoyed eating them straight from the tree but as there are so many I had to start thinking about cooking with our apples.

Here's a few of  those Discovery apples on our tree looking wonderfully red in the fading summer sunshine

 

 

They are ready to eat earlier than most other apples which is why commercial growers often favour them

This one tree easily produced 4 or 5 big crops like this and as they don't keep for long they need to be cooked and used in recipes

I hadn't realised that apples freeze very well in their 'raw' state. Just peel, core and dice, spritz with lemon juice to stop them going brown and 'open freeze' them in a single layer on a parchment lined baking tray. Once frozen transfer to freezer bags, seal well and label. I have several big batches of Discovery apples frozen in this way for use later in the autumn in an apple pie or crostata, no doubt.

I placed thin, peeled slices of the apples on squares of store-bought puff pastry, sprinkled with caster sugar and baked them to make a simple French apple tart. They were then glazed with warm apricot jam and served with clotted cream

I have made several batches of apple sauce to freeze and serve with pork. Just place peeled, cored and diced apples in a saucepan with a squeeze of lemon juice and a splash of water. Cook, covered, over a moderate heat until the apples become a soft sauce to the consistency you prefer. I like some texture in my sauce. Add caster sugar to taste, cool and then freeze.

I then came across a recipe for a Sage Apple Cake in a weekend newspaper which looked very tempting indeed so I had to give it a go. As I have sage in the garden anyway I liked the idea of marrying two homegrown ingredients. I also froze this cake to serve to guests a week or so later and this worked very well indeed. It's utterly delicious with a mild almond flavour and the sugar-crusted sage leaves are tasty too. They go so well with the layer of juicy apples running through the middle. I shall certainly be making this again.

The Sage Apple Cake looks very pretty with the pattern of sugar-crusted sage leaves on the top

One final experiment was to make some pork burgers to barbecue so that they could be served piled with apple sauce. Looking on the internet I came across this recipe for pork, leek and apple burgers which gave me the opportunity to put apples in the burgers as well as on top of them. These burgers went down a treat and seemed very light and summery so that's another apple recipe to add to my collection!