The gardens here are filled with apple trees. It was a beautiful sight when we moved in back in May and they were all in blossom. It’s beautiful now too, as the fruits are really starting to fill out and the different varieties are starting to show their own traits. We had strong winds the weekend before last, and one of our neighbours gave us some windfall apples from her trees. This time of year they are nowhere near ripe and so far too tart to eat raw, but she wondered whether we might find a use for them.
Now Liz and I being eco-warriors (or at least Slightly so), we hate to see food go to waste. We take pride in our resourcefulness when it comes to using leftovers. We often offer friends and family advice on the subject, and they often look on in horror as much as to say ‘but it would be easier to throw it away and buy something else’. Which is no doubt true, but it’s not as environmentally friendly, not as economical and not as fun as trying to be creative whilst reducing waste at the same time. It’s certainly not even slightly self-sufficient.
Anyway, rant over, I’ll move on to what we did with the windfall apples. The same
neighbour also gave us some overripe gooseberries from her garden. Now Liz is a great cook, she actually trained as a chef. Within seconds of receiving the ingredients she’d hatched a plan and was sorting through the store-cupboard. As soon as she said what she’d planned to do I started taking photos for the blog.
This would be a great recipe for the apples from the June drop, when gooseberries would also be in season, so we may well give this a go again next year. But anyway, here it is, Liz’s approximate (i.e. from memory) Windfall Apple and Gooseberry Crumble recipe.
Peel, core and roughly chop the apples and put into a pan with the gooseberries (also chopped). The apples were very tart, so a lot of sugar was required. Liz went for around 250g of brown sugar to sweeten the 1kg of fruit. This was added to the pan with some cinnamon.
Chopped fruit with sugar and cinnamon.
Place the pan over a medium heat until the fruit softens and the sugar starts to caramelise. This only took around 5 minutes as the pieces of fruit were quite small.
Softened fruit. Note how the sugar has started to caramelise.
In a bowl mix some flour, some sugar and rub in some butter until a breadcrumb consistency is achieved. Liz also added some more cinnamon and a pinch of ginger to this mixture. Spread this over the top of the softened fruit and place in a oven preheated to around 180°C (350°F). Cook for about half an hour.
After half an hour’s cooking – one delicious crumble!
After the half an hour has passed, take a look and see how it’s getting on. The top should have started to brown and look crunchy. If this isn’t the case, give it a bit longer. It this is the case, get ready to enjoy a delicious crumble.
A bowl of windfall apple and gooseberry crumble – delicious!
We thoroughly enjoyed our windfall apple and gooseberry crumble. As lovely as the gooseberries were in this recipe, it would certainly work with just the windfall apples. There are many other soft fruits around this time of year that would accompany the apples well, such as blueberries or blackberries. I hope this has inspired you to put any windfall apples you can get your hands on to good use.