An alternative to apple crumble

This is a good recipe for those of you who have an apple tree (or a neighbour that does, or a mum that does!) and you’re wondering what to do with all those apples, especially as many that aren’t shop bought aren’t so pretty or so sweet for just eating.  Apple crumble is the obvious and super easy choice but if you’re sick of crumbles and want some thing a little different, that’s only marginally more complicated than crumble, then I reckon that Delia has come up with another winner here.  It’s a perfect sunday lunch pudding.  It does take a little time to cook so again it’s not a quick weekday thing, unless you’re one of those people that works from home or is a housewife or carer or something and can start this earlier and have it in the oven.

It does have quite a bit of sugar in it, so probably not one for dieting, but I suppose you could replace with Splenda or something.  It might not taste quite as good though!  But you need a day off from the diet a week I reckon.  You can’t be good all the time.  And this has apples in it so it’s not all bad.  Apparently an apple a day helps with dieting (according to glamour magazine – maybe it’s the modern version of that old wives tale!). And it’s yummy so it’s worth falling off the wagon for.

If you wanted to make it for a dinner party, if you did it in individualised dishes, I think that would have the sufficient wow factor needed.  You’d probably need something bigger than a ramekin but there are plenty of individual baking dishes out there.  I’d go with something about twice the size of a ramekin.  Make exactly the same, but you’ll probably want to reduce the cooking time – I’d start with 30 minutes and go from there until they look and smell done.

:The original recipe can be found here

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/baked-apple-and-almond-pudding.html

To be honest, I didn’t really change it much except I used light brown sugar in the topping instead of caster (after the cakes I’ve run out of caster!) and I used blanched flaked almonds instead of chopped (because that’s what I had in the cupboard).   I actually liked it with the flaked almonds – it made a really nice crust, which I’m sure you’d get with the chopped ones too but I liked the way the flakes looked on the crust.  Have a look at my picture, see what you think.

Also I used apples from my uncle’s apple tree which were sort of a cross between a cooking apple and a cox’s apple, so a bit sweeter than your usual cooking apple so I used less sugar.  Depending on which kind of apples you have you can vary the amount of sugar that you put with the apples.

Delia Smith’s Baked Apple & Almond Pudding

Serves 4

450g apples, peeled cored and chopped

50g soft light brown sugar (although dark will work too I reckon)

110g butter (or margerine in my case)

110g caster sugar (or granulated or light brown)

2 eggs, beaten

110g chopped almonds (or flaked blanched ones in my case)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease an ovenproof baking dish.
2. Put the apples and brown sugar in a saucepan and cook on a low heat until softened.  Place in the bottom of the prepared dish.
3. Cream the butter and remaining sugar together until light and fluffy.
4. Add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar a bit at a time and beat well to avoid curdling.
5. Mix the almonds in the mixture, pour over the appples (ensure they’re well covered) and bake on a high shelf in the oven for an hour.
6. Take out the oven when golden on top and filling the kitchen with yummy smells.
7. Serve with custard, cream or icecream and enjoy!

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