Читать книгу The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book - Elisa Beynon - Страница 39

Plan the cooking of these apples so that they can be served straight away, as they will collapse if they are left to stand. Old-fashioned this pudding may well be, but sometimes the old ways are the very best.

2 Bramley apples

For the mincemeat filling:

4 tablespoons good-quality mincemeat

20g toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

20g dried cranberries or 20g ready-to-eat apricots, chopped

finely grated zest of ½ orange

2 teaspoons brandy (optional)

custard or single cream, to serve (optional)

First, make the mincemeat filling by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6.

Core the apples with an apple corer and then open up the cavity a little more with a swivel potato peeler, making sure that the resulting hole is at least 2.5–3cm across so that there is plenty of room for the filling. Then score a horizontal line around the centre of each one, just through the skin, to prevent them bursting whilst they’re in the oven. Place the apples in a shallow, lightly buttered ovenproof dish. Generously fill the centre of each one with the mincemeat mixture. Pour 6 tablespoons of water into the bottom of the dish, cover it loosely with foil and bake for 30 minutes. After this time, remove the foil and bake for a further 15–20 minutes or until the apples are soft and tender right through to the centre.

Serve straight away with the syrupy juices and lashings of custard.