Desserts Recipe: Recipes with Apple

My friend Ali and I were comparing notes regarding American and South African desserts. A South African would propably think a cobbler is some kind of rock, but to an American it's part of life, which Ali was explaining to me, so we made a peach cobbler and then came up with a crumble recipe.

Crumbles have been around for ages, they are easy, tasty and I suppose because they contain fruit we don't feel too bad about going that route when watching our weight.

Apples always work well, but I'll always tell people to be different. Peaches also work nicely. This time I have used Berries with the traditional Apple Crumble. As well as having a great flavour they make a teriffic sauce

I wanted to use fruit with pancakes and found that grating them is the best option.

250g flour

½ tsp salt

50g caster sugar

2 eggs

500ml milk

4 apples, grated

50g pecan nuts, chopped

Sift the flour, salt and add the sugar

Add the eggs and whisk until the mixture is smooth

Pour the milk in while continuing to whisk to a smooth batter

Pour the mixture through a sieve to get rid of any lumps

Add the apples and pecans

Leave the mixture in the fridge for 1 hour before making the pancakes

I think it’s easier to fry the pancakes in a small pan

Makes about 20 small pancakes

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp Baking powder

1 ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 Tbsp mixed spice

1 tsp salt

1 cup wholewheat flour

1 cup coconut

1 cup brown sugar

1¼ cups oil

4 eggs

1 cup crushed pineapple

½ cup chopped pecans

2 cups grated apples

¼ cup smooth apricot jam

Sift first 5 ingredients

Add wholewheat flour and coconut

Beat brown sugar, oil and eggs

Add pineapple, nuts, apples and jam to dry ingredients

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients

Bake at 200°C or 350°F for 25 mins

Serves 8

For this recipe you can either be kind of stylish and wrap a whole peeled and cored apple in puff pastry or you can use the ingredients below, cutting apples into small pieces with flavourings.

1 package puff pastry

12 oz. cut up cooking apples (approx. 2 medium sized apples)

½ cup brown sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp all spice

1 beaten egg

Thaw puff pastry so that it is not frozen when you take it out of the freezer

Peel, core and chop apples up coarsely.

Combine apples with sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Heat oven to 180°C/ 350°F.

Flour surface lightly and cut pastry sheet into nine equal squares

Place approximately ¼ cup apple mixture on each square and brush edge with beaten egg.

Place second pastry square on the top of the already filled pastry to form a pocket.

Press down border with fingers to seal and then press with fork to decorate the edges.

Place on ungreased paper and brush each one with egg wash.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden.

If you decide to bake the whole apple make strips of puff pastry which you join at the top and seal.

This can also be baked for 20 minutes.

Serves 4