Tag Archives: apple

Seven Recipes to Use Up Apples (and how to freeze them)

Posted on September 8, 2017 by TheGingerbreadMum

One of the many things I fell in love with when I first saw our current home were the apple trees in the garden. Both produce eating apples, one red and one green. Every summer since we moved in, we’ve had loads. And every year I promise myself that I’ll be better the following year with using them!

7-Apple-Recipes

So what can you do when you have too many apples? Here are some delicious recipes to eat now or to put in the freezer or pantry for later.

1. Slow Cooker Spiced Apple Chutney

NaturalKitchenAdventures-SlowCookerSpicedAppleChutney

Source: Natural Kitchen Adventures

The perfect accompaniment to a cheeseboard, this spiced apple chutney from Natural Kitchen Adventures is cooked in the slow cooker making it super easy – just throw everything in and leave it to cook itself! You can feel super organised by keeping some of this chutney for Christmas, when there’s never enough time to cook.

2. Carrot, Apple and Oat Breakfast Cookies

Source: My Fussy Eater

A cookie you can eat for breakfast? Yes, please! Packed with healthy ingredients (oats, carrots and bananas as well as apples), these are a terrific way to get more fruit and vegetables into any fussy eaters you may have. Apart from grating the carrot and apple, this is a quick and easy ‘throw together and mix’ recipe.

3. Apple Crumble Flapjacks

CharlottesLivelyKitchen-AppleCrumbleFlapjack

Source: Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen

Charlotte’s apple crumble flapjacks would be a wonderful after school snack as well as a delicious dessert with custard. They’re so simple and quick to make, and a great way to get your little ones helping in the kitchen. These aren’t going to last long in our house!

4. Apple Cinnamon Blondies

MarshasBakingAddiction-AppleCinnamonBlondies

Source: Marsha’s Baking Addiction

These blondies from Marsha’s Baking Addiction look so lusciously gooey and packed full of apple. Like all my favourite recipes, they take very little time to prepare and better still, everything is mixed together in the one bowl, no mixer needed. Perfect for afternoon or dessert as the days are getting cooler, I can’t decide whether these would taste better with ice-cream or custard.

5. Mini Cardamom Apple Pies

Source: Domestic Gothess

These super cute mini apple pies from Domestic Gothess are spiced with cardamom and cinnamon. Make several batches to keep in the freezer to impress unexpected guests. And I won’t tell anyone if you use store-bought pastry to make them even easier and quicker.

6. Homemade Apple Chips

Source: Living Sweet Moments

No dehydrator is necessary to make these yummy apple chips or crisps. While you’ll get a good arm workout slicing them, after that the oven does all the work. They should keep well in an airtight container or ziplock bags, and would be perfect to add to school lunch boxes.

7. Unsweetened Apple Sauce

Source: The Gingerbread Mum

Apple sauce isn’t just for babies or to eat with roast pork. It’s a brilliant sweetener and sugar substitute, and super easy and quick to make. You can freeze batches of sauce either in ice cube trays or ziplock bags depending on how you’ll use it later.

How to Freeze Apple

If you still have apples to use, simply freeze them. Then you’ll always have a supply to use in cakes, crumble or even smoothies. Shelly from Frugal Family Home has some advice for how to freeze apples.

What’s your favourite way to use up apples?

Sugar-free apple pikelets

Posted on July 4, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I’ve now whipped up three batches of apple sauce (or applesauce as Americans seem to use). Like most things, the more times you do it the easier it gets and I now feel like I know what I’m doing!

I thought I’d try it out this time as a sweetener in my banana pikelet recipe, replacing the honey. I still have a few banana pikelets in the freezer so I made apple pikelets this time using grated apple. I also meant to add some sultanas to the batter, but my mind drifted onto other things and I forgot. Oh well, there’s always a next time!

Pikelets are small pancakes and are perfect for children to cook when they’re old enough to start doing supervised things in the kitchen. They’d also be a good way to get kids to experiment with different flavour combinations.

These pikelets, like my banana pikelets, aren’t super sweet. You could add some honey to the batter or serve them drizzled with honey or, if you’re not worried about them being sugar-free, add 1/4 cup of sugar to the batter. And don’t worry if you don’t have bicarbonate of soda, as they work just as well without.

Pop the leftovers in the freezer to have for breakfast or a snack another day.

SUGAR-FREE APPLE PIKELETS

Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes about 20
Freezable

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 sweet apple, grated
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
small piece of butter, melted, to grease the pan

Sift flour, bicarbonate and cinnamon into a medium-sized bowl. Add grated apple, apple sauce and egg, and mix to combine. Gradually add the milk until you get a fairly thick batter (you might not need to add all the milk).

Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and brush with melted butter. Use a tablespoon to drop the mixture into the pan. Cook in batches, turning when bubbles appear on the surface (1-2 mins). Cook the other side until golden brown (about 1 min). Lift out and cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm.

Variations:

add sultanas or raisins to the batter
use other fruit instead of the grated apple (mashed banana, whole blueberries, mashed strawberries, etc.)

Tip: Wipe your pan clean with a piece of paper towel after each batch and then brush with some more melted butter.

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Posted in breakfast, family, recipe, snack, tip, toddler and tagged apple, apple sauce, applesauce, breakfast, family, finger food, freezable, freeze, grated apple, pancakes, pikelets, recipe, snack, sugar-free, toddler, vegetarian. Bookmark the permalink.

Apple sauce

Posted on June 24, 2012 by TheGingerbreadMum

I’ve made apple sauce before on many occasions but only as an accompaniment to pork. In fact I think that’s the only way I’d ever eaten apple sauce. Trawling the internet for baby-friendly recipes I kept coming across apple sauce used as a sweetener then discovered its use as a sugar substitute. So I searched for some recipes just to be sure it didn’t have any ‘secret’ ingredients.

I was surprised to discover that the majority of recipes had sugar in them (maybe my searching skills aren’t as good as I think they are!). Hmmm, why put sugar in something you’re using as a sugar substitute? Ok, you’re still reducing the amount of sugar in the recipe and yes, some apples need some sweetening up, but why not just use sweet apples? Armed with some sweet Gala apples I was ready to experiment.

One of the things I dislike most in the kitchen is peeling fruit and vegetables. One of the reasons is that I’m super clumsy and easily distracted so no matter how much I try to concentrate I always manage to either peel some of my finger or slice through a nail. And besides wounding myself, peeling can take up a lot of time.

I decided not to peel the apples and see how the sauce turned out. Not only did it save me loads of time, but there’s lots of goodness in the peel. If, like me, you don’t have one of those wonderful gadgets that cores and chops your apples into wedges in one go, just chop the four sides off each apple, chopping the large pieces in half. I also added some slices of lemon to the pot to stop the apple from browning as it cooked.

Some recipes add ground cinnamon after pureeing. I wanted to keep my apple sauce plain as you can always add cinnamon at the point when you’re adding it to a recipe. Some people also add some butter as well as sugar to the finished sauce. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

So how did my experiment of leaving the peel on work out? Well the peel does produce a slightly grainy texture to the sauce after pureeing it. If you’re using the sauce in other recipes you’d never know this though. Even if I was feeding the sauce to a baby (either on its own or mixed with other fruit or vegetables) I honestly wouldn’t worry about the texture.

APPLE SAUCE

Prep time: 5 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes about 1 1/2 cups or about 450ml of sauce
Freezable

6 sweet apples (eg. Gala, Red Delicious or Fuji)
1 cup water
2 slices of lemon

Chop the four sides off each apple and chop the large pieces in half. Put the chopped apple in a medium pot with the water and slices of lemon.