Scumptious Apples

I have two apples on my apple trees this year, a wet and windy spate during spring took off all the blossom before it had chance to be pollinated. Fortunately some sheltered community trees are full of fruit. Its becoming increasingly popular to collect fruit from trees on abandoned ground, and there are many sites in urban settings where fruit trees are left unpicked. I would encourage a ride around in your local area to see if there are any with easy access. Sometimes, it is also possible to ask permission of garden owners if they would allow you to pick some fruit in return of produce you've cooked up from it. Things like this are great for building communities.
Fruit like apples are great for storing, I got a good pick from the Church allotment, washed them and laid them out in the sun to dry off. Afterwards I packed them in a crate with holes in the side to allow air flow to store over the autumn period. You need to place them in layered with pieces of newspaper, and don't forget to keep regular checks on them to pull out any baddies. I would say its sufficient to check once a week, and keep them somewhere dark, cool and dry.
There were some bruised apples from my rich pickings which probably would last the week in storage, so I decided to make the following recipe:-

Oven baked Apple Fritters

You can deep-fry this recipe but these are just as tasty and more healthier baked. They are also wheat and gluten free so I might test them out on Jane with a cup of coffee when she comes in later.

Here we go:-

1. Take about a cup of gram flour, a cup of  fine corn meal, half a cup of sugar and two teaspoons of baking powder and place in bowl.

2. Mix the dry ingredients and put to one side.

3. Peel, core and slice about 3 apples and make 6 piles of the pieces on an oiled baking tray.

4. Take your bowl of dry ingredients and slowley add soya milk or water stirring constantly until you make a thick batter.

5. Ladle your batter over the piles of apple pieces to form 6 uncooked fritters, then place in an oven on Gas mark 6 until golden brown.

6. Serve up, sprinkled with icing sugar or drizzled with maple syrup or soya cream.

The apples were quite tart so made a nice balance to the sweet batter. If you are deep frying these then you should add the apples in with the batter and probably up the amount of apple pieces.