Danish Applecake

Spring is in air, but winter’s not quite done with us yet. And there’s no better way to use up last autumn’s apples from store than in an applecake served warm from the oven. Treat your applecake, as they sometimes do in Denmark, as the centerpiece of  the meal rather than an afterthought - maybe after a leek-and-potato soup, or pumpkin and carrot, or a dried-pea soup prepared with chicken broth made with the carved out carcass of the Sunday roast.

Even if you haven't stored last autumn's apples from on a beam in the attic as my careful Scottish grandmother did, there’s all shapes and sizes going cheap in farmers’ markets right now, along with the home-grown roots and brassicas that’ll be with us for a few weeks yet.

Apples go with pretty much everything, savoury or sweet. Buy your apples in bulk and cook them down for the freezer: quarter, core, peel (or not, as you please), pack into a lidded pan with a splash of water and cook till mushy.  To use fresh, it'll keep for at least a week in a covered container in the fridge (delicious for breakfast with yoghourt and a sprinkle of meusli) and far longer in a sealed kilner jar.

Apple strudel, apple dumplings, apple charlotte (mushy apple topped with a crisp hat of sugary breadcrumbs fried in butter).  And then there's apple pie (double or single crust shortcrust pastry, slice of cheese under the lid at the end - or not), baked apples (cored and filled with raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon).

Apple soup with cinnamon is half way between sweet and savoury (needs a spash of white wine as the cooking liquid - no sugar unless the apples are really sour). Dried apple rings and apple butter - which is apples cooked right down to a mush, then cooked some more till almost solid (so delicious with storecupboard cheese - cheddar or cheshire or caerphilly). Apple and walnut salad with or without chicken dressed with a mustardy mayo.

Best of all, when the March wind blows, is what my gran called thunder-and-lightening (so exciting to a child!). All it takes is a frying-panful of chunked, cored apples and chunked, cooked potatoes crisped together in butter or olive oil or (even more delicious) bacon-dripping. Possible additions are sausages and bacon or a fried egg or a handful of shredded kale cooked for a minute or two in a lidded pan over a high heat with very little water and a pinch of salt.            Yes indeed!    

                        

For apple pectin, the raw material of jams and jellies, rinse and roughly chop your apples - skin, core, pips and all.  Put them in a roomy pan with enough water to cover.  Bring to boil and cook until the fruit is mushy.  Strain through a cloth or tip into a jelly-bag - don’t press or squeeze the pulp.  Return the juice to the pan and bring it back to the boil.  Pot up in hot sterilized jars (it'll be cloudy but will clear when sugar is added).  To convert to jelly flavoured with herb of your choice (thyme, mint, rosemary, chilli, ginger, taragon) - stir in 1lb sugar for every 1 pint pectin and reboil.  Make plenty and save it for next year to set jams and jellies which lack pectin - strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. Use an equal volume of apple pectin to fresh fruit and you’ll find the jam set with very little cooking.

To dry apple-rings for store: Peel, core and slice apples into rings as thick as your little finger, removing any bruised bits. Set the rings to dry on newspaper on an oven rack in a warm place. Or thread the rings on a string and hang in a current of warm air (maybe suspended over a radiator). When perfectly dry, store in an airtight tin.  [To make a useful drying-rack for sliced fruit and veg, cover a wooden frame or shallow cardboard box with chicken-wire.]

Plenty more in my Seasonal Cooking (previously The Barricaded Larder - new edition Grub Street 2017).

Next week: Mexican mole.