Without fail around late autumn our neighbours give us a
bucket of Bramley apples harvested from a tree in their garden. I was always
jealous of this tree as a child and sometimes vaulted the fence to nick an
apple or two; in our garden we had (and still possess) a gnarled, glorified
stump of a pear tree that supports a tree house. No fruit has ever fallen from
this tree apart from one year when it was clearly trying to die, dropping onto the
vegetable patch all of four small, stumpy pears which were promptly scoffed by
crows and the dog. Once a year with my bucket of cookers I’d set out to try a
range of new, exciting, crumble,
chutney or pie recipes I’d been hoarding since the summer but the baked apple
only featured once in my repertoire. This was because the few I made were cooked
in the microwave and were understandably disgusting. I mean look at them, they’re
like the Elephant Man of desserts.
