Cooking Apples with a difference

The Sunday before last with the snow still settled on the ground outside I decided that instead of walking the dog in the extreme cold I would spend my afternoon making a pudding to go with tea.

I first measured out fifty grams each of sultanas and raisins and laid my hands on six walnuts. I then found the most expensive bottle of scotch whisky in the house and poured the equivalent of a single measure into a mixing bowl. I then added about a quarter of a pint of water to the whisky and poured in the fruit and the walnuts and left them the soak for about an hour. In doing this I allowed the fruit and nuts to soak into the whisky and water.

After disappearing off for an hour to read the Sunday papers I returned to the kitchen and cored three cooking apples. This is not an easy task. The best approach is to cut into the top of the apples and then cut a circle into the top of the apple while pushing the knife blade as deep into the apple as possible. Then the apple should be turned upside down and the process repeated with the bottom of the apple. With a bit of pushing on the top and bottom of the apples you can remove the cores.

Once I had completed this task I found a glass pie dish, the ones with the high sides used to cook lasagne and shepherd's pie are best, and poured water into it until the water was about half a centimetre deep. I then placed the apples in and filled their middle with the whisky-sodden sultanas and raisins.

To finish off the apples I poured a teaspoon of brown sugar on top of the fruit in the apples and then added a generous knob of margarine onto the top of each apple. This margarine then acted as the glue to stick two walnuts each onto the top of the apples.

This recipe is very easy to undercook as I found once when I did not leave apples in the oven for long enough and suffered side effects from trying to eat them. The best way to cook the apples is to what I did on this occasion and cover the top of the pie dish with foil and cook the apples in a fanned oven for half an hour. After half an hour I whipped off the foil and then cooked the apples for another 20 minutes.

I took the apples out of the oven after a total of 50 minutes cooking and I could instantly tell they were ready as a white foam-like substance oozed from the skin and the walnuts were giving off a distinctive almost smoky smell.

Some cooks swear by serving this recipe with cream, I prefer the healthier option of putting the apples in individual bowls and pouring plain Greek Yoghurt over them. The results are excellent as the melted butter, sugar, cooked walnuts and whisky-flavoured fruit more than compensate for the bland taste of the cooking apples. The yoghurt gives the whole dish a smooth texture and cancels out the slightly tough skins of the apples. This is an easy recipe to make (save for coring the apples) and provides good comfort food just before the start of the working week.