Little green apples

Little green apples

It's been an amazing spring for blossom which turned into an amazing summer of fruit, even the usual June drop did little to thin my apple crop with up to six fruit left on each fruiting spur. This combined with the hot dry weather means the trees are suffering, so it was time to give nature a helping hand this week by thinning my crop. It always feels hard to reduce this bounty but I know I and the trees will benefit in the end with larger, more juicy fruit for me to enjoy. I removed all the damaged or severely misshapen fruit, plus any extras to leave a maximum of one fruit per spur. I must have removed hundreds of apples! Some people recommend a gap of around four inches between fruits, mine are around two.

When I've done this in previous years I've always wondered if I could use this earlier crop of fruit, especially as many of them are of a fairly decent size. Some light googling reveals I can, with apple mint jelly or a pectin starter for future jam making given as the most popular options.

Peeled, cored and chopped apples ready for action

I decided to go my own way as my usual fig crop has been delayed due to the dry weather. I'm usually awash with them by now, so I needed something to plug that gap for breakfasts and deserts. My solution is to make an apple 'compote', comprising peeled and cored fruit simmered in a little water - just enough to cover the bottom of the pan - until they're quite mushy in texture, the kind you would see gracing an apple pie. I selected only the larger fruit, so the peeling and coring wasn't too fiddly.

I was surprised to find I only needed to stir in a minimal amount of brown sugar* to them as this early fruit is already quite sweet. Eating non-sweetened porridge on a regular basis must have trained my taste buds! My finishing touch was to add a small amount of finely chopped stem ginger** and simmer gently for a few minutes until its flavour merged nicely with the apple. The result is yummy paired with some good quality natural yoghurt or my breakfast porridge😋

What use - if any - do you make from your thinned apples?

* = approx 1 teaspoon per 12 chopped apples

** = a small cube of around 1cm after peeling carefully with a teaspoon

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