James Whitfield
By late September the grass beneath the tree is a carpet of windfalls, the kitchen bowl is permanently full, and the neighbours have started avoiding your eye. A glut of apples is a lovely problem to have, but it is still a problem. The trick is not to find one heroic recipe that uses forty kilos — it is to have a small repertoire of simple methods, each suited to a different type of fruit, and to work through them in the right order.
Sort First, Then Plan
Before you peel a single apple, spread the harvest out on a table and divide it into three piles. This is the single most useful habit in a small orchard.
- Keepers: unblemished, firm fruit with the stalk intact. Late varieties such as Egremont Russet, Ashmead's Kernel and Bramley store for months in a cool, dark, slightly damp shed or garage. Wrap each one in newspaper so a single rotter cannot spread.
- Cooks: bruised, slightly soft or damaged fruit. These are perfect for purée, crumbles and chutney, and should be used within a week.
- Compost: mouldy, brown or maggoty fruit. Get it off the pile and out of the kitchen before it spoils the rest.
If you have a mix of eaters and cookers, remember that cookers break down beautifully into fluff while eaters hold their shape — useful to know when you are deciding what goes in a pie and what goes in a chutney.
Purée: The Freezer Workhorse
Apple purée is the least glamorous recipe here and the one you will use most. Roughly chop any quantity of prepared fruit — no need to peel or core if you are going to sieve it — and put it in a heavy pan with a splash of water and a squeeze of lemon. Cook gently for 15 to 20 minutes until collapsing, then pass through a sieve or push it through a mouli. Sweeten only if you must.
Freeze it in 500g portions in bags laid flat, or in ice cube trays for spoonfuls you can drop into porridge. A bag of purée in February is a bag of instant crumble, yoghurt topping or sauce for pork. It keeps for a year.
Crumble, but Better
Crumble is where a glut becomes dinner, and it improves with a little thought. For a standard 1.5-litre dish, use about 1kg of prepared fruit, sliced rather than diced so it keeps some bite, and toss it with 75g of sugar, a tablespoon of cornflour and a good grating of lemon zest. Add a handful of blackberries if you have them, or a few chopped dried apricots for sharpness.
For the topping, rub 200g plain flour with 100g cold butter until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, then stir in 75g of sugar — soft brown for depth, demerara for crunch. A handful of porridge oats or flaked almonds is welcome. Bake at 180°C fan for 35 to 40 minutes until the fruit bubbles at the edges. Make double and freeze one unbaked; it bakes from frozen with an extra ten minutes.
Chutney: The Glut's Best Friend
Chutney will absorb almost anything, including hard, under-ripe fruit that is no good for eating. The proportions matter more than the recipe: roughly equal weights of prepared fruit and sugar, about a third of that weight in vinegar, and a generous handful of spice.
- 1.8kg peeled, cored, chopped apples
- 450g chopped onions and 250g sultanas
- 900g soft brown sugar
- 600ml malt or cider vinegar
- 2 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp salt, a good pinch of chilli
Simmer everything gently, stirring often, for one and a half to two hours. It is ready when you can draw a wooden spoon across the pan and leave a clear channel that fills slowly. Pot into warm, sterilised jars with vinegar-proof lids, and leave it alone for at least six weeks — it is disappointing on day one and excellent by Christmas.
Juice, Cordial and Vinegar
For juice, roughly chop clean fruit — no need to peel — and simmer with just enough water to stop it catching. Strain overnight through a muslin-lined colander without squeezing, which keeps the juice clear. Drink it within four days chilled, freeze it in bottles with headroom, or heat it to 71°C and hold for thirty minutes to pasteurise for long storage.
A cordial is simply juice with sugar: 600g sugar per litre of strained juice, warmed until dissolved, then bottled. Dilute one to five with sparkling water. And if you cannot face another pan, apple scrap vinegar is the laziest option of all — cover peelings and cores with cold water, add 50g sugar per litre, cover the jar with muslin, stir daily for a fortnight, then strain and leave for six weeks. It makes a fine dressing and costs you nothing but patience.
Nothing Goes to Waste
Between purée, crumble, chutney, juice and vinegar, a domestic glut disappears surprisingly quickly. Keep a notebook of what you made and roughly how much fruit it used; by the second autumn you will know that your two trees make four jars of chutney, twelve bags of purée and enough juice for a fortnight. That is the real reward of a small orchard — not one big harvest day, but a store cupboard that quietly feeds you until spring.
