An apple is sometimes an excellent thing

I’ll be honest and say I have a love/hate relationship with apples. On one hand, nothing beats the crunch of a really good apple, both tart and sweet at the same time. On the other, nothing is worse than a bland Golden Delicious or some other tasteless variety. Apples are perfect in a crumble, where the soft, cooked fruit pair with the crisp topping, or in an apple cake for an autumn morning tea, but a poorly made apple sauce can be overly tart or insipid. Maybe like the pear, the apple is also a tricky fruit to get just right.

Anyway, apples are very much on my mind at the moment. I am reading Ruth Reichl’s memoir Comfort Me With Apples, it is autumn and we are in apple season and I have a large bowl sitting in the kitchen crying out to be eaten, cooked and enjoyed. On Saturday morning, seeking inspiration, I had a look in Ottolenghi’s The Cookbook, and found some carrot apple and pecan muffins. With the ingredients to hand, I made a large batch that has lasted us most of the week. The recipe included a sort of seed and oat crumble topping, which I didn’t make because…well to be frank I wanted to make sure I made it to my 10:30am Zoom Pilates class and I was short of time.

Preheat the oven to 170C and prepare your muffin tray – I never use paper cases personally, so this part is up to your preference. Sift together 300g plain flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons cinnamon (I used half cinnamon half cardamom) and a good pinch of salt. Put to one side and in a large bowl, whisk together 4 eggs, 160ml sunflower oil (I used rice bran as that is what I tend to have). 280g caster sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla essence, 220g of peeled and grated carrot and 200g of apples which have been roughly chopped. Gently fold in 100g of roughly chopped pecan nuts (I think walnuts would be a good substitute), 100g sultanas and 50g of coconut flakes. Then equally gently fold in the flour, trying not to over mix. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tin and bake for about 25 minutes.

This quantity made 12 muffins and there was some left over that I poured into a loaf tin and which actually came out fine. Let them cool in the tin a bit before removing to cool completely.

The result – a very tasty muffin, quite light, and with lovely chunks of apple, raisins and coconut. I don’t think it needed any topping, which would also have made them more sweet, but I might try that if I make them again.

I found that these kept well, and even enjoyed one on Tuesday with my mid-morning cup of tea, while the rain poured down outside. Perfect autumnal eating, and made me appreciate the apple again. Comfort with apples indeed.

Title of the post is an adaptation of the quote “an apple is an excellent thing…until you have tried a peace” from George du Maurier’s Trilby.

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