Did you know that the majority of garden fruit goes to waste and millions of apples are thrown away everyday in the UK? Food waste is already a big issue in this country with households wasting 4.5m tonnes of food each year, therefore more needs to be done.
Here are just a few of the great ways you can use up your apples:
- Make some lovely sweet and savoury dishes with your apples (see recipes below)
- Toffee apples are very difficult to make so we just make a caramel sauce to dip apple slices into. It’s called ‘the silencer’ in our house as the dining table goes very quiet as people tuck in.
- Apple puree is simply cooked apple, with apple butter a more concentrated condiment (most recipes include sugar but it definitely works without).
- If you have a juicer at home, apple, carrot (and ginger) juice is deee-licious. And keeps well in the freezer.
- If you are feeling ambitious you can try to make your own cider.
- Compost your unripe or damaged windfalls.
- Take your apples to My Apple Juice to be juiced, pasteurised and bottled with a bespoke label. If you have lots of juice, I recommend reducing some of it into syrup…
- Put boxes of apples on the street and invite neighbours to help themselves.
- Proper storage is crucial so your harvest doesn’t rot before you have a chance to use it.
- If you have wrinkly or damaged apples that you don’t fancy eating, the birds and insects in your garden will be glad of them.
Apple Recipes
Apple and Rosehip Jelly
Rosehips are found everywhere in hedgerows and on roadside verges in the autumn. They have small hairy pips (which children traditionally make itching powder from) so they are best used
Slow Cooker Apple & Ginger Cake
This recipe is a great way to use up windfall apples. It’s a moist, tasty cake that is quite pudding-y (especially if you use 350gms of apples which the photos
German Apple Cake Recipe
Thanks to Sara Jones in Lambourn for sending in this easy apple cake recipe which has been handed down by her German grandmother. Sara’s grandmother is now 97 years old
Spicy Apple Chutney
Thanks to Catherine Hill for this handy recipe that uses up a lot of apples and is totally delicious and very flexible (ie you don’t have to measure the quantities).
Bramley Apple & Curried Parsnip Velouté Soup
This recipe, supplied by Milly Fortune of Clean Slate Catering, uses up surplus cooking apples and freshly unearthed parsnips. It is also quick and easy to make – a definite
Almond Apple Tart
Almonds are one of my favourite ingredients, whether straight from the shell, roasted, sweetened, spiced or grounded. If you could associate foods with emotions I would link almonds with love and romance:
Steamed Pudding with Apples and Mincemeat
Christmas is coming, so use up any leftover mincemeat from last year in this steamed pudding – or, if you are really organised, take the chance to test this year’s
Apple and sage sausage rolls
The Merry Kitchen sausage roll came out of a need to fill a little extra hole on the market stall table. Quiches and tarts always sell well, pates are in
Pork, Apple & Cider Casserole
This recipe is perfect for a winter’s day, my favourite being the official Chieveley Snow day. It’s been a couple of years since the last official day, but it still
2 Responses
Following on from the excellent article ‘what to do with spare apples’, grateful thanks must be given to the villagers of Inkpen who put out boxes of free windfall apples and other fruit they have in abundance. For the many villagers who do not have fruit trees in their gardens, this is truly appreciated.
It seems the obvious answer to a surfeit of anything – put it on the roadside with a notice ‘FREE’ and it’ll go!
Does this happen in other villages?
Hi Gilly