Apple and Almond Slice- Family Favourite Recipes

/ karen

At this time of year, my kitchen work surfaces are covered with piles of apples. Little pyramids of golden cooking apples, tiny rosy red eating apples, giant Bramleys. My family complain. There’s nowhere for anyone to put anything down. I usually store them wrapped in newspaper in the potting shed, but I’m still trying to evict the mice, making many trips back and forth to the woods with my tunnel-like humane traps baited with peanut butter. I can’t kill them. They will take their chances in the leaf litter under the trees. I’m trying to ignore the tawny owl fledglings in the branches above, still being fed by harassed parents. I feel slightly guilty. But watching the mice run when I let them out, I think they stand a fair chance of surviving.

Meanwhile, I’m steadily working my way through the apples. My mother always says, if you’ve got an apple, you’ve got a pudding. It can be an apple pie, a crumble, a cake, or if you are pressed for time, just apple purée with lashings of creamy custard, or Devon clotted cream. A special treat.

Today’s recipe is another family favourite, an apple tray bake which is quick and easy to make and tastes of autumn. As usually, I’m recording it here for my children, in case they can’t find the scraps of paper these recipes are written on. It’s so lovely to see my grandmother’s best copper plate hand writing, as she lovingly wrote these recipes for me. Food, and cooking, bring back such special memories, don’t they.

 

APPLE AND ALMOND SLICE:

INGREDIENTS – FOR THE TOPPING

 

30g butter or vegan margarine

30g SR flour

25g golden caster sugar

2 tbsp. Jumbo oats

1/2 tsp cinnamon

25g flaked almonds

METHOD

Mix the butter, flour and sugar together. Fold in the cinnamon, oats and flaked almonds to make a crumble topping. Place in the fridge while you make the base.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE BASE

150g SR flour

200g golden caster sugar

200g butter or margarine

3 eggs ( or use 6 tbsp. soya oat drink if vegan)

100g ground almonds

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 large apples slices and tossed in lemon juice

100g any other fruit you have; blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, plums,

METHOD

Mix the flour, baking power , sugar and butter together. Whisk. Fold in the ground almonds and cinnamon. Add the beaten eggs.

Put half the mixture in the base of the tin. Put apples on top. Add the rest of the base moisture. Press the blackberries or other fruit on the top.

Cover with the crumble topping mixture.

Cook for 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer come out clean.

Gas mark 4, 180C oven, or 160C fan oven.

You’ll need a 20cm tray bake tin, at least 4cm deep, lined with baking parchment.

Put baking paper on top if it is browning too quickly. Leave to cool and slice into fingers.

Can be frozen for 3 months.

Enjoy!

 

You might also like : Review of Orchard Odyssey by Naomi Slade here :

https://bramblegarden.com/2019/09/27/an-orchard-odyssey-book-review-and-prize-draw/

 

Also The Creative Kitchen by Stephanie Hafferty https://bramblegarden.com/2018/11/18/the-creative-kitchen-book-review/

I’ll leave you with a photo of my 1930s summerhouse, looking autumnal today. There’s heaps of blankets to keep us warm when the temperatures start to dip. It’s quite cosy in here though.

7 thoughts on “Apple and Almond Slice- Family Favourite Recipes”

  1. Pingback: Talking on the radio – notes and photos for wednesday 22 July, BBC Radio Leicester Gardens Hour | Bramble Garden

  2. Oh yum! Great comfort food Karen. 🙂 Hope you manage to get the mice to move to new quarters. We seem to have had success with spraying vinegar on our garage floor and putting 100% peppermint oil down too. No mice in our traps for several days now. 🙂 We also stopped putting bait in (we used peanut butter too) as I was afraid we were attracting even more with the smell! They are so curious they go in the traps anyway.
    Hope your rain has stopped – Nottingham and Sheffield were mentioned on our news yesterday for floods. Take care Karen. xx

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  3. Karen is very happy to “see you” again. You love animals a lot like me: removing the mice from the Potting Shed with peanut butter traps and then taking them to the forest safe and sound. Only you and I would do it! So owls have food and mice are likely to live. You have a heart that is a treasure! Your apples look very appetizing. They are my favorite fruit! I would end all the varieties you have before the poor mice. Karen must be wonderful for you to see the recipe written by your grandmother on copper plate with love for you: what a beautiful memory. The Apple and Almond Slice recipe is not very difficult to make for an inexperienced cook like me. Thank you very much for sharing your family’s recipes with us, it has a lot of value for me. The fact that you leave the recipes for your children is great for the family’s recipes to last for generations. The magnificent photos of your fantastic apples have made me want to eat one. When I finish “talking to you” I go to the kitchen for one. I love your Summer House, you have it lovely full of blankets: it is wonderful, a special place to be. I hope from the heart that you are better and with the things more placed in your place in your thoughts. I’m still here for whatever you want, my good friend. Karen a lot of love, a lot of health, a lot of strength and a lot of desire to live life for your whole family, for Mr B. and for you. Warm up well and do not take cold. Loving caresses for Grace and Meg. Take care of you all very much. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita xxx

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    • Thank you Margarita. Today I raked up the rest of the apples and piled them under the hedge for the mice and the birds to enjoy over winter. We have plenty to share. Enjoy your apple. Hope all is well with you. I am feeling much better thank you. My equilibrium is restored. Affectionate greetings from us all, love to you and your family from Mr B, Meg and Grace, and me, as always. Take care my friend. Keep warm and dry Xxx

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      • I am very happy Karen that you are much better and that your balance is restored. I get stronger. Thank you for your friend’s words. Let’s go on par. I really like that you made a lot of apples for bird and mammal food in the garden. I have to shelter because it is cold and rainy in Madrid. Much love for Mr B, for you, for Grace and Meg. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita Xxx

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