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My Mum's apple slice
In praise of the Bramley apple...
I think the cooking apple is a peculiarly British thing - most countries tend to cook with eating apples. What this gives is a firm slice of cooked apple that holds its shape. The cooking apple - most famously the Bramley - cooks down to a lovely light, tart fluff - perfect for an apple sauce.
The Bramley apple is interesting in that we pretty much know its entire history. For something that is seen as traditionally British, it may surprise you to know that it was first grown as recently as 1809 (by Mary Ann Brailsford, in her garden in Southwell, Nottinghamshire). The original tree is still there and receives an alarming number of visitors each year... The Bramley apple even has its own official website: www.bramleyapples.co.uk.
The Bramley season is in full swing now - it's one variety of British apple that you're guaranteed to find in almost any supermarket here at the moment (if only we could say the same of eating apples - why is it I can barely find a decent English apple in Sainsburys but they can import and sell a tasteless piece of crap from New Zealand for 8p?)
My Mum used to make this slice a lot - it's a lovely appley treat we used to have when we came home from school or with custard at tea time. I phoned Mum for the recipe yesterday and she decided she'd make some too. Bet hers is better 
Mum's apple slice
1 medium Bramley apple
Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
8 oz self raising flour
4 oz butter
4 oz brown sugar
A pinch of ground cinnamon (my addition - sorry Mum)
1/4 pint milk
1 medium egg
Icing to serve
Peel, core and slice the apple. Toss in the lemon juice to prevent it discolouring.
Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, grated lemon zest and cinnamon well. Beat the egg and milk together and stir into the flour. Gently fold the apple slices into the batter. Pour into a 13"*8" buttered tin and bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes until nicely browned on top and cooked through (when a knife inserted in comes out clean).
Allow to cool in the tin and drizzle with a loose icing made from icing sugar and tepid water.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Sigh...I'm homesick now. My mum used to bake apple tart, never measured a
single ingredient but still made the most delicious pastry. We children
used to go up to the mountains to pick what are now called blue berries -
wimberries to us. They made the most delicious blue-black tart, I can
taste it now...
My mum used to be like some sort of whirling dervish on a Sunday morning -
the oven was on for the roast, so she'd bake and bake for the week - out
would come a couple of cakes (a sponge and a fruit cake maybe), a pie of
some sort (rhubarb or apple & blackberry), some jam tarts made with
leftover pastry...
My favourite though was 'Sandcastle pudding' - a steamed sponge with golden
syrup poured over at the table... Something I never eat elsewhere because I
know it won't compare with hers!
Apple pie seems to make a sunday roast my children love them!
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