Mar 16 2009
Jazzy Puddin’
There are several of us at work who periodically pick up the recipe cards in Waitrose; as you know Dougal and I have had mixed results with them of late, but generally I find them fairly trustworthy. A friend picked up a Spring/Easter special which I felt was generally a bit dull over all, but which contained an apple pudding which caught my eye.
Jazz Apples, with their rosy skins still on, are sautéed in butter for a bit, before being baked in the oven in a sweet floury, eggy batter, a bit like a pudding Toad In The Hole.
I can see why the recipe asked for the skins to be left on- you can see the pretty pink colour has seeped into the surroundings of the apples- but they did make eating this a bit hard work. The batter and apple flesh were very soft but the skins remained pretty tough, even though I’d cooked the apples for probably longer than I ought to have.
The flavours were all there- sweet carby base, fruity apple notes- but the total effect was a bit lacking. Similarly, this tasted good cold but did end up unappeallingly rubbery. I was almost tempted to hide it when I took leftovers in for lunch at work!
This has encouraged me to explore further into appley puddings though. Anyone got a nice recipe for apple sponge? I might explore the apple charlotte recipe in Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. Or perhaps I ought to get a proper pastry lesson from my mum and also learn to make proper apple pie!
cherry clafouti has a similar construction- fruity toad in the hole. There a bit of rum cheers up the mixture. I suppose you could use calvados or similar with apples.
Very true. I hadn’t made the connection at the time but actually it was quite like Nigella’s cheaty quick clafoutis which we made last year and which I liked so much I bought a couple of extra jars of cherries to have on hand if I ever needed a speedy pudding.
I think cherries just make for a more exciting pud here though. The apples were too plain. Calvados might be an idea though….although as you know our booze collection hardly needs added to!