Autumn.

My favourite season of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

Cool mornings and snuggly evenings by the fire. Sunny days or rainy days, beautiful trees awash with amber and piles of Autumn leaves crunching under foot.

When it comes to the kitchen, nothing says Autumn to me quite like apples and cinnamon.

The smell of apple and cinnamon cooking is oh so comforting, especially if the air outside is cool and the rain is just starting to fall, like it was when I made this dessert for our weekly family dessert night.

This simple dessert is a combination of some of my favourite things. Apples, Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Maple Syrup. The chopping of the apples is the most strenuous part of this recipe. The whole thing should really only take you about 15 minutes to prepare.

Once again, the original recipe belongs to Belinda Jeffery, an Aussie Food legend, and is found in her DESSERTS cook book.

My tweak was to use dried sour cherries instead of sultanas as some of my family don’t like sultanas.

This served 5 small dessert size portions.

Ingredients

5 large sweet apples (Pink Lady, Red Gala or Fuji), peeled, cored, and chopped into quarters and then each quarter sliced into 3.

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

15gm butter

1 teaspoon of olive oil

1/2 cup apple juice

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, or 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1/3 cup dried sour cherries, or sultanas

Maple Syrup Yoghurt

1 cup thick greek style yoghurt

1 tablespoon of maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Toss the apples in a bowl with cinnamon and nutmeg and stir to coat.

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan and add apples.

Make sure they are in a single layer and cook for a few minutes while they caramelise, stir a couple of times.

Pour in juice and vanilla and cover the pan and let apples cook for approx 10 minutes until apples are soft.

Remove the apples with a slotted spoon and place into a bowl.

Add sour cherries and maple syrup to the pan and simmer till thick and syrupy. Pour over apples and allow to cool slightly.

To make the yoghurt, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir.

To serve, place apple mixture in dessert glasses or bowls and top with Maple Syrup Yoghurt.