There is a particular sort of optimism involved in acquiring too many apples.
Perhaps the tree in the garden has had an unusually enthusiastic year. Perhaps you went apple picking and discovered that filling a bag is considerably more entertaining than working out what to do with its contents. Or perhaps a few apples have simply been sitting in the fruit bowl for long enough to develop wrinkles.
Whatever the reason, autumn can leave us with rather more fruit than we know what to do with.
The good news is that an apple doesn’t stop being useful because it has lost its crunch.
Soft apples can become compote. Bruised ones can disappear beneath crumble. Surplus fruit can be frozen or preserved, and even clean apple peelings can sometimes have a second outing before reaching the compost heap.
The secret is simply knowing what to do with an apple at each stage of its life.
So before another slightly wrinkled specimen makes its way towards the food-waste caddy, have another look.
Pudding may be staring back at you.
First, is the apple still good to eat?
A soft apple and a spoilt apple are two quite different things.
Apples naturally lose moisture during storage, so an older fruit may become wrinkled, slightly soft or less crisp without necessarily being destined for the bin. These apples are often ideal for cooking.
Bruising isn’t automatically the end of the road either. Cut the apple open and, if the rest of the flesh is sound, remove the bruised section and use what’s left.
Fruit showing significant mould or rot should be discarded into your food-waste collection or compost rather than rescued for cooking.
The aim isn’t to eat absolutely everything at all costs.
It’s to recognise when perfectly usable food still has something to offer.
What can you make with soft apples?
Once an apple has lost the satisfying crunch required for eating straight from the fruit bowl, cooking is usually its best next move.
Soft apples are particularly useful in crumbles, cakes, muffins, sauces and compotes. Their texture matters much less once they’re going into a saucepan or oven, and their natural sweetness can become even more noticeable as they cook.
One of the simplest things you can make is apple compote.
Easy apple compote
Makes about 4 servings
You’ll need:
- 5 medium apples
- 2–3 tbsp water
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1–2 tsp soft brown sugar or honey, optional
Peel the apples if you prefer a smoother result, although there’s no need if you don’t mind a little texture.
Core and roughly chop the fruit, removing any bruised areas.
Put the apples into a saucepan with the water, cinnamon and lemon juice. Cover and cook gently for 10–15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft.
Taste before adding any sugar or honey. Sweet eating apples may need nothing at all.
Leave the compote chunky or mash it with a fork.
Serve warm over porridge, spoon it onto yoghurt, add it to pancakes or use it as the beginning of a quick pudding.
A spoonful straight from the saucepan while nobody is looking is also perfectly respectable.
Turn tired apples into crumble
If an apple can still be chopped, it can probably find a home beneath crumble topping.
In fact, a slightly soft apple may be more welcome in a crumble than in a lunchbox.
Peel the fruit if you like, although leaving the skin on works perfectly well for many home-made crumbles. Remove the cores, chop the apples and toss with a little lemon juice.
Add cinnamon or ginger, or combine the apples with pears, plums or blackberries.
Then cover the lot with crumble topping and bake until golden.
Nobody sitting down to a bowl of warm apple crumble and custard is going to ask whether the apples were looking slightly tired on Tuesday.
And if they do, they may not deserve crumble.
Freeze apples for another day
Freezing is one of the easiest answers to the familiar autumn question: what can I do with too many apples?
It’s particularly useful when a glut is ripening faster than you can cook with it.
Peel the apples if your eventual recipe requires it, then core and slice or chop them. Toss the pieces with a little lemon juice to help reduce browning.
Spread the apple pieces across a lined baking tray in a single layer and freeze until firm. Once frozen, transfer them to a labelled freezer container or bag.
Freezing them separately first means you can take out what you need later instead of confronting one enormous frozen apple boulder.
Once defrosted, the texture will be softer than fresh apple, so use frozen fruit for crumbles, pies, cakes, sauces and compotes rather than expecting it to regain its original crunch.
You can also freeze cooked apple compote in suitably sized portions.
Future you, arriving home on a cold evening and discovering the beginnings of pudding in the freezer, will be quietly delighted.
Make apple sauce
Apple sauce is another excellent destination for fruit that’s beginning to soften.
Cooking apples such as ‘Bramley’ are particularly good because they cook down readily, but eating apples can be used too.
Simple apple sauce
Makes one medium bowl
You’ll need:
- 500g apples
- 50ml water
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp cinnamon, optional
- Sugar, to taste
Peel, core and chop the apples.
Put them into a saucepan with the water and lemon juice. Cover and cook gently for 10–15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the fruit has broken down.
Mash with a fork or blend for a smoother sauce.
Taste before adding sugar. The amount required will depend enormously on the apples you’ve used.
Serve apple sauce with roast pork, spoon it over yoghurt or porridge, or use it in baking.
One saucepan, several possibilities.
That’s the sort of efficiency we can get behind.
Don’t automatically peel your apples
One of the easiest ways to reduce apple waste is also wonderfully uncomplicated.
Leave the skin on.
Apple peel is edible, and there is no need to remove it for many everyday dishes. Give the fruit a good wash and leave the peel intact for crumbles, traybakes, baked apples and chunky compotes where a little extra texture won’t cause any trouble.
Of course, there are recipes where peeled apples work better. A smooth apple sauce or a particularly refined tart may be one of them.
But an ordinary Wednesday-night crumble?
It probably doesn’t require quite so much ceremony.
What can you do with apple peelings?
When you do peel apples, clean peelings can sometimes be given another job.
One of the easiest is to turn them into crisp little bites in the oven.
Cinnamon apple peel crisps
You’ll need:
- Clean peelings from 4–5 apples
- 1 tsp melted butter
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- A small pinch of sugar, optional
Heat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/Gas 3.
Toss the peelings lightly with the butter and cinnamon. Add a tiny amount of sugar if you want them sweeter.
Spread them in a single layer over a lined baking tray.
Bake for around 15–25 minutes, turning once and checking frequently towards the end. Thin pieces can catch quickly.
Allow them to cool, when they should become crisper.
Think of these as a small bonus rather than a compelling reason to peel every apple you encounter.
Sometimes leaving the skin on is still the most zero-waste option of all.
Make use of apple cores – but leave the seeds alone
Apple cores are a little trickier.
You’ll sometimes find traditional recipes that use apple cores and peelings when making jellies because apples naturally contain pectin, which helps preserves to set.
However, apple seeds contain compounds that can release cyanide when crushed or chewed. Accidentally swallowing the occasional intact pip isn’t generally a cause for concern, but there’s no good reason to deliberately grind, crush or consume apple seeds in the name of avoiding waste.
For an everyday kitchen, the simplest approach is to remove the core and seeds and put them into your food-waste collection or compost, where appropriate.
Zero-waste cooking doesn’t require us to turn every last pip into dinner.
Sometimes the compost heap gets a share too.
Bake whole apples
If you have apples that are still sound but perhaps not at their crispest, baking them whole requires remarkably little effort.
Easy cinnamon baked apples
Serves 4
You’ll need:
- 4 medium apples
- 40g rolled oats
- 30g chopped walnuts or hazelnuts
- 30g raisins
- 1 tbsp soft brown sugar
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 20g butter
- 100ml water
Heat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan/Gas 5.
Carefully remove the cores without cutting all the way through the bottom of the apples.
Mix the oats, nuts, raisins, sugar and cinnamon together, then spoon the mixture into the centre of each apple. Dot with butter.
Place the apples in a baking dish and pour the water around them.
Bake for 30–40 minutes, depending on the size and variety of apple, until tender.
Serve warm with yoghurt, cream, custard or ice cream.
It’s one of those puddings that looks reassuringly wholesome right up until you add the custard.
Turn a glut into apple chutney
When the apple tree has really committed itself to the task, a cake or two isn’t going to solve matters.
It’s time for chutney.
Apple chutney is a particularly useful way to preserve a larger quantity of fruit, combining apples with onions, vinegar, sugar and spices to make something that can be enjoyed long after autumn has passed.
Easy autumn apple chutney
Makes about 3–4 small jars
You’ll need:
- 750g apples, peeled, cored and diced
- 250g onions, finely chopped
- 150g raisins
- 200g light brown sugar
- 300ml cider vinegar
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
Put all the ingredients into a large, heavy-based saucepan.
Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for around 1–1½ hours, stirring occasionally at first and more frequently as the mixture thickens.
The chutney is ready when it is thick and there is little loose liquid remaining.
Take particular care towards the end, when chutney develops an extraordinary ability to catch on the bottom of the saucepan the moment you turn your attention elsewhere.
Transfer it into properly sterilised jars while hot and seal using current safe preserving guidance.
Allowing chutney some time to mature before opening will help the flavours settle and develop.
Then bring out the cheese.
Preserve the harvest
Chutney isn’t the only way to make an apple glut last longer.
Apples can be made into jellies, jams, sauces and preserves, while suitable fruit can also be bottled using an established preserving method.
If you’re preserving fruit for long-term storage, this is one area where improvisation isn’t particularly helpful. Use a tested recipe and follow current food-safety guidance for preparing jars, processing and storage.
An old family recipe may be wonderful.
An old family approach to sterilisation may be rather less so.
Preserving the harvest has been part of autumn kitchen life for generations, and there is still something deeply satisfying about opening a jar in winter that began with an overenthusiastic apple tree several months earlier.
Store apples properly to reduce waste
Of course, the best way to rescue an ageing apple is to prevent it ageing too quickly in the first place.
If you’re storing home-grown apples, choose sound, unblemished fruit and handle it carefully. A bruised apple is likely to deteriorate more quickly than an undamaged one.
Different apple varieties also store differently. Some are best eaten relatively soon after picking, while later varieties can keep considerably longer under suitable conditions.
Store suitable apples somewhere cool, dark and well ventilated, and check them regularly.
Remove fruit that begins to rot before it affects its neighbours.
You don’t need to stand guard over them.
An occasional inspection will do.
Share an apple glut
There comes a point at which even the most dedicated baker has enough apple chutney.
If your tree is producing more fruit than your household can reasonably use, sharing may be the simplest solution.
Offer apples to neighbours, friends or colleagues. Put a box outside with a friendly sign if appropriate, or investigate whether a nearby community kitchen, food-sharing group or local organisation accepts surplus garden produce.
A productive apple tree is a lovely thing.
It doesn’t follow that one household has to eat every apple it produces.
And giving someone a bag of apples is considerably quicker than making twelve jars of chutney.
What to do with windfall apples
The ground beneath an apple tree can become rather busy as autumn progresses.
Windfalls aren’t automatically waste. Fruit that has recently fallen and remains sound may still be useful for cooking once it has been carefully checked and any bruised or damaged areas removed.
But fallen fruit can deteriorate quickly, particularly when its skin has been broken. Fruit contaminated by animal waste, badly damaged, mouldy or rotten should not be used.
Gather windfalls regularly rather than leaving them underneath the tree indefinitely.
The best specimens can head for the kitchen.
The rest can return to the compost heap or appropriate food-waste collection.
An apple has more than one chance
Perhaps that’s the most useful thing to remember.
We tend to imagine an apple at its best when it’s polished, crisp and sitting obediently in the fruit bowl.
But that’s only one version of an apple.
A slightly soft one can become compote. A bruised one can go into crumble. A glut can become chutney. Surplus fruit can wait in the freezer, while clean peelings can occasionally earn themselves one final appearance from the oven.
And what genuinely can’t be eaten can often return to the compost heap rather than general waste.
Zero-waste cooking isn’t about performing culinary gymnastics with every stalk and pip.
It’s simply about looking twice before throwing good food away.
So the next time you discover three slightly wrinkled apples at the bottom of the fruit bowl, don’t apologise to them.
Chop one.
Cook one.
Freeze one.
Or, perhaps most sensibly of all, make crumble.
Custard optional.
In theory.
Further Reading: My Garden Journal & Notes
