Eve's Pudding with Brigette's apples

An afternoon's visit to a friend's house this weekend ended with a foray into her garden to forage for cooking apples in the orchard. I came home with two filled bags and immediately knew what I wanted to make with them.

Eve's pudding is a classic, a simple baked sponge cushioning a bed of chopped and sugared apples. My mother baked something very similar when I was child, but having mislaid the recipe over the years, I found and slightly adapted this one courtesy of Pinterest, and reproduce it below in easy-to-follow steps.

This makes a large pudding that will serve 8-12. Modify according to the number of apples you have to hand.

Ingredients:
12 small cooking apples (or other variety)
juice of one lemon
4 tbsp of demerara sugar
2 tsp of ground cinnamon
200g self-raising flour
200g caster sugar
200g stork margerine (or softened butter)
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan assisted).

Peel, core and chop the apples.

Butter an ovenproof dish - don't do what I did and forget to do this until after the addition of the lemon juice - and add the prepared apples.

Scatter the demerara sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon over the apples and toss thoroughly.

Place the flour, margerine (or butter), caster sugar, eggs and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl.

Mix with an electric whisk until pale and creamy.

Dollop the sponge mix over the apples and level out with a spatula so that all the apples are covered.

Bake for 40 minutes to an hour. (Check after 40 that it is baked under the crust in the middle). This monster pudding needed an hour, but I covered it with foil after 40 minutes to stop the sponge from scorching. If you like, then scatter with a couple of spoons of caster sugar.

Serve while hot with liberal helpings of custard.

I still have a bowl of Bridget's apples left, so more apple recipes to follow.