Oh, what a lovely Sunday it was in Totteridge and Whetstone (or as Mr R likes to call it, “Totts and Whets”). Sunny, sunny, sunny and glorious. We got some funny looks from other tube passengers as we sat on a bench on the platform and ate baked apples in the sunshine. Then we hiked up the road and quenched our thirst in a local hostelry with several large pints of beer. As recently reported, we were having a heatwave, so lashings of lager were required!
This was stop #2 on the Great Bear Project – if you want to know what on earth that is, check out this post.
Hopefully, these pix will give you an idea of how much fun we had…
The Dish
I really liked these little apples. I remember baked apples from the 1970s, but they always seemed to have sultanas in them. I prefer the nuts. I think this would be a perfect autumn dinner party pud. When you’ve finished cooking something in the oven, you could pop these in to do their thing while you are eating your main course. Easy peasy. I had quite a bit of honey infused water in the bottom of my baking dish so I just drizzled a bit of that over the apples. The Angostura bitters did give these a bit of boozy oomph I think.
The Star
You can almost imagine Olly beaming a big smile and fiddling with his tie when presented with one of these baked apples with a big dollop of squirty cream.
Mr. Rathbone’s Totteridge and Whetstone Factoids
The station is on the north side of Totteridge Lane (A5109), to the east of the Dollis Brook (the traditional boundary between Totteridge and Whetstone) so is narrowly in the latter.
This area was called Tataridge in the 13th Century. It may have been named after someone called Tata. The ridge is the high ground between the valleys of the Dollis Brook and Folly Brook.
Totteridge has many spacious detached properties in a green setting that are highly valued; some of them are among the most expensive houses in London. Its past and present residents have included the rich and famous, including Frankie Vaughan, Des O’Connor, Cliff Richard, Mickie Most, Hank Marvin and Roger Moore.
Sounds a bit like Stella Street!
The Recipe
Next stop – Michael Caine!
Yum! Baked apples are a fairly frequent dessert over autumn and winter in my house. We don’t have the right sort of apples in our garden but lots of my neighbours do and are only too glad to offload some.
I usually stuff them with raisins, syrup and spices, but occasionally mincemeat or marzipan if I’m feeling frivolous 🙂 I’ve never tried just nuts.
And I’m intrigued by his apple preparation- I core the apple right through and occasionally score round the middle, which is supposed to stop the apple from exploding but some just seem to end in a pile of fluff no matter what. Not very pretty but still tasty. Oliver Hardy’s apples for Sunday pudding I think!
Yay! If you make some of Oliver’s apples please do share a photo with me! I love it when readers try out the recipes. Drop me a line via the contact page. Oooh, I love the idea of marzipan, and you have reminded me that my mum used to make these with mincemeat. I’m going home for a visit next weekend so I’ll ask her if she remembers making them.
Lucky you to have such generous neighbours!
I made them! Delicious! I thought the family may rebel at the lack of dried fruit but no.
I still haven’t worked out how to send you a photo, I can’t do it via your contact page.
Oh BRILLIANT HAZEL! So glad you and the family enjoyed them. I think they are good too! Send pix to jenny (at) http://www.silverscreensuppers.com – just trying to disguise my email address to thwart the spammers! Jx
PS – recipe coming soon involving marzipan – yum yum!