Today was such a beautiful day I decided to pay a visit to my nanna's garden and help her pick some apples. Growing up my nanna's garden was always such a magical place, a place where the fairies lived and danced at night. It was a place where you could pretend you were exploring the jungle and having an epic adventure. I always described going to play in my nanna's garden as a trip "down the rabbit hole" and into Wonderland because going there was always an enchanted adventure. I've spent many a summer lying amongst the flowers bathing in the sunlight and hiding amongst the bushes hoping to frighten my grandparents when they would pass by.
One of the best things about visiting the garden in summer would be all the fresh fruit you could pick and eat; blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, pears and of course lots and lots of apples. Although now many of those fruit trees and bushes have gone the one that still remains at the center of the garden is the old apple tree.
The apple tree has been there longer than the house has, I would guess around fifty years or possibly longer and still at the end of every summer it has the juiciest, crunchy and most delicious apples you've ever tasted. When asked what my favorite type of apples are I always say nanna's apples! One of the greatest things about these apples are that they are completely organic we've never used any pesticides or spray to help them grown, they grow purely on sunlight and rainwater with a little help from the bees of course. They aren't the hugest apples in fact they're only small but still absolutely delicious in every way and you know what they say "good things come in small packages" and in this case it is most definitely very true.
The best apples always grow at the top of the tree closest to the sunlight so when I was younger it was always a challenge to climb up to the top to get the tastiest apples. My brother and I always treated it like an Olympic event which he always won of course! Even now it's still a challenge for me to get to the top of the tree to find the tastiest apples but now it's because I'm too big to climb the tree and wouldn't want to break it under my now adult weight. However I am a lot taller than I used to be so with the help of a ladder I can pretty much reach the top and get to the grand prize of those tasty apples.
Now with so many apples the challenge is what to do with them. My nanna makes a great apple crumble and apple sauce which she gives to friends and family. My auntie, who also has an apple tree, makes apple chutney with hers but now it's my turn to come up with a great apple recipe. I've been presented with a huge bag full of delicious apples and no idea what to do with them so now it's my job to find a delicious recipe to share with the family so for the next few days I'll be knee deep in recipe books and apples! However once I find a great recipe I'll be sure to share it.
I love baking so the first thing I decided to try out using the apples I picked was a simple muffin recipe. I'm quite happy with this recipe as the muffins are nice and moist and not too sweet. I only used a few apples to make them though which means I have plenty more to play around with and try out more recipes with.
