Toffee Apple Pudding

We are big Aldi fans in the Little Birdie household. Their fruit and vegetables are cheap and good quality. So when Mr Birdie spotted some bargainous Bramley apples over the weekend (4 for 99p) I decided it was time to make an apple-based pudding. After some investigation work I found this BBC Good Food recipe for toffee apple pudding which looked easy enough and I had all the ingredients for. I did consider making this treacle apple pudding, especially as I have pudding basin that I have used yet but opted for ease instead! Although this dessert isn't a 'looker' it was tasty and went down well after dinner on Sunday.

Ingredients:

For the pudding:
85g butter (melted)
140g self-raising flour
100g golden caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
200ml milk
1 egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Bramley apples

For the topping:
140g dark brown sugar
50g pecans (roughly chopped)

Method:
1) Heat oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease a 2-litre (3 1/2 pint) ovenproof dish lightly with butter.
2) Tip the flour, sugar and baking powder, along with a pinch of salt, into a large bowl.

3) Mix together the milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract.

4) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you get a smooth batter.

5) Peel, core and slice the apples and arrange into the bottom of your ovenproof dish. Spoon the batter on top and smooth with a knife until the apples are covered.

6) For the topping, pour 250ml of boiling water over the sugar and stir together until smooth.

7) Pour the liquid over the pudding mixture (it will look pretty bad at this point but don't worry the liquid starts to sink to the bottom) and then scatter over the pecans.

8) Bake for about 40 minutes until the pudding has risen and is golden. 

9) Use a large spoon to serve the pudding (to make sure you get the caramel sauce at the bottom) and serve with cream, custard or ice cream.

10) Enjoy!

Happy baking :-)