Swedish Apple Pudding with an Amazing Maple Syrup Cream

This weeks book is one I’ve not visited before on my blog – Cook Simple effortless cooking every day by Diana Henry. I’m a fan of Diana and her writing, she has style with her recipes, they are sometimes a little unusual and usually delicious. I don’t always use quite as much olive oil in some of the recipes, but that is something I often do with other writers as well. I very much looked forward to this new book last year when it came out, and it’s a good book, if a bit of a naff title, in my opinion anyhow – the book is so much better than it’s title. I can see why it was chosen, as this is the busy persons route to good cooking with a minimum of time at the stove; by that I mean the actual preparation as opposed to the cooking in the oven say, or marinating time.

Chicken and Chorizo in Rioja
I’ve cooked a number of recipes from this book so far: Pacific Lime Chicken (really, really good – in fact I’ve cooked it several times, it doesn’t take a good picture though, so no picture here), Chicken and Chorizo in Rioja (just my thing), Pomegranate and Honey Glazed Chops with Tzataki, Honey Mustard Sausages (yum!), Warm Potatoes with Beans and Avocado, Warm Potatoes with Pesto and Green Beans, Sicilian Baked Stuffed Peppers, Flagolet Beans with Garlic and Parsley, Apple Maple and Ginger Fool, which again I’ve made a few times, although I left out the ginger for the little people eating it.

Sicilian Baked Stuffed Peppers
My most recent make was Johanna’s Swedish Apple Pie, which I served with Diana’s Maple Cream. The pudding is a few minutes work and a while in the oven, the result is like nothing I’ve made before. To paraphrase Diana, it’s not sponge, crumble of tart. The best I could describe it is to say it’s like warm cooked apples with a sort of shortbread-ish topping, with the cream it was lovely. Actually the cream was a revelation, such a good thing to have up your sleeve, and the maple syrup taste happily doesn’t lessen with passing spoonfuls. Even of you don’t try the pudding, do try the cream with something apple-y, even just stewed apples it’s truly devine!

My notes are that I used pink lady apples, and I would say it would serve 4 to 6, I didn’t bother with the icing sugar either, although it would have looked pretty. I used a 8 to 9 inch pyrex pie dish. For the cream I used 4 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Watch the almonds on top towards the end, or they will blacken, I caught mine just about in the nick of time!

Johanna’s Swedish Apple Pie
From Cook Simple by Diana Henry 2007
Serves 8
125g butter, plus a litle for greasing
5 eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunky slices
150g caster sugar
200g plain flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
45g flaked almonds
icing sugar to dust, optional
Grease your dish. Lay the prepared apples in the dish. Mix the sugar, flour, baking powder and lemon zest. Melt the butter and stir into the flour mixture, spoon over the apples then scatter over the flaked almonds.
Bake at 200oC for 30 minutes, or until cooked. Let the pudding cool a little when it comes out of the oven.

Maple Cream
300ml Double Cream
4-5 tablespoons maple syrup
squeeze lemon juice
Beat together in a bowl until whipped to your liking.