What to do with cooking apples?

angeltreats

I don't cook the apples before filling the pie as I think it makes the pie too mushy. I just cover the bottom of the pie dish with pastry, cut the apples into thinnish wedges, fill the pie dish with them, sprinkle on a bit of sugar and cinnamon, put the top of the pie on and bake it for about 40 minutes. The apples are lovely and soft by the time the pastry is cooked.

jopwo_87

I picked up some cheap cooking apples on my travels yesterday - 4 large ones. Im looking for recipes to use them in? Something like an apple pie maybe? However i dont have much sugar so has anyone got any recipes where you dont need much sugar!

ChapelGirl

If they are cookers they might be a bit tart. Do you have any honey you could put in to make up the quantity of sugar? In any case, you probably don't need more than 2 or 3 tablespoons in the apples, and you can always make a plain pastry crust rather than a sweet one.

In Yorkshire they sometimes eat a slice of apple pie with a bit of Wensleydale cheese. They go really well together.
...or try putting it in the pie:
http://www.wensleydale.co.uk/recipes/applepie.html

CCP

If you're going to serve the pie with custard or something similarly sweet then you might not need as much sugar as normal, as the custard (or whatever) will sweeten it a bit. You could also try adding a handful of raisins or other dried fruit, if you've got any, as these will make it sweeter. (Although I tend to like my fruit a bit on the sharp side anyway, so I'm probably not the best indicator here! )

Fuzzyness

following on from all your fab suggestions about what to do with cooking apples can i pose another question.

I am part of a fruit collective that volunteers to collect unused fruit on trees in people's back gardens and disributes them to local charities and food banks etc. last year we had a preponderence of cooking apples that were being collected but which in our view were not entirely suited to the groups and charities that we were distributing to i.e. eating apples are probably more appropriate for food banks than cookers.

as such, has anyone got any suggestions of where or whom you could distribute larger quantities of cooking apples to people or groups that could make use of them. We're looking at not for profit/charity sector type organisations.

any suggestions much apprecaited. we're in coventry btw.