According to Food Aware, every year in the UK, 18 million tonnes of food ends up in landfill. This isn’t just food that may have gone mouldy or completely inedible, this is food that is 100% good enough to eat. It’s the sort of thing that has just gone past it’s ‘use by’ date, or the sort of food you might consider ‘past its best’ and wouldn’t necessarily eat raw.
For some reason, I’ve always been concerned about wasting things, and in my house, apples are always the things that get left to go soft in the fruit bowl. Bananas are scoffed before they even go brown, and berries are kept in the fridge, but those poor apples just sit there getting less and less desirable each day (especially during warmer weather).
SO, this recipe is for everyone who has apples (or pears, or any other ‘fruit bowl’ type of fruit) going off at the moment. Instead of throwing them in the bin, or even donating them to the compost pile, create something delicious with them that the whole family will love!
This recipe is rough, and leaves plenty of room to play around with. The ingredients are so simple, versatile sand forgiving, that if you use a little too much of this, or not quite enough of that, it really won’t matter much. Think of these as the perfect snack to take with you on a long journey or outdoor adventure – they’re filling, tasty, but still totally healthy and nutritious, and don’t contain any sweeteners – either artificial or natural – all the sweetness comes from the apples!
Ingredients
- 6 small apples
- A few handfuls of oats
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 4 tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 2 tbsp flax (optional)
- Pinch of good quality salt
How To
- Preheat the oven to 180C
- Add the apples to a food processor or blender, and pulse until they’re finely chopped. Feel free to leave some chunky pieces too. (Alternatively, use some muscle power to grate or finely chop the apples)
- Add the oats to a large bowl, and scoop in the chopped apple. Mix well
- Add all the other ingredients to the bowl, and mix well to combine everything.
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and firmly press together handfuls of the mixture
- Place the roughly shaped balls of mixture onto the baking tray, and gently press to flatten them into cookie-like shapes
- Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes (check on them after 20 minutes)
- They’ll be done when you can smell them – I always use this as a good indicator! – and when they’re firm enough to prod with your finger, but still relatively soft.
- Take them out of the oven and leave to cool on a baking rack for a couple of hours – the longer you leave them, the firmer they’ll become.
- Store in a Tupperware box for a few days, or devour straight away! They work wonderfully with a strong cup of tea after a long walk and will stay moist for 4-5 days too.
Leave a Reply