We recently took a trip up to Mudgee and Orange to explore a little more of what’s on our doorstep in NSW. It was a great three day adventure. We discovered many wonderful wines, we ate our body weight in delicious cheeses and we enjoyed the most amazing morning at the Orange farmers market.
Our first stop (and an incredible place to rest our heads) after a long drive up to Mudgee was the beautiful Evanslea Estate. We settled in pretty quickly with a walk round the pretty gardens and a welcome wine by the outdoor fire, which felt pretty grown up. We rectified the situation by toasting marshmallows.
Country air + wine + fire + goey/toasty marshmallows = holiday happiness.
Day two was spent in the not-so-beautiful-sounding, incredibly-beautiful-looking Dunns Swamp. We stopped in the little country town of Rylstone on the way and visited the most fantastic wool shop. Kade was very patient while I did some damage. The rest of the day was spent wandering through gorgeous bushland and stumbling upon wild Kangaroos, a little bush pig and some cave paintings.
That night we stayed in a beautifully designed studio called The Speckled Nest in Millthorpe, just 20 minutes from Orange.
We woke early on Saturday morning to visit the Orange Farmers Markets. I’m so glad we did this because it was a wonderful market where we met the most incredible producers and bought some delicious fruit, veges and preserves.
One of the sellers had an extensive selection of apples and I bought a few special French ones to take home and bake with. I love that these apples look a little gnarly, they remind me of a good fairytale, a little bit Snow White. There’s been a lot of media coverage lately on wasting perfectly good farm produce because fruits and vegetable don’t fit into a very strict visual criteria enforced by supermarkets. I think it’s appalling that produce like this would be turned down at the supermarket when the flavour in these apples is better than any I’ve ever tasted at a supermarket. I no longer buy fruit and vegetables from supermarkets because I got so sick of tasteless, old, produce. It’s nice to know that when you buy at the farmers markets, the farmer is sharing his best produce with you, in all it’s imperfect-skinned glory.
Warm Winter Apple Crumble
Serves 6
For the Filling –
7 apples for cooking
Juice from 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 pinches of cinnamon
1 pinch ground ginger
For the Topping –
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup rolled oats
100g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 drops vanilla extract
Mix all filling ingredients together in a pie dish.
In a separate bowl combine flour, almonds, oats and butter and mix the ingredients together working the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips. This will soften the butter and disperse it through the flour to create a nice crumb.
Add the brown sugar and a couple of drops of vanilla extract to the crumb and mix together.
Spread the crumb mix over the apple filling in the pie dish and press lightly.
Cook in a preheated oven at 180°C for 40 minutes or till the top is golden brown and the apples beneath are bubbling slightly.
Et voilà, market apple crumble which was basically inhaled at our place.
Served with vanilla ice cream of course.
I hope you enjoyed our little adventure as much as we did and hope you get a chance to whip up a tasty apple crumble with some market apples this week.
xxBlighStBistro