Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The Best Apple I've Ever Tasted

This single apple has indisputably wiped the floor with every other apple grown this year and delivered on all the hype and media buzz surrounding the famed Bramley's Seedling. This lone apple survived coddling moth, sunburn, pigeons and wierd alien fungus to mature into a plump, spotty and asymmetrical example of this legendary cooking apple. I vowed to myself that my first successfully grown Bramley would be stewed and served (still warm) over ice-cream. I kept my vow. As a result of this whole experience, my second Bramley tree, currently on the front nature strip, will be relocated to the orchard next to it's older sibling. Community gardening just got less communal.

Having just one specimen makes scientific photography a little more difficult. I tried to capture it from all necessary angles and in all it's grandeur before the processing began. I was relieved to find no evidence of watercore or a coddling moth tunnel when I sectioned it.

While I was dicing away at this moster I took the opportunity to judge the Bramley as an eating apple. It was a truly exceptional apple to eat raw. The flavour is difficult to describe, the sensation is acid to begin with but there is an underlying sweetness. The texture was crisp with a high water content. This apple makes the Granny Smith taste like a fake plastic apple! The stewing process was a bit of guess work. I had about 200g of fruit to which I added 2 teaspoons of caster sugar and 6 teaspoons of water.