Apple Cinnamon Self Saucing Pudding

Self saucing puddings are a favourite here in the cooler weather, though we have been known to make them all year round, but especially in winter they are made in abundance. We have made chocolate, golden syrup, lemon and butterscotch before, but this was a new spin on our classics, and apple cinnamon anything is a winner here!

Apple’s Galore!

We seem to have an abundance of apples most of the year round, though at times they are storage apples and are quite soft and gritty, not great for fresh eating, but great for puddings, hence this Apple Cinnamon Self Saucing Pudding came about, I wanted something caramelly and comforting, but also wanted to use some of those cooking apples, though I will use fresh ones when they’re in abundance as well, so many desserts can be made with apples!

The other push for this style of apple dessert was my brand new gorgeous cast iron baking dish that my mum bought me on one of our monthly Costco shopping runs for my birthday! It was calling out for something decadent to be made and photographed in it and then when I posted it on my Instagram and Facebook, everyone called for the recipe, so I had to make it a few more times (oh the horror!) before I shared it to make sure it worked!

Tips and ideas

Apples!

You can use any apple you like, green apples are a little more tart than red generally speaking and of course storage apples are going to be a bit softer and more floury texture, but in this dish, it really doesn’t make much difference. You can also cut your apple however you like, I like to dice it all up and mix it into the batter, you could totally slice it really neatly and just lay it over the batter for a different look! I’m sure you could even grate the apple, though I think a lot of it would just about dissolve into the pudding, this might be a good thing for some!

I haven’t tried it with my canned apples as yet, but I reckon it would work perfectly fine with them as well, I generally slightly stew my apples and then can them just as is, so they’re par cooked ready for pies, pastries, puddings, etc!

Sugar content

I played with the sugar content in this recipe, but realistically you need that quantity of sugar to make the sauce, you could of course use a sugar alternative, but you definitely need that quantity of sugar to create the pudding, the more you reduce the sugar the more cake like and less self saucing pudding like it will end up. I love using my homemade brown sugar (Raw sugar and Molasses combined in my Thermomix) because I love the depth of flavour adding molasses adds into it, but any sugar or sugar sub is fine here, play around to figure out what texture you prefer!

Butter choices

We tend to lean towards using Ghee in this house due to some dairy intolerances, however any fat that you can make a caramel sauce with would work for dolloping on top! Because in the end, that is what we’re doing, boiling water, sugar and a ‘fat’ and you have a caramel sauce.