The best apples fall

I have always been fascinated with words and as a child would hang on to words and ponder their meaning. I would hear my mother and grandmother talk as they stood peering into pans and so from a very young age knew what was meant by an apple falling. It is something that I believe only happens when Bramley apples are cooked. The apple is quickly sliced into a pan containing a tablespoon of water and sprinkled with sugar then it is cooked on the gas and very quickly it becomes a light and fluffy mass that can be bottled to make compote, eaten with sweet creamy custard, allowed to cool and added to cakes to make them more moist, served inside scones with a blob of fresh cream, used as a side sauce when serving meat or game, lightly placed onto ice-cream, poured warm over steam puddings ... the list is almost endless. The secret is to let the apple fall - at its peak in this process it becomes frothy to produce the very best of English puddings!