It is well worth trying ‘potato apple’ – potato bread filled with stewed apples

I recall innocent times of dunking for apples, dressing up in hand made costumes and being very excited to find a five pence piece in an apple tart.

Nowadays we celebrate an American imported Halloween of trick of treating, candy and expensive costumes. It was Irish and Scottish immigrants to America that brought the traditions to them.

Turnip lanterns have been replaced by pumpkin varieties but we started it. I remember scooping out the flesh of a turnip with a spoon and getting so frustrated my father handed me a chisel. It did the trick – there was no adherence to health and safety in the McIntyre household in the seventies.

I survived to tell the tale and we would have had turnip for dinner that night with the scoopings and beef sausages on the side.

Turnip is still one of my favourite vegetables and in the recipe here it’s finely sliced, fried with onions and layered in a baking dish and covered with cider.

After this has been baked for a while, fried chicken breasts are placed on top. When they’re cooked a toot of cream and parsley is added to the turnip and cooked for five minutes. You end up with crispy chicken and soft unctuous cider infused turnip. Add a few spuds for a complete meal.

Another Halloween tradition was eating barmbrack – a spiced, fruity loaf. Trinkets were often added to the dough and baked that would symbolise your future.

Find a rag and you’ll be poor, or a coin signified riches and a ring meant you’d be married in the year. The practice has died out but barmbrack is still popular.

A homemade one is even better than shop bought and there’s nothing nicer than a warm slice of it with butter straight from the oven.

A few years ago someone asked me if I’d ever tried potato apple – potato bread filled with stewed apple. I hadn’t and to be honest didn’t really like the sound of it – apples for pudding and potato bread in a fry. I did try it though when Mark Douglas, aka The Krazy Baker, had it at a show I was attending. Mark bakes traditional breads on a griddle and the potato apple stole the show that day. Warm potato bread filled with stewed Armagh Bramley apple – what wasn’t to love?

I don’t know what I was thinking but the combination of the two is a winner. It’s served at Halloween but frankly it should be served all year round it’s so good.

If you don’t have a griddle or skillet use a heavy based frying pan. Sometimes I brush it with butter on the outside while it’s still warm… Get the apples in a bowl, bake some barmbrack and hark back to simpler times.