Little Green Book

The English apple is a favourite orchard fruit. Did you know there are over 2,300 varieties of dessert and cooking apples and over 100 cider apples? And that's not counting plums, sloes, damsons, pears - our other orchard fruit.

You won't find many of them in the supermarket, but FoodLoversBritain.com has selected some of our top FoodLoversBritain.com Approved places to source the fruit and its products. As well as fresh fruit, you'll find juices, cider, liqueurs, cakes, chutneys, where to learn orchard management and how to make your own cider.

BUY APPLES AND OTHER ORCHARD FRUIT

Chegworth Valley sell their own-grown apples, pears and plums as well as single-variety and blended juices...

Have apples and other orchard fruit delivered to your door by Coleshill Organics

ORCHARD FRUIT PRODUCTS - DRINKS, CHUTNEYS, VINEGARS AND MORE

Look out for Clearly Juice's single-variety apple juices - filtered and clear as their name suggests - as well as a blended pear juice.

Sheppy's make their single-varietal cider from their own apples...

Moor Organic Juices have been growing apples and pears for over 75 years and still use traditional methods to make their juices.

Polgoon made their own sparkling cider and blended apple juices at their vineyard in Cornwall

Julian Temperley's Somerset Cider Brandy is fermented in oak vats...

Look out for Cotleigh Brewery Fredriks ciders at shows and fairs around the country or buy online

In the heart of the Lyth Valley - damson country - Cowmire Hall make their own damson gin from their on-site orchards

Bottle Green's elderflower cordials, presses and juices are made according to traditional wine-making methods with very little sugar

You can buy Tablehurst Farm's biodynamic apple juice - made from their own orchard fruit - in their on-site farm shop

Scrubby Oak's sweet fruit vinegars include a sparkling apple & cinammon...

Alan Coxon grows his own apples and fruit for his range of preserves and chutneys

Popina's Apple & Plum tarts are made with local apples and plums...

The Ludlow Food Centre has developed a cider-washed soft cheese...

The Hive Honey Shop, 3rd generation beekeepers and rare 80 variety apple orchard in Surrey, produces their own apple blossom honey and farm pressed fresh apple juice of 45 varieties...

 Duchy Originals Damson Preserve is made in Somerset in small batches, stirred by hand

Stonham Hedgerow source Bramley Apples on-farm and quince, crab apples and plums locally for their chutneys and jams

Glenroyd use only organic fruits for their range of preserves - in season now are apple and plum varieties perfect for cheese

Search for Cider        Search for Apple-based goodies   

Pick your Apples...

There are three basic uses for apples: making cider, cooking and eating. Cider apples are grown purely for their juice. Their particular quality is that when pressed they juice easily; so, although on first bite you will find them moist and succulent, their flesh soon disintegrates as you chew and becomes pappy - giving an effect rather like sucking on blotting paper.

Cookers have a higher acid content and the best varieties include Howgate Wonder, which tends to collapse to a fluffy heap and the Bramley which retains its shape much better. They are perfect for baking whole or cooking to a puree for apple sauce, an old-fashioned covered pie or crumble.

Eaters fall into four distinctive seasonal categories: 'early', ripening and ready for eating in August to early September, with a short shelf-life, like Discovery; 'mid', ripening in September to October, like James Grieve, Cox's or Worcester Pearmain; 'late', ready in October to December, such as Elstar; 'extra-late' ready December to March.

LEARN TO MAKE CIDER

The Magdalen Project    Ragman's Lane Farm   Pershore College

OR MAKE YOUR OWN

Turn your apples and perry pears into cider and perry

or do it yourself with your own cider press

If you want particular apple varieties, or you want to sell them, go to
Orchards Live Apple Trading

SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE HERITAGE APPLES

   Kidds Orange      Pinova        Blenheim Orange    Festival         Adams Pearmain

BUY ORCHARD FRUIT TREES...

Blackmoor Estate in Hampshire sell traditional and modern variety apple trees...

Grow at Brogdale sell every kind of heritage fruit tree you might think of - in the home of the National Fruit Collection, you'd expect nothing less

Browse FoodFinds for more places to buy heritage and orchard fruit trees

RENT AN APPLE TREE...

If you love apples why not rent an apple tree in one of Lathcoats Farm orchards?...

VISIT AN ORCHARD...

Cotehele Estate     Orchards Live     Symondsbury Apple Project

LEARN TO LOOK AFTER AND MANAGE AN ORCHARD...

Thornhayes Nursery    Symondsbury Apple Project    Pershore College

Cook with Apples and other orchard fruit...

Savoury...
Black Pudding with Autumn Fruits... Rack of Pork with Cider Apple Butter...  Pork Belly with Apples and Onions... Apple Bread..

Preserves...
Apple, Plum and Onion Relish... Blackberry Apple Leather... Apple Sauce... Pears in White Wine... Bramley Lemon Curd...Sloe and Crabapple Jelly

Sweet...
Apple and Quince Souffle... Apple, Walnut and Mincemeat Tart... Apple Semolina Souffle... Baked Apples with Peppercorns... Caramelised Apples with Creme Anglaise... Plum Crumble with Cinnamon Custard... Somerset Apple Cake... Tarte Tatin... Pear and Almond Croustillant... Cider Syllabub with Apple Crisps... Caramel Apple Pavlova...

EXPLORE APPLE AND ORCHARD DAYS AROUND THE COUNTRY

Apple Day is 21 October

Check out our Food Events page for more information on Apple Day and other apple celebration days around the country

READ MORE ABOUT APPLES AND ORCHARD FRUIT

The Apple Source Book by Sue Clifford & Angela King

Forgotten Fruits by Christopher Stocks

The New Book of Apples by Joan Morgan & Alison Richards

DID YOU KNOW...? ABSTRACT APPLE TRIVIA

• You can remove discolouration of aluminium pots and pans by boiling apple peelings in them.
• Apples are a member of the rose family, along with pears, peaches, plums, strawberries and raspberries, amongst others.   
  
• Fresh apples float because 25% of their volume is air.
• It takes 36 apples to create a gallon of cider
• John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, took apple puree in squeezable tubes on his first space flight.
  
• Adam’s apple is so-called because it is said as Adam was eating the apple in the Garden of Eden, a piece lodged in his throat, and so all his descendants thereafter have had a lump in the front of their necks.
• The Big Apple (New York) has been so-called since the 1920s when a racing columnist, John Fitzgerald, brought the term back with him from New Orleans, where the stablehands would refer to New York’s infamous and extensive racing tracks as the holy grail, the Big Apple. The term stuck and was adopted by jazz musicians in the 1930s.
  
• The original Bramley tree was planted as a pip by Mary Ann Brailsford in 1809 in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. You can arrange a visit to the garden where it still stands. The name Bramley comes from the subsequent owner - Matthew Bramley - who lent his name to the apples propagated from it.