Autumnal fruity slices — Joseph Toltz

Freshness and seasonality means everything when it comes to fruit. There’s something wonderful watching the waxing and waning of various species according to the time of year. In Australia, summer means berries, mangoes, the more exotic tropical fruits and stone fruit. Depending on where you live, the seasonality shifts. The best berries come from Tasmania, and that season doesn’t really begin until late December. The best apricots are in Victoria, and rarely make it across the border into New South Wales. In late winter, Queensland produces flavoursome strawberries. The last of the stone fruit are the plums, and they carry on into the cooling months.

In recent years, changes in climate have thrown farmers and the trees themselves into states of confusion. Wet, rainy periods in summer come and go; if we have a heavy rainy spring, then the stone fruit will excel, but otherwise they will be a bit drab. Apples more than any other fruit have suffered the vicissitudes of climate change. In the Blue Mountains, the Bilpin region has been blessed as a perfect microclimate for growing apples. In the tragic Black summer fires, many orchards were wiped out. Some of these orchards continued to grow varieties of apples not considered reliable enough for the large commercial growers and the greedy, perfection-demanding supermarkets. I’m going to venture up there soon, in the hope that I will be able to purchase some Cox’s Orange Pippin apples for this recipe. They are the absolute ideal apple for cooking this incredible but time-consuming dessert. They also are a brilliant fruit for traditional apple pies.

I don’t know how long ago Amando Percuoco put this delicious dessert on the menu of Buon Ricordo, his iconic restaurant in Sydney’s Paddington. The official recipe on the Australian Gourmet Traveller site dates back to 2011, but I remember eating it at my mum’s birthday in the year 2000, which happened to be the opening night of the Sydney Olympics. So some notes on the recipe: yes, you need this many apples, a mandolin, and a lot of patience. The peeling and slicing will take at least 25 minutes; the baking and basting for almost 4 hours. But the reward is great. Should you be so disposed (in the Northern Hemisphere), it works a treat as a dessert for Rosh Hashanah, and you can replace the sugar with honey to get in the Yontev spirit. If you are feeling spicy, a bit of vanilla extract or some cinnamon would be nice too. Here in the Southern Hemisphere I have cooked it as a Pesach dessert. Give it a go - at least once. Please don’t curse me until you take a bite.