Walnut loaf with apple butter

Ingredients

Apple and rosemary butter:

• 6 large apples (I used Cox Pippins but any tart cooking apple would be good)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• juice of one lemon
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 x 20cm stalks rosemary (or equivalent in small stalks)

Walnut loaf:

• 250g butter, softened
• ½ cup caster sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour
• ½ cup natural yoghurt
• 120g walnuts, toasted and chopped into small pieces

Method

Apple and rosemary butter:

Chop the apples into nice rough chunks (don’t bother with peeling and coring as these bits give lots of flavour, colour and pectin). Tip into a large casserole dish and add remaining ingredients. Cover and let bubble away on a medium-low heat for about one hour or until the apples are soft and mushy.

Remove the lid and cook on low for another hour or until the apples have turned a nice deep brown, reduced and intensified in flavour.

Once cooled, remove from the dish and store in a jar ready for spreading over the sliced loaf.

Walnut loaf:

Preheat the oven to 180å¡C or 160å¡C fan-forced. Line a loaf tin with baking paper and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, add the vanilla extract then the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Fold through the flour then the natural yoghurt and walnuts.

Spoon mixture into the loaf tin and smooth the top. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden and the edges are just starting to pull away from the pan. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack.

Notes:

• This loaf keeps for a few days and is great sliced thinly and spread with the apple butter then made into a little ‰Û÷sandwich‰Ûª for morning tea.
• You can store the apple and rosemary butter in sterilised jars in the fridge for up to one month.
• This recipe was created by Sophie Hansen for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder. You can follow Sophie onåÊ Local is Lovely, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.