Reverse Engineering a Toffee Apple

Photo © Rob Jones

When one makes a mistake, it sometimes takes a little ingenuity to sort out the problem.

On a windy day - all the days are wet and windy at the moment - I took refuge in the cafe at the end of the pier, along with just about everyone else that day. They were holding a Hallowe’en event so there were a lot of damp children, with their damp parents, trying to be jolly, following a trail along the pier, damply.

As horrific events go, it was quite horrific.

A bright point was the pier cafe always does a lot of nice cakes. They have quite a range.

‘And this one is?’ I asked.

‘Geranium and Lemon,’ came the reply.

‘OK, I’ll have some of that to take away along with a decaf flat white (living dangerously these days),’ and then I added on the spur of the moment, ‘and I’ll have a Toffee Apple.’

It was out of my mouth before I knew I had said it. I think it came from the deepest part of the ‘child brain’ that says things like, ‘Can I have Jelly please,’ and ‘May I have Candy Floss.’ The little voice that harks back to a sixties and seventies childhoods when there wasn’t much to watch during the day on the tele, the height of Christmas was receiving a Shilling and a Tangerine, and the best games ever involved mud or lighting a camp fire.

I left the cafe, arms full. Uncertainly happy.

The moment I got outside …. an inch of foam was shaved off my Flat White within seconds by the wind and was probably hitting the Great Orme moments later. I got a healthy amount of it on my stubble too. With hands full of cake and toffee apple, a full clear up had to wait till I got home.

There, I made another (decaf) coffee and tried the Geranium cake. I’d say it was more of a fragrance than a flavour.

Then I stared at the Toffee Apple…. for a very long time.

After probably 50 or more years since the last one I’d had … I’d forgotten how you eat it. I tried, I really did. But each time I either go sticky sugar all over my chin or worse, on the tip of my nose. (Each time running to the bathroom to clean it off.) I mean.. how do you do it. And it was also ridiculously sickly sweet.

So I gave up… and after a while decided that the best thing was to reverse engineer it into a Sangria.

Chopped it up, added hot water and wine, and some other sundry fruits hanging around.

Win win scenario.

R.