Long gone are the days of cheap drive through sustenance and regretful hamburger hangovers. On this road trip we decided to swap fast food for slow food, and took our time visiting farm gates, picking produce and cooking for ourselves on the road. After a very early start we decided to take the alternative route from Sydney over the Blue Mountains and drove up the Bells Line of Road – a rightly motivated decision, as this road is home to Bilpin, one of NSW’s most famous apple growing regions. It’s a place where you find orchard after orchard of fresh, locally grown fruit, nuts and apple pies sold in almost every corner store. Some of the farms even let you pick your own when the season is ripe.

We decided to pull into the iconic Bilpin fruit bowl where we picked up some fresh apples for breakfast and decided to pre-emptively prepare some dessert for later in our road trip. Cooking on the go forces you to be resourceful, and what better resource than our very own four wheels? Time to light up our car-bbq!

Don’t be scared – it’s totally a thing! With a little research and confidence we managed to let go of our brakes and bake on the go! The apples should be ready by the time we arrive at our final destination.

Car Baked Inside Out Apple Pies

You will need 1 car engine, a roll of foil, and a nice open road with a few hours to burn.

Alternatively, this recipe also works brilliantly in your standard household oven.

Prep time : 30 mins

Cook time : 2-4 hrs – depending on your car’s function

Ingredients

• 2 Apples
• 50g Almond meal
• 50g Plain flour
• 25g Butter diced at room temperature
• 1 handful of chopped dates
• 1 handful of chopped hazelnuts
• 2 pinches of orange zest
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
• 1 tbs honey

To serve

• Whipped cream
• A little extra honey

Method

Start by finding a nice place off the road at a safe distance from traffic.

Remove your ingredients from the boot and start by prepping your apples. Horizontally slice 1cm off the top round of your apple; this will act as a lid for your stuffing.

Being careful not to pierce through the bottom of your apple, use a corer to remove the center part of your apple; depending on the gauge of your corer this may take a few goes. You want to aim for an apple with a hole approximately 2-3 cm in diameter – this will give you plenty of room for stuffing!

Place flour, almond meal and diced butter in a bowl, using your fingertips slowly and gradually pinch the butter into the flour, you will end up with a cookie dough like texture – if you find it is too dry add a little more butter. Using a wooden spoon gradually mix through all remaining ingredients.

Tightly stuff the mixture into your apples newly formed holes, then place lids back onto the apples. Next you will need to carefully wrap them in foil, it’s important to do it meticulously and fold the corners up tightly. You need to avoid any leakages as any stray liquid has the potential to cause damage to your engine – we used 4 layers on each.

Find the safest nook on top of your car’s engine and secure the apples down with wire – you don’t want them slip into an unreachable place or lose them mid road trip.

Then close the hood and get ready for the next leg of your journey! Ours took around 4 hours but the car was working quite efficiently. If you have a car that is prone to overheating less time would be needed. If it is the first time cooking on your car’s motor it’s best to stop and check them as often as you can; they are done when they feel soft to touch.

Carefully unwrap and serve with a little whipped cream and an extra drizzle of honey, enjoy!

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