“Utter perfection! Now it’s time to get some apples. Come and help me, boys.”

    Together, they stalked back out to the orchard, selecting the juiciest, sweetest-looking apples. They were pippins, beautiful orangey-pink spheres that smelled of ripe juiciness.

Ben made a large crunching sound as he bit into one of them. “What are you going to make? I hope it’s going to be better than all those horrid wartime cakes.”

Audrey picked another few apples. “It’s going to be an apple and honey cake. We have apples, and we have honey, both of which provide sweetness without needing sugar rations.”

Christopher piped up. “Can I help cook it?”

“Of course you can.” She ruffled his hair, and then tried to do the same with Ben, who managed to dodge her. “Have we got enough apples?” She glanced at everyone’s handfuls. “Then let’s go back inside.”

After taking off their hats and veils, the boys settled in for a good cooking session. They loved it when their mother let them help, mostly because it meant treats, a little sugar, a spoonful of freshly drawn honey, or a chance to lick the bowl.

“First we peel all the apples,” Audrey said, bringing a chopping board over to the table and taking a seat.

“What, all of them?” Ben looked aghast.

“Yes, we take half to make into applesauce. It helps to moisten the cake so that we don’t need so much butter. Then we’ll use half flour and half oatmeal, as that is homegrown in Scotland so it doesn’t need to be shipped.”

Side by side, they sat peeling and chopping. Beneath the peel, the apples were crisp, the pieces snapping freshly in two if you tried to bend them. The scent filled the air, fragrant and moist as morning dew.

And as she helped the boys prepare the apples, she remembered that cooking was as much about the fun of it as it was about the result.

How had she forgotten that?

Audrey’s Eggless Apple and Honey Cake

Serves 6 to 8

4 cups peeled, cored, and chopped (1-inch pieces) apples 1? cups flour

1? cups oatmeal 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, or 3 teaspoons baking powder ? cup honey

2 tablespoons oil or cooking fat ? cup toasted nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts), chopped (optional) ? tablespoon icing or confectioners’ sugar (if you don’t have any due to the rationing, use plain flour)

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. Boil half the apple pieces until they form a thick puree or applesauce. Mix this with the other ingredients (except for the remaining apples, nuts, and sugar) until well blended, then add the other half of the apple pieces and the nuts, if using. Pour into a greased cake pan. Bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean when pushed inside the thickest part.

When cool, dust with icing or confectioners’ sugar, or if you don’t have any to spare, use plain flour.

Gwendoline

Round three, the finale of the contest, was starkly different from the previous rounds. Unusual for a competitive contest, the contestants all arrived together, chatting and laughing, forming a line as they processed down the aisle and up the steps to the stage, holding their platters before them like fine waiters. Zelda brought up the rear, carrying a large cardboard box, which usefully went some way to conceal her bump.

The place was buzzing with anticipation. A sea of photographers stood poised to capture each moment, and a stream of technicians whirled around looking harassed. The crowd was so large that people were crammed in at the back and down the aisles, craning their necks to get a good view.

In the front, Ambrose Hart watched the lead technician counting him in, and then, with an especially illustrious air, he began.

“Tonight is the grand finale of The Kitchen Front Cooking Contest. We will find out which one of our dedicated and masterful contestants will be helping me on The Kitchen Front. So, without more ado, let’s start with our first contestant.” He turned to Nell. “What do you have for us today, Miss Nell Brown?”

“It’s a summer pudding.” She beamed, revealing a smooth, purple-red dome with a dish of custard beside it. “Rejuvenating stale, leftover bread so that it isn’t wasted.” Nell had briefly considered entering Mrs. Quince’s Special Occasion Cake, but she couldn’t bear to ignore the dish chosen by Mrs. Quince herself in her hospital bed.

    Ambrose eyed it. “Summer pudding is already a popular wartime dish. How did you make yours special?”

“It uses no sugar except for a sugar syrup that I made using sugar beets grown in the garden. Basically, you boil chopped beets for two hours, then sieve them through cheesecloth and reduce the sugar water until it is a thick, sweet liquid. You can dry it to form brown sugar, but I just used the syrup.”

“How very ingenious!” Ambrose said.

“I also added some of the elderberry wine I made for the starter. The end result is a delicious dessert using no sugar, eggs, or fats, and providing plenty of healthy fruit. I’m serving it with mock honey custard, made with dried egg powder, dried milk powder, a little honey and vanilla, and a dash of nutmeg.”

Ambrose stood, hands on hips, surveying the pudding with relish as Nell served him a generous portion. It was dripping with sweet, deep red juices, the berries—red and black currants, blackberries, and raspberries—perfectly cooked, like a thick, freshly made jam with extra fruit. A spoon of custard was wedged to one side, a cream-yellow dollop that finished the dish off to a tee.

With the smallest of pauses, Ambrose plunged in, his face puckering as he moved the berries delightedly around his mouth. “Sumptuous. The juices are sweet and slightly tart, the berries ripened to utter perfection. Your use of seasonal fruit is excellent. You’ve truly taken a traditional dish and made it into a wartime favorite. This is precisely what The Kitchen Front loves.”

After another hasty spoonful, he moved on to the next contestant, Gwendoline, who whisked off her silver dome without more ado. Beneath it was an orangey-colored tart.

“Golly,” Ambrose said. “That looks marvelous.”

“It’s a mock apricot tart,” Gwendoline announced. “Replacing the apricots with grated carrots, and a little plum jam adding a fruity flavor.”

    “Ah.” His face fell somewhat. “Well, let’s give it a try, shall we?”

She cut a slice for him, and he tentatively put a spoon into it. “Oh, the pastry is delicious. Did you use butter?”

“No, I used suet blended with lamb fat.”

“Lovely,” Ambrose muttered awkwardly. “Two types of animal fat that you can buy from the butcher.”

“I went all out to cook proper wartime food with no rationed foods at all.”

“And the carrots,” he said between chewing. “You can hardly taste them over the jam, can you?”

“The jam is nice and strong, isn’t it?” Gwendoline agreed.

“But grated carrot…it gives a strange texture, doesn’t it? It seems to melt in the mouth a little like, well, like cooked carrots. At least it’s nice and sweet.”

“I used saccharin tablets instead of sugar. A few recipes do that these days. It’s a marvelous way to keep the sweetness without using your sugar rations.”

Ambrose looked askance. “Oh, the downside of saccharin, of course, is that it has a slightly bitter taste.”

Gwendoline’s smile fell.

“But in this case,” he continued quickly, “the jam does a magnificent job at masking it. Well done!”

Moving on quickly, he came to Audrey. “And what do you have today?” he said more jauntily.

Audrey whisked off the dome. “It is an apple and honey cake, using apples from my trees and honey from my own hive. I made an eggless version, which uses slightly more bicarbonate of soda to help it rise. I knew this would give a bitter taste, so I added a little cinnamon to cover it up. I also used half flour and half oatmeal, as oats are not imported. The apples and honey provide the dominant flavors, and the extra moisture from stewing half the apples means that you barely need to use any oil or fats at all.”

Ambrose picked up the plated slice and took a good spoonful. Although a little on the crumbly side—a drawback of eggless cakes—it was moist and packed with flavorful chunks of juicy cooked apples.

    “Wonderful flavor,” Ambrose said, his mouth still full. “You can taste that lovely honey. What a marvelous idea, getting a hive.” Then his brow knit. “Could that be why there are more bees around than usual?”

He moved on to the final contestant, Zelda, taking in the big old cardboard box she had covering her platter instead of the usual silver dome. “What could possibly be so large that—”

But he broke off as she lifted the cardboard box, the audience letting out a gasp.

Beneath was a high, conical tower of puffed profiterole balls swirled with spun caramel and dotted with little white flowers.

Zelda announced delightedly, “It’s a croquembouche.”