Essence

The autumn air embraces you as the distant fields are painted gold by the sun's first strokes.

 Cocooning the robust china in your palms, you hasten to eat it's contents before the dawn's last breath renders your breakfast unsatisfying.

 Spoon delves in, past the sticky golden apple towards the creamy underbelly.

 A quarrel between the red tape of the sliced apple and your spoon is rapidly dissipated, and the supple fruit, riddled with flakes of oat in a vanilla-speckeld cloud slip over your tongue.

Goldilocks' Creamy Vanilla Porridge with Brown Sugar Apples

Adapted from delicious. magazine, issue 106 July 2011

This recipe comes from a cute article of fairytale-inspired meals. Amoung them, Big Bad Wolf burgers (The Three Little Pigs), Jack's bean soup (Jack and the Beanstalk), Gingerbread crumb sundaes (Hansel and Gretel) and this lucious breakfast, inspired by Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

This recipe is really easy, and I bet any kid would be able to help out to make this. The apples would also be superb on top of ice cream or rice pudding, and both the porridge and the apples will keep in the fridge for two or three days.

I have given two sets of quantities for this recipe; the original which serves four people, and the one I devised today, just for me. I'm beginning to quite like these single-serving meals.

Serves 1

½ cup (45 g) rolled oats

¾ cup (190 ml) milk

75 ml pure (thin) cream

½ vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped

Brown Sugar Apples:

½ red apple, cored, cut into 1 cm wedges

1½ tsp brown sugar

1 ½ tsp honey

Serves 4

2 cups (180 g) rolled oats

3 cups (750 ml) milk

300 ml pure (thin) cream

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped

Brown Sugar Apples:

2 red apples, cored, cut into 1 cm wedges

3 Tbsp brown sugar

3 Tbsp honey

Method

Place oats, milk, cream and vanilla pod and seeds in a saucepan over medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes,until oats are tender and mixture is thick and creamy (you can add a little more milk if becoming too thick).

For the brown sugar apples, place the apple, sugar and honey in a saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until apple is tender, golden and sticky.

Divide the porridge amount 4 bowls, top with the apple, drizzle with the honey syrup and serve.