Apple Pie Toastie with Ice Cream

Serves makes 2 toasties

Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

For the Toastie

100g unsalted butter

2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced into 1 cm cubes

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

½ cup of brown sugar

1 vanilla pod, scraped

¼ cup water

4 thick slices of fruit bread

Icing sugar, for dusting

Ice cream, to serve

Method

For the apples, place 50g of the butter into a frying pan over medium heat. Add the apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt, thyme leaves, brown sugar, scraped vanilla beans, along with the pod for extra flavour, and water and cook, stirring until the apples have softened and the sauce has become thick and syrupy. This may take approximately 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and discard vanilla pod.

To build the toasties, top two pieces of fruit bread with the apple mixture, reserving the leftover syrup to drizzle on top. Place the other pieces of bread on top. 

Heat a heavy-based clean frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the other 50g of butter to the pan. When melted, add the toasties to the pan and cook for a few minutes either side until golden and crunchy. 

Remove toasties onto a serving board, slice in half, top with a good drizzle of the extra syrup and a good dollop of ice-cream. 

Garnish with a dusting of icing sugar and extra thyme leaves.