Start with the job, not the apple

Every apple sits somewhere on three sliding scales: acidity, sugar and firmness. Cook the right fruit for the job and the recipe almost looks after itself. Choose badly and you will be fighting a pan of grey porridge or a pie with a hollow where the filling used to be.

British cookers tend to be high in malic acid, which is why they taste bracing straight from the tree and why they need sugar in the pan. That same acid, along with plenty of pectin, helps jellies set and gives chutneys their backbone. Eaters are lower in acid and higher in sugar, so they bring perfume and sweetness but little structure. Then there is firmness: the difference between an apple that collapses to a fluff in ten minutes and one that still has edges after half an hour in the oven.

A useful rule is to think about what you want the finished dish to do. Do you want a smooth, sharp purée that cuts through pork? A slice you can see? Or a soft, aromatic背景 for spice? Once you know that, the variety list shortens dramatically.

The soft-hearted cookers: Bramley and its kin

The Bramley is the workhorse of the British kitchen for good reason. It is sharply acidic, generous in juice and collapses readily, which makes it unbeatable for sauces, fruit butters and old-fashioned apple snow. For a sauce, allow roughly 100–120g of sugar per kilogramme of peeled fruit, taste as you go, and add a knob of butter at the end for gloss. Because Bramley is rich in pectin, it also sets beautifully into jelly and makes a decent base for mincemeat.

Other cookers follow the same pattern with their own character. Grenadier and Keswick Codlin arrive early in the season and break down fast, ideal for August purées. Reverend W. Wilks makes a wonderfully fluffy sauce. Golden Noble is sharp and reliable, and Lord Derby produces large, handsome fruit that softens into a well-behaved filling. If you grow your own, these are forgiving trees and heavy croppers.

The one caution with collapsing apples is over-stirring. Cook them gently, lid on, with a splash of water, and let them fall apart on their own.

Apples that hold their shape

For a tart you can slice neatly, a deep-dish pie with visible layers, or an open apple cake, you want firm-fleshed fruit that softens without disintegrating. Annie Elizabeth is the great keeper in this group: pale, crisp and only mildly sharp, it holds its shape superbly and will store in a cool shed well into the new year. Edward VII and Newton Wonder are similar characters, both late-season and both excellent in a slice.

Howgate Wonder, often enormous, bakes whole beautifully and keeps a decent edge when quartered. Peasgood Nonsuch, another whopper, is traditionally used for baked apples because one fruit fills a dish. For baked apples, core them, score a band around the equator to stop the skin splitting, fill with dried fruit and brown sugar, and bake at 180°C for 40–50 minutes.

When building a pie, slice firm apples about a centimetre thick, toss with sugar, a little lemon juice and a spoonful of flour or cornflour to thicken the juices, and pile them high — they will settle as they cook.

Dual-purpose apples: the useful middle ground

Some of the finest British varieties sit happily in both camps, and they are the ones worth seeking out at a farmers' market in October. Blenheim Orange is nutty and rich, firm enough to hold in a tart and sharp enough to make a credible sauce. Ashmead's Kernel is a russeted, intensely flavoured apple that keeps its shape and carries a lovely pear-drop note into the oven.

• Blenheim Orange — big, golden, nutty; superb in tarts and with cheese.
• Ashmead's Kernel — small, russet, sharp-sweet; holds shape, keeps well.
• Ribston Pippin — aromatic and rich; one of the parents of Cox.
• Egremont Russet — firm, nutty, lightly sweet; good sliced into cakes.
• Charles Ross — soft, buttery and sweet; best for quick puddings.

These are the apples to reach for when a recipe says simply "cooking apples" and you want something more interesting than a purée.

Sweet and aromatic: chutneys, cakes and a mellow finish

Once sugar and spice enter the picture, sharpness matters less and perfume matters more. Cox's Orange Pippin, with its firm flesh and unmistakable aroma, gives an apple cake real depth. Sunset and Kidd's Orange Red are close relatives and behave much the same. Ellison's Orange, with its faint aniseed edge, is a marvellous addition to a chutney where cloves and ginger are already at work.

For chutney, you want an apple that softens into the vinegar without vanishing. A 50:50 mix of a firm eater and a Bramley gives body and tang at once. Simmer 1kg of prepared fruit with 250g of soft brown sugar, 300ml of cider vinegar, onions, raisins and your spices until the mixture mounds on a spoon — around an hour. Sweeter varieties let you cut the sugar a little and finish with a gentler, rounder flavour.

In cakes, grated apple adds moisture; use a sweet, aromatic variety and leave the skin on for colour and bite. A spoonful of cinnamon or a handful of walnuts will flatter it far better than a sharp cooker, which can taste thin against butter and sugar.

Cider apples and the orchard year

Cider has its own vocabulary, and it is worth knowing if you ever buy fruit from a traditional orchard. Bittersharps such as Kingston Black and Foxwhelp bring both acid and tannin; bittersweets such as Dabinett and Yarlington Mill bring tannin and aroma with very little acid. Blended, they give the dry, tannic, farmhouse character that West Country and Herefordshire cider is known for. Sharps and sweets fill the gaps, and the grower's skill lies in the blend.

Traditional standard orchards are also a landscape: tall trees, grazed grass, mistletoe in the older boughs, and a wassail in January to wake the trees for the year ahead. Whether you are baking a pie or pouring a glass of cloudy cider alongside it, choosing the right apple is the whole art — and there are more British varieties to choose from than most of us ever meet in a supermarket.