Apple Fudge

There is this fruit vendor who sets up shop outside the Indian store I frequent. she does not have much in her ware but whatever she gives me is good. She has the ability to persuade you into buying something or the other every time I go there. I may try to ignore, but she will walk into the store and plonk herself until I am done and follow me out, directing me to her shack. Her grapes and apples are truly good and we end up purchasing them, however reluctant I am. I end up having extra apples or grapes that threaten to go bad.
One of the days some staff in my husband's office were wanting him to get home made fried snacks for their self appointed 3:00 PM break. He took some pakoras, but they were wary; they sniffed them, took tentative bites etc., that my husband decided that he will not entertain such requests anymore. Again when it was Deepavali and they knew that I would be making sweets and savoury, one or two voiced out their demand. I was not willing to labour in my kitchen, but my daughter suggested that we make something that they will recognize by taste. Thus we worked a bit on taking the apple pie filling to the fudge level. This recipe was thus the result of such an experiment.
We sent it to other friends along with all the treats i made and the feedback was good.
I have used 4 large apples, powdered jaggery, cinnamon, powdered almonds and roasted and powdered semolina. This has the texture of badam halwa with a fruity taste. For this post, I give half the recipe of my original.

Apple Fudge/  Apple Halwa

Ingredients:
2 Large semi sweet, crunchy apples
1 cup powdered jaggery
1/3 cup powdered almonds
1/2 cup semolina, roasted and powdered almost fine
1/3 cup ghee
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
Few strands of saffron
2 tablespoons cashews roasted and broken for garnish



Method:
Wash, peel, core and grate the apples. This when measured was little short of 4 cups.
Place the jaggery in a heavy bottom pan. Add a little water and warm this solution. Once the jaggery is completely dissolved, strain to remove scum.
Mix the semolina and cashew powder and keep aside.
Place the jaggery solution in the pan and boil it down to a soft ball syrup.
Add the grated apples and cook until they are well cooked and soft. You may want to mash them a bit.

Add the cinnamon and cook for a further five minutes.
Add two tablespoons of the ghee and stir in the cashew- semolina mix. Give a brisk stir to avoid any lumps that may form. Break lumps, if any and continue cooking.
Add ghee at intervals and cook the above until they come together in a fudge like texture and the ghee forms a film over the top.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Roll out the mixture in small balls and serve.