Spectator competitions winners: W.S. Gilbert makes a ham sandwich

In Competition No. 3218, you were invited to supply a recipe as it might have been written by the author of your choice.

I tip my hat to Mark Crick’s Kafka’s Soup, which gave me the idea for this excellent challenge. In it you’ll find such delights as John Steinbeck’s mushroom risotto, Virginia Woolf’s clafoutis grand mère and cheese on toast à la Harold Pinter. Nick MacKinnon, Moray McGowan and G.M. Southgate were worthy runners-up in an exceptional field. The six who made the final cut earn £25 each.

Take plump apples of beech-leaf green, ripened in a cuckoo-calling summer. Score a line around their bounteous girths. Plunge a silver knife into their crisp white hearts, then stuff them with currants, sugar as tawny as a girl’s tanned arms, a dripping spoonful of wild honey from the comb, and dust with cinnamon. Place in an oven, heated to the intensity of cheek-burning midday, when dust rises from wagon paths and sets butterflies drifting like petals.