Caramelised apple & pumpkin crumble cake

This time of year all those nice autumn winter vegetables and fruits gives me a lot of inspirations to my baking. And I love it!

So, the other day our neighbour gave us some apples from her garden and I also had a pumpkin sitting in the kitchen for a while, so I decided to make a variation of my apple crumble cake. :D

First I caramelised the diced apple and pumpkin together, then the rest was pretty much the same as the apple crumble cake. (I replaced the apple confiture to the caramelised apple and pumpkin.)

Oh, I love using pumpkins in my cakes and breads!

The nice bits of apple and pumpkin, soft and light sponge, and the sweet crumble... it cannot go wrong.

It's really a perfect comfort cake on a cold gloomy day... ;)

Have you seen my other crumbles?

Blackberyy crumble muffin

Apple crumble cake

Chestnut crumble cake

Ultimate apple pie

Today we visited Andy's friend and his family and I brought this ultimate apple pie.

I've been thinking about what to make without eggs the whole week because Andy's friend doesn't eat eggs, and I eventually settled on the ultimate Autumn & Winter classic, apple pie.

We cut the pie after the amazing food Andy's friend's wife cooked for us. The prawn curry and mushroom rice was so tasty! I loved it when we had the pie, their 5 year-old boy grabbed the pie, ate it and gave me a big smile. Not only that, he tried to eat my piece too! I take that as a big compliment for my apple pie. :D

Thanks so much to the Kumar for the lovey time.

Ingredients:

Puff pastry 1 (see here)

Apple confiture 150g (see here)

Apple 5

Sugar 50g

Lemon juice 1 tbsp

Raisin 2-3 tbsp

Almond slice 2-3 tbsp

Apricot jam 3 tbsp

Water 1 tsp

1. Cut apples into small pieces, and cook with sugar and lemon juice in a pan over medium heat until the liquid from the apples is reduced and thickened.

2. Preheat the oven to 190ºc. Make puff pastry. Roll out the pastry onto tart tin.

3. Spread apple confiture on the bottom of the pie. Put cooked apples and raisins on top. Sprinkle almonds.

4. Decorate the top of the pie with remaining pastry. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until the pie is golden.

5. Mix apricot jam and water and put in the microwave for 30 second. While the pie is hot, glaze the pie with thinned apricot jam.

Sweet potato and apple pie

Winter is coming... It's time for nice comforting treats so I made these mini pies filled with sweet potato cream and apple confiture.

I make the fillings and puff pastry myself but if you can't find time to do all that, use a ready made puff pastry and apple jam. (I don' know if you can find sweet potato cream in a shop... maybe you've got a time to make sweet potato cream yourself?) Then all you've got to do is to roll out the pastry and put the jam and cream... and bake!
The super cute and tasty pies will be ready in less than a hour. Glaze the pies with thinned apricot jam to make it pretty. ;)

I like these mini pies a lot but I think Andy liked them even more... He kept going back to them. What a nice complement to a baker. :D

Blackberry and apple pie

A few days ago we went balckberry foraging. It was simply amazing. To start with we didn't see many but then a kind lady with a dog came around and told us "the spot". There we found a lot, really a lot... we were like "We've hit the jack pot!" It seems the blackberries were appearing more as we picked... it was just endless.

We filled about half of our big box, which I believe was more than 5kg...It's not bad considering I was carrying a 6kg baby and Andy wasn't prepared well enough (he had shorts on and was getting cut by the thorns...;(...)

So, back in the kitchen I made the ultimate classic, Blackberry and apple pie. I made blackberry jam and apple compote (yes, apples were from our garden!) to go in the pie. Based on Andy's request I used a "healthy pie pastry".

The jam oozed out a bit while being in the oven but the pie came out very pretty. The combination of sharp blackberry jam and juicy apple went very well in the light pastry. And as usual..., those little pies were gone before we knew... (My intention of having "A" little pie has never worked...)

Here is the healthyish pie pastry:
Ingredients

Flour 250g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

Oil 2 tbsp

Warm water 150ml

1. Combine flour and baking powder. Mix water and oil well.

2. Add liquid into flour mixture and bring them together. (do not over work. The dough doesn't need to be super smooth.)

3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 2mm thickness and place on a tart tin.

Apple almond cheese tartlet

We had more apples from our garden so... this time...I made Apple tartlets. Ooh, I love little tartlets. Especially with two apple wedges on top they looked very pretty. ;D

And of course, the look wasn't the only thing about these little ones. The sweetness of apple confiture and creamy almond and cheese filling was so spot on! In fact, it was so good that I scoffed one when we came back home at 1 o'clock in the morning!  (guess where we were... no...not partying... we were in IKEA for 5 hours!!!)

Here is how these little treats are made...

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1

Filling

Cream cheese 200g

Apple confiture 140g

Almond powder 100g

Egg 1

Topping

Apple 1 (cut into 8 pieces)

Sugar 50g

1. Make sweet pastry (see my lemon meringue tart for the recipe). Line the pastry on each tartlet tin. Preheat the oven to 180ºc.

2. Make the topping. Put sugar in a pan on a low heat. When the sugar is melted, add apple and cook for 5 minutes.

3. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients for the filling and mix well.

4. Pour the filling mixture evenly into each tartlet case.

5. Put cooked apples on top of 4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the top of the tartlets are slightly golden. 

Apple crumble cake

Another cake made with the apples with our garden. This time, it's the classic Apple crumble cake. (Have you seen the mini apple pies?)

I used the same apple confiture as the one I used for my mini apple pie. With a generous amount of the apple confiture, the cake had a nice moisture as well as the richness of apple. Yum yum yum...

Oh, and don't forget the crumble topping. I love that crunchiness so much that I was cutting the top bits off to eat... cheeky...;D

This apple cake was good when it was freshly baked but tasted even better when it was cooled in the fridge. Seriously..., it was really tasty. I think this cake was one of the best cakes I've recently made... (saying it myself...). :)

Ingredients:

Flour 150g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Brown sugar 150g

Egg 3

Butter (melted) 100g

Apple confiture 100g

---

Crumble

Butter 50g

Demerara sugar 50g

Flour 75g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the crumble by combining all the ingredients in a bowl and rub with fingers until the mixture becomes sandy.

2. Make the cake mixture. Beat eggs and sugar together until it's fluffy.

3. Add melted butter into 2 and mix well.

4. Sift flour and baking powder. Fold them into 3.

5. Fold in apple confiture into 4.

6. Pour the cake mixture into a cake tin. Put the crumble on top.

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or until the top of the cake is lightly golden.

Mini apple pie

We had the first harvest from our garden's apple tree the other day and yes of course, there is no time for me to wait but go in the kitchen to make the classic apple dessert, Apple pie!

First I made an apple confiture to put in the pie. I used much less sugar than I normally does when I make a jam in order to enjoy the natural sweetness of the apples.

This time I made the puff pastry myself too. It came out pretty well. The pastry rose nicely and was light and flaky.

Instead of a big pie, I baked mini apple pies. They were easy to pick up..., maybe too easy that you eat more and more...

The apples you grow yourself taste so good and feels rewarding too. There are more apples on the tree. Hummm, what shall I make next... ;)

Puff pastry from scratch? Why not? :)

Ingredients:

Puff pastry

Butter (diced and softened) 100g 

Flour 200g

Cold water 100ml

Salt pinch

Apple confiture

2-3 tbsp each

1. Prepare the puff pastry. Sift flour in a bowl and add cold water to make a smooth dough. 

2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a square (1cm thick).

3. Place the butter in the middle of the dough and fold the 4 corners so that the butter is properly sealed. Chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.

4. Roll out the dough again to a long rectangle. (5mm thick)

5. Letter fold the dough.

6. Turn the dough 90 degrees.

7. Repeat 4 and 5. Wrap the dough in the cling film and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.

8. Repeat 4 to 7 two more times. (see below for how to.)

9. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Roll out the dough very thinly. Cut it into 8 pieces. Press the pastry into cupcake tin.

10. Put 2-3 tbsp of apple confiture into the pastry. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the top becomes golden.

Apple & Cinnamon cheese cake

There were apples and cream cheese that had been sitting and looking at me every time I open the fridge..., so I came up with this recipe to finally use them up. ("Fridge clearing cake" that's what I'm going to call it!..;D).

After having left the cake in the fridge to chill, it got very moist and the taste of apple and cinnamon seems to have really sunk in. It was like having apple pie and cheese cake at the same time in my mouth... yum yum....

Although it's a sort of cheese cake, it's not as cheesy as normal cheese cake like my New York cheese cake. In fact, it's more like in between cheese cake and pound cake.

I cut the cake into small square pieces and had them with a nice milky cup of tea... Hummm, "one more piece" led to another and another, and before I knew the cake was gone... Hummm, it was... bit too good....

Ingredients:

Plain flour 150g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Salt pinch

Cinnamon powder 1/2 tsp

Cream cheese 300g

Brown sugar 15g

Egg 2

Apple (grated) 2

Honey 2 tbsp

1. Grate apples.Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together.

2. In a bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar together until it's fluffy.

3. Add eggs into 2 one at a time and mix well.

4. Mix grated apple and honey into 3.

5. Fold flour mixture into 4.

6. Pour the mixture into a cake tin. Bake in the preheated oven (180ºc) for 40-45 minutes.

Apple & Ginger cake

A few days ago I made apple jam (Have you seen my Jam Family?)  which I was more than happy to eat as it is... yes.., I have a tendency of eating jams, butters and creams without anything.... However, since I went for an effort to make it, I thought I might as well make something rather than just eating it on its own...

So, I made really moist Apple & Ginger cake. I personally think apple and ginger go very well. Ginger gives a nice kick to the sweetness of apple. It tastes warm and homely, and it's something that I would love having on a rainy afternoon with a lovely cup of tea...

The recipe is very simple. It works with other jams or compote, so have a try with your favourite ones and see how it tastes;) Humm, what jam am I going to try next...?

Ingredients:

flour 160g

Almond powder 80g

Sugar 100g

Butter 100g

Egg 2

Baking powder 1tsp

Ginger powder 2tsp

Apple jam 5-7 tbsp

1. Melt butter. Pre-heat the oven to 180º

2. Beat egg and sugar until it's fluffy.

3. Add 1 into 2, and mix well.

4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, almond powder, baking powder and ginger powder. Fold them into 3.

5. Mix apple jam into 4.

6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes.