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.

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.

Rogaliki

Rogaliki is a croissant-like shaped polish cookie filled with jam. These cookies are a great fun to make and look pretty;)

What is unique about Rogaliki is that it has cream cheese in the dough, which makes the cookie light and flaky as well as tastes a little sour. Although apricot jam seems to be the most popular filling, we can put any jams we like... This time I put apricot and my plum jam (have you seen my jam?).

It looks complicated to shape the cookies, but it's not too difficult. See my drawing here! Hopefully, that would make your job easier ;D

As there isn't much sugar in the dough, this cookie is quite versatile... Add sweet jam, caramel sauce, chocolate spread to have them as tea time treat, or try something savoury such as cheese or nuts for snacks with drinks...

To see the recipe, visit The World of Sweets Recipes, Poland.

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.

Homemade Jam - Apple, Plum, Kiwi & Nectarine

I believe it's nicer, and more importantly much more fun to make your own jams and compotes than getting a jar from a supermarket. Especially in the summer, there are so many different fruits available, which definitely gives me a lot of ideas for lovely homemade jams;)

A few days ago, we got a good selection of fruits such as kiwi fruits, plums, nectarines and apples. They were so ripe that I decided to turn them into jams.

I had tried apple jam and plum jam but never made a jam with kiwi fruit before... well, that could only mean one thing, "Just give it a go".
However, because I don't really like the tanginess of kiwi..., because I didn't have that many of them..., because I had some nectarines...., and because I simply wanted to try it... I decided to make Kiwi & Nectarine jam.

When I make jams, I normally use this ratio;

Fruits:Sugar = 2:1 (with a pinch of salt and some lemon juice)

Good! All under control... cut the fruits.. add sugar and cook them until they become nice thick consistency. See? Easy peasy... ;D

Let me introduce my lovely Jam family...
On the right is the dark red Plum, on the left is the yellow with black dots Kiwi & Nectarine, and on the back is the shiny golden Apple!

Enjoy them with bread, yogurt, ice cream, biscuits... anything and everything!!