Posts tagged ‘apple’

Aug 14

Scones With Honey Cream And Strawberry Apple Conserve

Lately I have been obsessed with foods that go perfectly with tea or coffee. I’m particularly interested in scones. In fact, I chose a scone with jam and cream to go with my flat white coffee at Thyme Square Cafe yesterday morning while I was out with my two sons and mother-in-law. Can you believe that I chose a scone over cupcakes or a slice of delicious cake? I’m still in awe of my decision, because I’m not sure how it happened!

I’ve made scones before. They were easy and turned out quite nice. So when I saw the recipe for scones with jam and cream in Issue #3 of MasterChef Australia magazine – the same recipes they used on the show for the Country Women’s Association challenge – I was sure I could make all three components quite easily.

Jul 9

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Caramel Apple French Toast

One of my most favorite comfort foods is French toast. I just love it, especially on a cold, winter morning, or in some cases, a cold, winter evening for dinner! I don’t know who invented French toast – who would have thought to coat a slice of bread in raw eggs, milk and cinnamon and then fry it? – but I praise them!

My own basic recipe for French toast is below. I usually pour some maple syrup over it, sometimes with bananas, if I have any. Sometimes I even caramelize the bananas. But last week, I had a heap of leftover salted butter caramel sauce from the popcorn ice cream I had made and wanted to do something special with, something that I could share with others.

An idea suddenly popped into my head one night. I was craving French toast (which was not at all unusual for me!) and was thinking of ways I could jazz it up. How about caramel French toast? No… it would need a fruit to go with it… how about apples? Yes, how about caramel apple French toast!

And you know what? It was one of the best dishes I have ever eaten. It was so good, that I found myself making it again the very next day.

Nov 14

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Apple Cupcakes

It astounds me when I see all the different varieties of apples that there are in the store. My favorite for eating is usually Pink Ladies, and my least favorite is Red Delicious. For baking though, there’s usually one main choice, Granny Smith apples. These apples are what I used in my entry for Iron Cupcake: Earth; the challenge ingredient this month is apples.

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This is just your average apple cupcake, baked with chopped apples inside, a filling of dulce de leche for a rich caramel taste, and cream cheese frosting. A pecan sits on top. Read more

Oct 4

Muffins You Can Enjoy With Coffee

Soon after my third child was born, I had went a couple of weeks, maybe three?, where I didn’t bake anything. I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms! I found that cookies were easiest and quickest for me to bake, so I entered a cookie phase. A couple of good cookies from the cookie phase were the cowboy cookies, which were laughably easy, and the chocolate chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

After the cookie phase ended, I entered a muffin phase! Muffins from this phase were jumbo cinnamon struesel coffee cake muffins…

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This was the second time I had made these; for some reason, I can’t fill the muffin tins with the right amount of batter and both times the batter overflowed. That’s fine, they were still really satisfying with my morning coffee. Read more

Sep 30

16 Comments

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

I believe that pancakes are supposed to be super easy to make, however mine never turn out fat, fluffy and golden brown like the pictures. My pancakes usually end up soggy in the middle and flat, and if I let them cook any longer they turn very golden brown!

Whatever I do wrong when I make pancakes, I consistently do it wrong (I did have a few exceptions with pumpkin, chocolate chip and peanut butter pancakes). So I stopped following recipes and bought a box of pancake mix – all I needed to do was add water.

My first batch from the box pancake mix were fluffy, but they were still soggy inside and too golden brown on the outside, how disappointing! I read a bit closer on the box and found a useful tip – use shortening instead of butter or oil to grease the pan with when you’re making pancakes because shortening doesn’t burn as quickly. I would try this the next time I made pancakes.

Following a recipe which was on the back of the box, I made apple cinnamon pancakes. To make this, the pancake mix is made the regular way with the addition of water, but applesauce and cinnamon were also added to the mix. And I used shortening to grease the pan.

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The result? One batch of the best pancakes I’ve ever made! Because the pancakes didn’t burn as fast (due to the shortening), the insides of the pancakes were able to cook completely. The pancakes were one of the fattest and fluffiest ones I’ve seen. The applesauce and cinnamon gave the pancakes a nice flavor, and was an instant favorite of my 2-year-old son’s.

I’m pretty sure that if you’d like to try the applesauce and cinnamon flavor, it should be able to mix into any plain pancake mix – whether a box mix or a homemade mix – without a problem. For a batch of 12 pancakes, you need to add 1/4 cup applesauce and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. I used unsweetened applesauce.

Pancakes are great for breakfast, but I never am awake enough to prepare them in the morning! Our apple cinnamon pancakes ended up being dinner for us! :)

Apr 30

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Rustic Apple Tart

This recipe comes from a KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual; the photo looked so nice that I knew I would eventually get around to making it. It’s a rustic apple tart and includes making your own pie crust, which is something I’ve never done before.

It actually ended up being quite easy, although I wish I would have added one more tablespoon of water to the dough (it says to add 5-6 tablespoons of water and I added 5).

For the apple filling, the recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds, or 6 large tart apples. I found that this was way too much apple. I mounded the apples in the center of the pie crust, thinking that it must cook down and shrink quite a bit. The tart in the photo does not have a mound of apple filling anywhere near as large as mine was!

Well, everything turned out quite nice, except I didn’t get a nice brown pie crust. Maybe I should have brushed it with egg before baking? I didn’t get a photo of the freshly baked tart because it was late at night and there wasn’t enough light to get a post-worthy photo. I did get this photo today though at lunchtime of a slice of the tart with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream.

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It is a really nice-tasting apple tart though. It was definitely worth making and I’m quite sure I’ll be making it again, although I’m going to use less apples; maybe I’ll try 4 large apples, instead of 6.

KitchenAid Pie Pastry
Adapted from KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual
Makes 2 8- or 9-inch pie crusts

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, well-chilled
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, well-chilled
5 to 6 tablespoons cold water

Method
Place flour and salt in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to stir speed and mix about 15 seconds. Cut shortening and butter into pieces and add to flour mixture. Turn to stir speed and mix until shortening particles are size of small peas, about 30 to 45 seconds.

Continuing on stir speed, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing until ingredients are moistened and dough begins to hold together. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into a smooth ball and flatten slightly. Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Rustic Apple Tart
Adapted from KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual
Serves 8

Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds (about 6 large) tart green apples, peeled, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (see above recipe, or use your own)

Method
Toss together apples, lemon juice and granulated sugar. Set aside.

Place all remaining ingredients, except pie crust, in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to speed 2 (or low) and mix until crumbly. Set aside.

Roll out pie crust into a 13-inch circle. Transfer to baking sheet (it’s okay if pastry hangs over edge of baking sheet).

Gently mound apples in center of pastry, leaving a 2-inch border of dough on all sides. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon sugar mixture. Fold pastry up over filling, pleating as necessary to fit snugly around apples. Gently press dough to filling, reinforcing shape.

Bake at 400F until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender, for about 30 minutes. Cool tart on baking sheet on wire rack for 10 minutes; serve warm.