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.

I started with the jam.  Okay, correction, this is actually called a “conserve”.  It is a strawberry and apple conserve.  But I keep it calling it jam!  On the MasterChef episode, there were two teams in the Country Women’s Association challenge.  Each team made the same dishes.  When it came time to judge the jams, one team had done very well with the conserve, and the other team did not (it was too watery).  My jam came out perfectly.  I had to cook it about 10 minutes longer than the recipe says, but it turned out marvelous and so delicious.  I have never had any sort of fruit spread that was so fresh – I always buy jars of it at the store – so I was really impressed with the fresh, strong taste of the strawberries.  The recipe also includes vanilla bean paste, but as I don’t currently have any, I scraped the seeds from a Madagascan vanilla bean and used that instead.  I love the little black specks of vanilla seeds in the jam, it makes appear that it’s super-gourmet!

The jam will keep in the refrigerator for up to one month, so no worries if you have leftovers (and trust me, you will have plenty).

Next, I started on the scones.  Of course, you’re not supposed to overwork the dough or the end result will be a hard, tough scone.  The less you work it, the lighter it will be.  I had to keep this in mind.  However, for some reason, I couldn’t get the mix of dry and wet ingredients to come together!  So I had to work it a bit longer than I planned… the end result of my scones were edible, but they were hard.  Major disappointment!  But totally my fault.  On the MasterChef episode, neither teams’ scones were perfect.

While the scones were turning into rocks in my oven, I made the cream.  This is a really delicious cream.  It is made with cream, of course, as well as honey and mascarpone.  It couldn’t possibly be a better match with the strawberry and apple conserve.  My only problem with this is that it made soooo much!  The scones were long gone and I still had so much cream leftover.  Cream doesn’t keep as well as jam does in the refrigerator, so despite the fact that I tried to put it on as many other foods as I could, I had to throw most of it out after a few days.

If I were to be judged by the MasterChef judges on my scones, cream and conserve, I might have just scraped through to the next challenge.  They would have been very disgusted with my scones, but I’m positive that my conserve would have won them over.  :)

PS – my daughter decided that the dandelions she collected from the garden would make good props for the photo!

Buttermilk Scones With Honey Cream
Adapted from MasterChef Australia magazine, Issue #3
Makes 12

Ingredients
450g (3 cups) self-raising flour
75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
150g unsalted butter, chopped, softened
125ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk, plus extra to brush
1 egg
2 tablespoons honey
300ml pouring cream
200g mascarpone
Strawberry and apple conserve (recipe follows), to serve

Method
Preheat oven to 220C. Sift flour with sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt into a large bowl. Add butter and, using your fingertips, rub into flour mixture until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk and egg until combined, then pour into flour mixture. Using a knife, stir until mixture just comes together; the less you work the mixture, the lighter the scones will be.

Turn out dough onto a well-floured work surface and, using your hands, pat until 2.5cm thick. To cut out rounds, using a 5cm pastry cutter dusted with flour, press cutter straight down and pull straight up without twisting. Repeat to make 12 rounds, reflouring cutter each time you cut. Place scones 3cm apart on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Brush the tops with a little extra buttermilk and bake on top shelf of the oven for 12 minutes or until risen and dark golden.

Meanwhile, to make honey cream, combine honey and cream in a bowl. Add mascarpone and whisk to soft peaks.

Serve scones warm with honey cream, and strawberry and apple conserve.

Strawberry And Apple Conserve
Adapted from MasterChef Australia magazine, Issue #3
Makes 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients
1 green apple, peeled and finely chopped
2 250g punnets strawberries, halved
330g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 lemon, juiced

Method
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and stand for 2 hours. Place mixture over medium heat, stir until sugar dissolves, then simmer for 20 minutes or until thick. Cool. Transfer to a sterilized jar*. Keeps in refrigerator for up to 1 month.

* To sterilize jar – preheat oven to 120C. Wash jar and lid in soapy, warm water, rinse, then dry well. Place jar and non-plastic lid on an oven tray and place tray in oven for 20 minutes. Remove and fill while still hot.

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.

Preparing the apples and French toast is easy; it’s the salted butter caramel sauce that could give some people a problem.  The original recipe for the caramel sauce comes from David Lebovitz, and it can be found at Almost Bourdain, where I found the recipe for the popcorn ice cream with salted butter caramel sauce.  It involves melting down 2 cups of sugar in a large Dutch oven, and cooking it until it becomes a dark caramel color.  This wasn’t as easy I had thought it was.  When I was making it, the edges of the sugar did not liquefy.  I had to stir it a little bit, and noticed that the bottom of the sugar was very, very golden already, so I started stirring and eventually got it to a really beautiful caramel color – it took a while though.

Next step is to take the melted sugar off the heat and stir in 1 2/3 cup heavy cream.  Apparently it’s supposed to bubble up furiously, so be very cautious at this stage.  But mine didn’t bubble at all!  Instead, after I added it, the caramel became a huge sticky chunk.  Hm, that’s not what was supposed to happen – I hoped that I hadn’t ruined it.  I returned it to the heat, and continued to stir, stir and stir (my arm was so tired by the end of this!) to melt that chunk back down.  And eventually it did melt down and I was so glad I hadn’t decided to throw it out!  The sauce was very smooth at this point, and to finish it off, I added 2 tablespoons of butter and 1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt (or you can use fleur de sel if you’re lucky enough to have it) and stirred until I had this gorgeous-looking, drool-worthy caramel sauce.  It was simply to die for.

So, when all that is done, you can keep the sauce in the refrigerator for up to one month.  I had heaps leftover after the ice cream was all gone.

For the French toast, you’ll need to thinly slice up half of a sweet apple, I used Pink Lady.  But don’t slice them too thin, and you can peel the apple if you like (I didn’t).  Fry the apple slices with a bit of the caramel sauce until they’re tender and a little bit transparent.  Set aside, then make the French toast.  You can use my way, or you can use your way, doesn’t matter to me!

For my caramel apple French toast, I used a gourmet thick-sliced white bread.  You can use any type of bread you like.

Just looking at these pictures as I post them makes me wish I still had some caramel sauce leftover to make this French toast again!  :)

Caramel Apple French Toast

Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
adapted from Almost Bourdain
makes about 2 cups

Ingredients
2 cups (400 g) sugar
1 2/3 cups (400 g) heavy cream
2 tablespoons (30 g) salted butter
1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel or coarse sea salt (or to taste)

Method
Spread the sugar in an even layer in a large metal Dutch oven or casserole, at least 6 quarts (6 L). Set over moderate heat and cook without stirring, until the sugar near the edge just starts to liquefy.

Using a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula, begin gently stirring, encouraging the melted sugar around the edges toward the center and delicately stirring up any sugar melting on the bottom as well. The sugar will start to look pebbly as it cooks, but keep going; it will melt completely as it turns amber.

Continue to cook until the sugar turns deep brown and starts to smoke. (Don’t worry about any large chunks of caramel.) The darker you can cook the sugar without burning it, the better the final sauce will taste. It’s ready when it’s the colour of a well-worn centime, or penny, and will smell a bit smoky.

Remove from heat and quickly stir in about a quarter of the cream. The mixture will bubble up furiously, so you may wish to wear an oven mitt over your stirring hand. Continued to whisk in the cream, stirring as you go to make sure it’s smooth. Stir in the butter and salt. Serve warm. If you like your sauce a bit thinner or less rich, add 1/4 cup (60 ml) water.

Storage: The sauce can be made up to one month in advance and kept refrigerated. Rewarm the caramel in a small saucepan over low heat or in a microwave.

French Toast
Adapted from myself
Serves 1-2

Ingredients
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon, or to your taste
Dash of nutmeg
4 slices thick-sliced gourmet bread, or bread of your choice
unsalted butter, to grease pan
1/2 Pink Lady apple, thinly sliced, peeled if you like
1-2 tablespoons caramel sauce (recipe above), plus extra to serve

Method
Prepare egg mixture for the French toast by placing eggs, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl.  Whisk until smooth.  Pour into a shallow dish and set aside.

Heat a frying pan over low-medium heat.  Add about 1-2 teaspoons (just eyeball it) unsalted butter and let it melt.  Add sliced apples and 1 tablespoon of the caramel sauce.  Stir to melt caramel sauce and coat the apples.  Cook the apples until tenter and a little bit transparent.  Add 1 teaspoon or more of caramel sauce if the apples are looking dry.  When done, remove from the pan and set aside (keep warm, if possible).

Do not clean the frying pan after cooking the apples – the cooked-on caramel will give a great flavor to at least your first batch of French toast.  Keep the pan on the heat and increase the heat a little bit.  Add 1-2 teaspoons (again, just eyeball it) of unsalted butter to the pan and let it melt.  Coat a slice of bread on both sides in the egg mixture, then place into the frying pan.  Cook until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes, then flip the bread over and cook the other side until golden brown.  Repeat with the rest of the bread, adding more butter before you add more bread to the pan.  You can cook two slices at a time or more, if your pan is big enough.  Set aside the cooked slices and keep warm while you cook the rest of the bread.

I like to add more cinnamon and nutmeg to my egg mixture after coating each slice of bread just to make sure the next slice has the same amount of spice!

To serve, arrange French toast on a plate.  Place caramel apples on top of the toast, then drizzle the whole pile with caramel sauce (not too much though, so it won’t be too rich!).  You may need to heat the caramel sauce in the microwave to make it pourable, if it’s been in the refrigerator.

Then enjoy!  If you make it, let me know how you like it!  :)

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.

Now, I don’t have a picture of the inside of these, but I assure you that there is a dollop of dulce de leche in there.  The cupcakes didn’t last long enough here to have their pictures taken!

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Apple Cupcakes
Adapted from Baking Bites
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup applesauce
1 cup Granny Smith apples, diced

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, followed by vanilla extract.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Add one third of this mixture to the butter mixture, stirring to incorporate, followed by half of the applesauce. Repeat with the rest of the flour and applesauce and mix only until no streaks of flour remain in the batter. Fold in diced apples.  Divide evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the muffins spring back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.

When cooled completely, fill cupcakes, using the cone method, with dulce de leche (recipe follows). Frost with cream cheese frosting (recipe follows) and top with a pecan.

Dulce De Leche
Adapted from Recipe Girl
Makes enough to fill cupcakes plus about 1/4 cup leftover

Ingredients
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
boiling water

Method
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Open up the can and pour the sweetened-condensed milk into a pie pan. Cover tightly with foil. Place into a larger pan and pour boiling water in larger pan & around pie plate (level of water should be about halfway up the pie plate). Don’t let any water seep up and into the pie plate.

Place in oven and bake for 1 hour. At the one hour point, peel off foil and check for progress. If the mixture has thickened and turned a caramelly color, it’s done. If it doesn’t quite look thick enough or dark enough, cover it up and bake it a little longer (mine took 75 minutes).

When the mixture appears to have turned into a nice, thick caramel, remove from the oven. Let sit for a few minutes, and then beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

Use leftovers for coffee or ice cream!

Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from – source unknown
Makes enough to generously frost cupcakes, plus leftovers

Ingredients
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened and cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces
3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
12 pecans

Method
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat well. Gradually add the sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating continuously until smooth and creamy. Cover and refrigerate icing for 2 to 3 hours, but no longer, to thicken before using. Frost cupcakes then top each cupcake with a pecan.

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

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.

These muffins also have a layer of cinnamon struesel layered in the middle of them.  Find this recipe at marthastewart.com.

Next came browned butter mixed berry muffins.  I’ve been really big on browned butter since I made Cook’s Illustrated perfect chocolate chip cookies.  Browning the butter added a deeper level of taste to the cookies.  So when I saw that Joy the Baker had posted browned butter blueberry muffins, I immediately went to the kitchen and got to work on them, expecting that same toffee-like browned butter taste.

No, they didn’t disappoint!  These muffins were one of the best batch of muffins I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating, despite my substitutions.  First, I was out of sugar (gasp!!) so I substituted 1/2 cup honey for the sugar, adding it to the dry ingredients and stirring it in after adding the wet ingredients.  Because the honey is obviously more liquid than granulated sugar, I reduced the milk in the recipe to 3 tablespoons, and also added a pinch of baking soda (I read online to do this, as honey is acidic).  Remember not to give honey to children under one year old because of the risk of them getting botulism.

I still had had leftover struesel from the cinnamon struesel coffee cake muffins, so I used that instead of the struesel recipe for the browned butter muffins.

I also substituted the fresh blueberries for frozen mixed berries (this was all I had on hand).  The muffins were so moist and had a beautiful taste from the browned butter, and also the honey.  I will definitely make these again and try them with regular granulated sugar, as called for in the recipe.  Find this recipe at Joy the Baker.

My two older children love apples, so we usually grab a couple of bags of them at the grocery store.  I searched for a good recipe for apple muffins to use up a few of our apples in case we couldn’t get through them before they started to go off.

I baked the batter in my jumbo muffin tin (I got 10 jumbo muffins), which gave us quite a hearty-sized muffin perfect for breakfasts.  These muffins were very moist and yummy.  Although not in the recipe, I added some cinnamon to the batter, in addition to the cinnamon in the struesel.  Find the recipe for these at Cully’s Kitchen.

Oh, notice my Cakespy art in the background of that photo!

I’m still not over my muffin phase; I think they’re perfect to serve warm with coffee.  What are your favorite muffins?  Maybe I’ll make some of your suggestions next!

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.

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!  :)

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.

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.