Apple and Cinnamon Turnovers

It is time for the Lady Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge again and this month's ingredients were apple and cinnamon!

I decided I wanted to try something a bit different this time around.  I've used apples and cinnamon plenty of times before in cakes so I didn't really want to go that route.  This is meant to be a challenge after all.  So I decided to raid my books and see what I could find.

I admit, the first thing that did come to mind was apple strudel.  I knew the fiancé loved strudel and I've not made it before due to not really doing much with pastry in the past.  I even went and looked up how to do it, including how to do the pastry from scratch.  However it is rather complicated.  Strudel pastry is apparently very tricky to make and few people do it.  I saw them doing it on the Great British Bake Off last year and all that stretching looks scary!  Really, I just wouldn't have time, especially with this post-grad course and the fact that I already have an assignment to do which is due in next week.  So strudel was out but I was now determined to do something with pastry.  I needed to do something out of my comfort zone and working with pastry would definitely be that.  If I ever want a chance of getting on the GBBO, then I'll need to be able to bake all types of pastry.  It is probably the most used thing on that show.  It took some trawling, but I eventually stumbled on apple and cinnamon turnovers in the lovely baking book the fiancé had got me for Christmas but that I have so far not used.  

The turnovers themselves looked to be quite a simple recipe.  The challenge came from the pastry because I decided I was going to make my own.  This was my first attempt ever to make puff pastry!  Well, actually, it ended up being my first AND second.  My first try failed pretty quickly.  I brought it out of the fridge after its first resting period and went about rolling it into a rectangle, only to have all my butter start oozing out from every inch possible.  It just kept coming and coming and I ended up with a mush of butter and pastry.  Not good.  But at least it happened early and not an hour down the line.  So I started again.  I used butter straight from the fridge this time, rather than letting it soften first, and made sure it was really well sealed in its pastry envelope.  When it came to rolling out, there was still a little that managed to escape but it was nowhere near the amount of the first try.  After it had had a few rests and re-rolls it was less trouble.  I was quite pleased.

The book I was using was great.  It explains things rather neatly and all the recipes are quite short and to the point.  However, in the list of ingredients for the turnovers it said '3 apples'.  Just '3 apples'.  There was no indication as to size, weight or type.  So I guessed.  I got Bramley apples, since they are the standard cooking apple over here.  I also decided to just get 2 since they are rather big.  Turns out even that was way too much.  I only used about half the apple filling that I made.  Hence I'll be adjusting the ingredients in the write up.  I made sure to measure how much apple there was before and after making up the pastries, so you'll get a weight.

I cooked my turnovers in two batches.  The first batch I made came out really well.  The filling did leak slightly and the egg wash was a little patchy but overall I was happy.  There were no soggy bottoms!  Pretty good for a first attempt at puff pastry.  It's such a shame I burnt the second batch.  This is evidence that I should not multi-task.  Or at least, not do so in a room that isn't the kitchen or adjoining living room.  I have a tendency to forget about things if I leave the room.  I thought I was being productive when I decided to put away all the laundry and change the bed linen whilst the turnovers cooked.  But I forgot about them and lost track of time.  When I went back into the living room, I noted it was hot.  I then walked into the kitchen to open the window, wondered why the oven was on and then realised!  The poor things had been in half an hour longer than they should have been and were ruined.  I was so disappointed.  I cannot wait for my new oven timer to arrive.  Then even if I do forget by going out the room I'll still get a noisy reminder.

The ones that didn't burn apparently tasted yummy though.  The fiancé did think the pastry was a little thick but also said they tasted very like the strudels he would get at the market in Edinburgh at Christmas.  The cinnamon went really nicely with the apples and there were layers in my pastry!  I'll have to find time to make them again in the future, and not burn half the batch next time. 

Recipe - adapted from The Art of French Baking 
Makes 6 pastries


Puff Pastry:
This takes 2-3 hours to do since you have to roll out, fold and rest the pastry several times in order to get the layers in.

• 200g/7oz plan flour, plus extra for dusting
• Pinch of salt
• 100ml/3.5fl.oz ice-cold water
• 100g/3.5fl.oz butter

1. Sift the flour into a bowl and mix in the salt.
2. Add most of the water and mix in until you get a smooth and elastic dough.  Add more water if necessary.
3. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the dough into a square that is about 1.5cm/0.75inch thick.
4. Cut the butter into cubes and place into the centre of the pastry square.
5. Fold the corners over into the centre so the butter is completely enclosed within a pastry envelope.  Make sure there are no gaps.
6. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
7. Remove from the fridge and roll out into a long rectangle that is 5mm/0.25inch thick.  Try not to let any butter escape from inside (don't panic if a little comes out though).
8. Fold the short ends of the rectangle so they overlap each other in the centre to make a rectangle with three layers.  Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 at least seven more times.  You can do it more times if you want.  The more times you repeat the steps, the more layers your pastry should have.
10. Now the pastry is done so chill it in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Apple and Cinnamon Turnovers:

• 170g/6oz apple (about 1 large Bramley apple)
• 60g/2oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 400g/14oz puff pastry
• 1 egg yolk 
• Water

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7 and grease two baking trays with butter.
2. Peel and core the apple and then cut it into 1cm/0.5inch cubes.  Put in a medium bowl.
3. Add the cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of the caster sugar to the apple and stir to coat them.
4. Lightly dust a surface with flour and roll out the puff pastry as thinly as possible.  Ideally you want to be able to cut all your turnovers from this one sheet and not have to re-roll (though I didn't quite manage it).
5. Use a 12cm/5inch circle cookie cutter, or trace around a bowl with a similar diameter, and cut out six circles of pastry.  If you want, you can also cut small, decorative shapes out of the leftovers (I made a heart for each one).
6. Place a heaped tablespoon of the spiced apple on top of each circle, ever so slightly off centre.
7. Moisten the edges of the pastry with water, fold in half to make a crescent shape and press the edges together to seal them.  If it tears in places, patch the gaps with leftover pastry.  If you made decorations then attach them to the crescents with water.  Place the pastries on the trays.
8. Beat the egg yolk and then brush the pastries with it to glaze them.
9. Sprinkle over the remaining sugar.
10. Bake for 30 minutes.

Apple and Blackcurrant Cupcakes

So I've become rather enamoured with the idea of using jelly powder to flavour things since using it to make the strawberry and cream fudge.  Hence I bought a few different flavours of jelly in my last weekly shop to have on hand for various things.  When Sunday rolled around and I was considering what to make for the Dundee lot, I decided I wanted to use one of the powders in the buttercream: namely the blackcurrant one.  

When deciding what type of cake to make to go with the buttercream, I tried to think of what flavour combinations I was aware of that include blackcurrant.  The first one that came to mind was apple, since the fruit squash we drink is apple and blackcurrant flavoured and very nice.  This was then followed by lemon since lemon seems to go with pretty much anything.  Not sure which to go with, I asked the fiancé what he wanted.  He said whilst he loves lemon, I've made plenty of lemon cakes and that apple and blackcurrant sounds really nice.  So apple it was.

I did not have any cooking apples when I made this decision though, so the fiancé volunteered to go out to the supermarket to get some for me.  At the last minute I added blackcurrant jam to the list because I thought it would make a nice addition to the cake if it was running through the centre of it.  Now, I made a very silly decision regarding the apples.  In many recipes where it has called for two cooking apples, I've only ever ended up needing one because they're so big.  I've always bought two but always ended up with one left over with nothing to do with it.  So this time I told the fiancé to just get me one because I was certain it would be enough.  You can probably see where I'm going with this.  Whilst the apple itself did weigh the amount I needed to include in the recipe, once it had gone through the cooking process with the cinnamon its weight had reduced by half!  Not good.  I had to quickly cook up some regular eating apples to make up the difference.  In future I'm just going to play it safe and buy the two.

Speaking of cooking apples, it is such a pain!  Mainly because the bases of my saucepans ended up black and stained.  I've managed to clean one but am still trying to shift a large amount of the stuff off the base of the other one.  I think putting the apple and cinnamon into the saucepan as two separate things was a mistake, since a lot of the cinnamon ended up on the bottom of the pan and adhered to it when it got hot.  I'm thinking it would be better to toss the apple slices in the cinnamon first and then put them in the pan.  That would hopefully stop quite so much burning on the base.

The other bane of my existence with these cakes was the decoration.  I didn't want just buttercream on top.  I like adding a little extra flare.  In the first place I really wanted to try my hands at making apple roses.  It didn't seem like it would be very hard: make a syrup; sit apple slices in it for extended period of time; wrap into spirals around each other to make roses.  Well, I made the syrup easily enough and I soaked my apples until the syrup had cooled but I could not get them to stay wrapped around each other.  I think my slices were too thick.  I made them as thin as my cutting ability would allow but I probably need an incredibly sharp knife to get the wafer thin slices I actually need.  So with that proving to be a disaster I had to think of something else.  Then I had a brainwave.  Why not just use my little flower cookie cutter and make tiny apple flowers.  They could be apple blossoms!  And since they had been soaking in the syrup, they would not brown whilst sitting on the cake.  Hence I punched tiny flower shapes out of all my apple slices.  They made quite a cute decoration in the end.  I'll probably use that idea again in future, maybe with different shapes like stars and hearts.  I bet it would work with some other fruit too. Strawberry flowers anyone?

These cakes went down very well.  The fiancé loves the buttercream.  So do I actually.  It tastes very like a blackcurrant drink.  He says the cakes have a texture like apple crumble.  They're not the moistest of cakes but that's made up for with the buttercream and the jam running through it.  It is definitely a more blackcurrant flavour but the apple and cinnamon are there in the background and everyone agreed that if they weren't there it would take something away from the overall taste of the cake.

Recipe - makes 14


Apple Blossom Decoration - inspired by Martha Stewart:

• 125ml/4fl.oz water
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 50g/1.7oz caster sugar
• 1 eating apple

1. Put the water, lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil then remove from the heat and cover.
2. Cut a circle of greaseproof paper about an inch bigger than the pan.
3. Peel and core the apple.  Cut into slices cross-wise about 0.5cm/0.25inch thick and then use a small flower plunger (like these on Amazon) to cut out small flowers.
4. Put the flowers in the syrup, cover with the greaseproof paper circle and leave to cool completely (about 40 minutes).

Cakes - adapted from Cox Cookies & Cake:

• 500g/16oz cooking apples (or 250g/8oz cooking apples, 250g/8oz eating apples)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 200g/7oz dark brown sugar
• 350g/11.5oz self-raising flour
• 6 tbsp seedless blackcurrant jam (about half a jar of Hartley's)

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6 and line three 6 hole muffin tins with 14 muffin cases.
2. Peel, core and chop the apples into small pieces.
3. Put into a small bowl with the cinnamon and mix until all the apple is coated in the cinnamon.
4. Transfer into a saucepan and cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until it turns to mush.  Then remove from the heat and allow the cool.  Strain off any excess liquid through a sieve and weigh out 250g/8oz of apple into a bowl.
5. Add the bicarbonate of soda to the apple and mix together.
6. In a separate, large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and creamy.
7. Add the eggs and mix in until incorporated.
8. Add half the flour and fold in.  Then fold in half the apple.  Fold in the rest of the flour and then the rest of the apple.
9. Divide the mixture across the cases and then bake for 20-25 minutes.  Cakes should be risen and slightly springy to the touch.  A skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
10. Allow to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
11. Put the jam into a saucepan and heat gently to liquefy it slightly, stirring as you do.
12. Use an apple corer or a knife to cut a core out the centre of the cake.  Keep the core.
13. Fill the hole with jam and then put the cores back into the cakes.

Buttercream:

• 155g/5.5oz butter
• 310g/11oz icing sugar
• 1 x 23g packet of blackcurrant jelly powder
• 1 tbsp milk
• Violet food colouring gel (optional)
• Apple blossom decoration (optional)

1. Cream the butter in a large bowl until it is smooth.
2. Add the icing sugar and milk and beat until smooth.
3. Add the jelly powder and stir until evenly incorporated.
4. If using, add a bit of violet food gel and beat in until the colour is evenly distributed.
5. Put into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe swirls on top of each cake.
6. Remove the apple blossoms from the syrup and place on top of the buttercream.

 

Apfelkuchen - Spicy Apple Cake

I made this for my boyfriend's dad because he's been doing a lot of stuff down at our flat lately, like tidying up the back garden, putting up curtain poles and mirrors and such.  As a result, the place is coming together quite nicely.  I do like having proper curtains up at last, especially since we are a ground floor flat.  So as a bit of gratitude, I made this cake.  He's not a big fan of really sweet cakes or icing of any sort, but he usually likes the fruity cakes I make and this is one of the nicest.  It also looks pretty.  I will note, that even though it's called a 'spicy' apple cake, I don't think it is particularly spicy.

This is the second time I've made ever this cake.  The first time was one of the few times I'd deviated from making a vanilla sponge and it did not turn out as well as I wanted.  Everyone else thought it looked lovely and apparently it tasted really good because it was gone within a few hours. But I wished it had risen more.  This time around it rose well!  I was so pleased.  I did singe the bottom ever so slightly but other than that it was good!

And I finally have my oven thermometer!  So now my oven will definitely be the right temperature.  Yay!

Recipe - adapted from 175 Hot and Spicy Vegetarian 

• 115g/4oz plain flour
• 115g/4oz wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon 
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 225g/8oz cooking apples
• 75g/3oz butter
• 175g/6oz light brown sugar
• Grated rind of one small orange
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk

For the topping:

• 2 red eating apples
• Juice of 1/2 an orange
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 3 tbsp apricot jam

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and line a 23cm/9inch cake tin.  Ideally a loose-bottomed one but if you don't have one that's fine (I didn't).  If it's a shallow tin then have the top of greaseproof paper finish above the rim of the tin.
2. Sift the flours, baking powder and spices into a bowl.  Scoop 2 tbsp of the mixture into a separate bowl.
3. Peel, core and chop up the cooking apples, then toss them in the second bowl of flour mixture to coat them.
4. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and orange rind until light and fluffy.
5. Beat the eggs in a jug and then add them to the butter/sugar mixture gradually.
6. Fold in the flour mixture, the chopped apple and the milk.
7. Spoon the batter into the cake tin and level the surface.
8. Core and thinly slice the eating apples.  I actually quartered my apples, sliced off the part of the core on each quarter and then sliced them.  Game me nice even slices.
9. Toss the apples in orange juice and then set them in overlapping circles on top of the cake mixture, starting from the outside and working your way towards the centre, pressing down lightly as you go.
10. Sprinkle the caster sugar over the surface and then bake for 1 - 1 and 1/4 hours, or until risen and cooked through.  If the apples start to brown too much, put foil over the top.
11. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
12. Warm the apricot jam and then run it through a sieve.  Glaze the apples with the jam.

 

Apple and Cinnamon Cupcakes

I came home today feeling a bit down.  And when I'm down I usually try to bake something.  I was intending to make angel food cake cupcakes but had forgotten to take my egg whites out the fridge so I wouldn't be able to do those until a bit later in the day.  So I flicked through one of my cupcake books and found some apple and cinnamon ones.  My boyfriend usually loves these kind of thing and his dad seems to like them too so that was what I decided upon.  The only problem was that I didn't have any soured cream.  And what do I do when I don't have something?  I go see if I can substitute it for something else.  Oh Internet, you are so helpful that way.

After a quick search I found there were a number of things you could substitute for soured cream, one of which was soured milk with some butter for thickening.  Well, I had milk.  This led me to look up soured milk and apparently I could make my own if I had vinegar or lemon juice.  I had the latter, so I made my own.  As far as I can tell, it worked well.  I had no complaints from my taster.  He's already scoffed two.  I'll post the method for it along with the cake recipe.

For my topping I added some muscavado sugar, which was an idea that came from Mary Berry's Baking Bible.  I also made a quick lemon flavoured icing to drizzle over it, rather than the soured cream icing they had in the book.  I didn't want anything too thick or too sweet and both the people who would eat these don't particular like lots of that kind of thing.

Substitute Soured Cream - makes 1/2 cup (about 125ml) 

• Milk
• Lemon Juice
• Butter 

1. Measure out 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice into a jug or 1/2 cup measure.
2. Top up to 125ml or the top of the 1/2 cup with milk.
3. Let sit for 5 minutes or more.
4. Cream 1 and 1/2 tbsp of butter in a bowl.
5. Add the soured milk and mix together.

 

Cupcake Recipe: Adapted from Cupcake Heaven

Makes 12

•  85g/3oz unsalted butter 
• 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 125ml/4fl.oz/1/2 cup soured cream (recipe for a substitute above)
• 150g/5oz self-raising flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 eating apple
• Dark muscavado sugar for sprinkling
• 40g/1.5oz icing sugar
• Lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a baking tray with 12 cupcake cases.
2. Peel and core the apple and then chop into small pieces.
3. In a bowl cream together the butter and the caster sugar until it is pale and creamy.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg and then gradually add to the butter mix, beating in with each addition.
5. Stir in the soured cream.
6. Place a sieve over the bowl and place the flour, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in it.
7. Sift it together into the cake mix, then add the apples and gently fold in.
8. Spoon the mixture into the cases and sprinkle the muscavado sugar over the top of each one.
9. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
10. Cool on a wire rack.
11. For the icing, add a bit of lemon juice at a time to the icing sugar until you have quite a runny consistency.
12. When the cakes are cool, use a spoon to drizzle lines of icing over the cakes.

Sourdough Cake aka Chain Letter Cake

This was a strange thing and what I have been referring to as 'chain letter cake' talking about it with someone.  In the middle of last week, one of the students in the class I help out in presented my boyfriend's mother with a container of liquid and a set of instructions, saying she had to take care of it and in the end would get a cake.  Since I'm the avid baker, the thing was foisted off onto me.  So I took it home and it was living on my worktop for ten days as the instructions dictated with me having to feed it flour, sugar and milk.

The reason I call it 'chain letter cake' is because on the ninth day, you feed the mixture and then split it into four, passing three parts off to friends.  Admittedly I did not do this bit.  I left the remaining 3/4 in a jug, where it grew overnight and split over my work top.  After that it ended up in the sink.  I'm kinda wishing I had kept it now since the cake I ended up with has gone down well.  Not with me, because I do not like cinnamon or apple or raisins in cakes.  (Picky, I know.)

Making the cake itself was very easy.  Basically putting all the ingredients into the remaining part, mixing it up and baking it.  I had to bake it for longer than instructed.  The middle would just not cook.  Eventually I was getting fed up because it was taking forever to cook the middle at the bottom so I moved it down a shelf to speed it up.  Within a few minutes the bottom was burnt so I'm a bit miffed about that.  I think I'll move that shelf up a bit.  That's the second time something has burnt sitting on it.

After researching, it turns out that what I was given was a sourdough starter, which is used by a lot of bakers.  You feed it regularly and it will grow into more sourdough thanks to the yeast that develops inside.  You can then use some of it to make things like cakes and bread.

Unfortunately this means I cannot give you the whole recipe because you need a sourdough starter.  But if you can acquire one, then you can do this cake too.

Recipe: adapted from the recipe that came with my sour dough starter

Makes a 20cm square cake

• 1/4 pint/150ml sourdough starter
• 200g/7oz caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 256g/9oz plain flour
• 150ml/5 fl.oz cooking oil (I used rapeseed)
•  2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 cooking apples
• 1 cup raisins (or sultanas or a mix of the two, which is what I had)
• 2 heaped tsp cinnammon
• 2 heaped tsp baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 20cm/8inch cake tin.
2. Cut the apples into chunks. 
3. Mix everything together in a large bowl and then pour into the greased tin.
4. Bake in the oven for about an hour, or until a skewer pushed through the middle comes out clean (mine took almost 2 hours to cook).