Cinnamon, Cranberry and Apple Turnovers

I recently bought myself a Patisserie book, by Murielle Vallette. Among other things, I wanted to have a try at making my own puff pastry. This is an excellent book, as it has photos showing you all the steps. This time I didn't fancy making any of the suggestions in the book with my puff pastry, so made these easy turnovers. I adapted the ingredients from an idea I saw on Pinterest, which were turnovers using pear and walnuts. I had a search through my cupboard and found some cranberries lurking in the back. When I'd cooked the apples they were rather too mushy to put in the pastry, so I thickened them with some cornflour. I used Braeburn apples as they were in the fruit bowl, but you could use any apples. I decided to ice them with some simple glace icing.

2 apples peeled, cored and chopped into small dice
sheet of butter puff pastry
50g brown sugar
¼ tspn cinnamon
30g dried cranberries
250ml water

thickening:
30ml cold water
½ tbspn cornflour

Cinnamon Icing:
65g icing sugar
sprinkle of cinnamon
water to mix


Preheat oven 180C/gas 4.  Line a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone sheet.
Cut the apples into small dice and put, with the dried cranberries, brown sugar, cinnamon and the 250ml of water into a pan and cook over medium heat for about  8-10 minutes till the apples become soft.
You need to thicken this mixture, so mix 30ml of cold water with 1/2 tbspn of cornflour and mix well. No lumps!
Take the apples off the heat and stir in the cornflour mixture till the apple mixture has thickened.  Cool.

On a floured board roll the puff pastry into a 15 x 12" or 38 x 30 cms [approx] rectangle (1/2 cm thick). Cut into 4 x 4" or 10cm  squares. Put a heaped tbspn of filling in the centre of the pastry square.  Fold the pastry into a triangle and press your fingertips firmly into the edges to seal the pastry together (if the pastry will not stick together you can use an egg wash brushed along the edges to help).  Put on a baking tray spaced out evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes till golden.  Let them cool and drizzle with some cinnamon icing if you fancy.

To make the cinnamon icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl.  Add the cinnamon and add a very small amount of water, adding more if you want thinner icing. Drizzle over the turnovers.

You can see by my photo that I didn't seal the edges very well, but they were delicious anyway! Liked the combination of apples and cranberries and the cinnamon gives them that gentle hint of spice. Think it was a good way to use my pastry, and maybe next time I'll try the turnovers with a different filling - like the idea of the pear and walnut, but maybe rhubarb and ginger .... ? Will make puff pastry again, but will try one of the ideas in the book, like chocolate millefeuille.

Apple, Date and Walnut Pudding

These day, I only make puddings when we have friends or family for a meal - they seem to expect it! I wanted to make something tasty, but not stodgy.
 Hunting through my cookery books, I found one I'd bought a few years ago from the famous 'Pudding Club' in 'Three Ways House' in Chipping Camden.
If you've nor heard of this club, it was founded in 1985 to save our great British puddings. At the time, puddings were looked on with horror - much too fattening. So the club meets, eat their main course and then 7 different puddings are brought out and devoured. At the end of the evening, they vote for the best one.

Looking through the book, many of the pudds are very filling ,but I found one that was marked as 'healthy', and it does contain fruit, nuts and honey and very little fat. I suppose with the latest bad press for sugar, 120g would be classed as a lot, so perhaps it wouldn't be classed as 'healthy'! Many of the puddings are steamed, but this one is baked - a bonus for me as I don't have a steamer, and find using a saucepan a faff!

Preheat oven 200C/gas6

I used a 20cm square cake tin, but you could use a 20cm baking dish instead. Make sure you grease it well or the pudding sticks!

You chop up 480g of peeled and cored apples, 60g of walnuts and 120g of stoned dates into little pieces and put in a bowl. Add 120g of wholemeal sr flour, 120g of soft brown sugar and 30g of melted butter, 1 tbpsn of honey and 1 beaten egg. Mix it all together and put into your tin or dish. Bake for 30 mins.

We ate it warm with some creme fraiche and it was very moist, packed with soft apple, but I thought it was rather sweet - this was probably because I used eating apples instead of Bramleys, so I should have reduced the amount of sugar. The crunchy walnuts made a nice contrast to the soft apple. It was filling, but not stodgy. I cut it into 6 pieces, which gave everyone a very generous sized pudding. 

A French Apple Cake

Our computer has had gremlins, so haven't been able to post. Hopefully this is now sorted!

I'm always happy to find a new recipe for an apple cake, and this one comes from a French friend. It's nice and easy to make, is different from the usual apple cake, and is a nice change from the heavy Christmas pudds and cakes. I've translated it from French, hence the odd looking recipe with tbpns and grams!

200g of plain flour
10 tbspns of caster sugar + 100 g
2 eggs + 1 extra
6 tbspns of milk
2 tspns of baking powder
4 tbspns of sunflower or rapeseed oil
4 apples [I used Braeburns]
100g of butter
1 tbspn of vanilla sugar [or 1 packet]
Icing sugar for the top

Preheat oven 190C/gas5
Grease and bottom line a 23cm springform tin.

Beat the 2 eggs with the 10 tbspns of sugar; add the flour, baking powder, milk and oil.
Peel and slice the apples thinly, then add to the mixture and mix in.
Pour into the tin and bake for about 30 mins.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat together the 100g of butter, 100g of caster sugar, 1 egg and the vanilla sugar.

Take the cake out of the oven and pour this batter on top * then put back in for another 15 mins till the top becomes golden. Take out, and cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

*I forgot to say that I kept some apple slices back, and put them into the batter on top of the cake. They made it look more interesting!  The cake has a good apple flavour, a nice soft texture.

What does the topping taste like? It seems a strange mixture without any flour. The nearest texture I can think of to describe it is a British macaroon - the one with rice paper on the bottom and an almond on the top. It's not crunchy, but has a similar texture to the inside

. It doesn't really show up in this photo, but it makes a nice contrast with the apple cake.  

Welsh Harvest Cake

I went to a farmer's market yesterday and couldn't resist buying yet more apples. It's the time of the year for them, for pies, cakes, chutney, jam. What could I do with them that would be something different? I remembered some apple recipes I'd cut out of a magazines ages ago, so I looked through them and found this one. I'm sure there are many recipes for regional Harvest Cakes, but my being Welsh, this recipe seemed very appropriate, and it's not long since we had Harvest.The countryside around us has been buzzing with combines and tractors.
It's an unusual cake because the fruit is put in in middle like a sandwich filling, and it seems as if there's much too much fruit for the batter. But have faith, all will be well!

Preheat oven 180C/gas4 and grease and line a 18cm cake tin

Melt 175g butter with 175g soft brown sugar - don't worry if it's not all dissolved, but stir it. Cool for a bit then add 2 beaten eggs. Sift 225g sr flour together with 1 tspn mixed spice and 1 tspn cinnamon then add the melted ingredients and mix together.
Put 450g apples [this is the weight after coring and chopping] with 100 g of dried fruit [sultanas and currants] and 50g flaked almonds in a bowl and mix together.
Spoon half of the cake batter into the tin then add the fruit and nuts then spoon the rest of the batter on top. It looks an awful lot of fruit to mixture, but don't worry.
Smooth the top of the cake batter and bake for about an hour.
Leave it in the tin for about half an hour to cool then turn out onto a wire rack.

I served this as a pudding today with a little cream; the fruit was nice and juicy and the cake had a good hit of spices. A good cake to have in my folder. We'll try it cold tomorrow, and see which we prefer.