Apple muffins

For 12 muffins

225 g flour
1 tbsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
75 g dark brown sugar
100 g dried raisins
75 g dried apple, cut finely
150 ml milk
1 egg
100 ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp oatmeal
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Put the paper baking cups into the muffin tray.
Mix flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda and add sugar, raisins and apple. Mix well.
Whisk the egg, add milk and sunflower oil and whisk well.
Add this mixture to the flour and mix everything.
Spoon the mixture in the muffin tray, decorate with oatmeal and bake for around 15 min.

Note
You can eat the muffins warm.

Baked apples version 2

I made baked apples before, but this time I used a recipe from Claudia Roden's book of Jewish food.

Serves 6

6 sweet or sour apples
3 tbsp butter
1,5 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp sugar
50 g walnuts, chopped finely
50 g dried raisins


Wash apples and remove the core. Make the opening inside big enough.
Place them in an oven dish.
Mix all other ingredients and fill the openings with the mixture.
Add a tiny bit of water to the dish (1-2 mm).
Bake them in the oven at 160 - 180°C for 45 min - 1,5 hr, until they are completely soft but have not fallen apart.



Note: 180°C was too hot in my oven, next time I will bake them at 160 °C.
I served them with vanilla ice cream.

Apple tart

I made an apple tart for a belated Christmas dinner. Actually it was lunch. I dug into my cardboard boxes in het cellar to find the little book with my grandfather's recipes. He gave instructions for dough and pastry cream, but not for the apples, so I improvised.

For the dough

250 g flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar
180 g butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 dl water

For the pastry cream

1 egg
50 g sugar
3 tbsp flour
1 packet vanilla sugar or 1/2 vanilla pod
1/2 l milk
pinch of salt

For the apples

4 apples (not a mushy type)
juice of 1/2 lemon
some sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Add salt, sugar and vanilla sugar to flour and mix. Add butter and egg yolk and knead into a dough. Add the water bit by bit.
Let the dough rest for 2 hours in the fridge.
Grease a tart dish, roll out the dough and put it in the dish. Cover with baking paper and with baking beans. Bake for 25 min. at 200° C. Remove baking paper and beans and let it cool for a bit.
Peel and core the apples and slice them very thinly. Cover them with lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Take the apples out of the juice and cook them at very low heat with some sugar and cinnamon. They should just be slightly cooked and not fall apart.
Whisk egg with sugar in a cooking pan, add flour and whisk again.
Boil milk with vanilla (sugar). After boiling, add it to the egg and let it boil for a few minutes until it thickens. Pour into the baked dough.
Decorate with the apples. Put the slices close together.

Notes
I wonder if the pastry cream would taste even better when made just with the egg yolk instead of the whole egg.
You can put the apple slices closer together than I did in the picture.
The dough shrinks a little when baking, so you can leave an extra cm at the bordere when filling the tart dish.

According to my grandfather you could also make this tart with bananas or other fruit, which you don't need to cook.

Semifreddo di mele

Another dessert I prepared for New Year's Eve was this semifreddo, a type of custard with cooked apples underneath, and with a lemony twinge. I finished it off with grilled 'peperkoek' crumbs, inspired by a cook in Normandy.



The recipe is from the birthday present from my godchild A.V., born on 13 November 2008: The Vegeterranean, recipes by Brasilian Malu Simões and her Italian husband Alberto Musacchio.

Serves 6

For the apples

5 big apples, or 6 smaller ones
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
rind of 1/2 lemon

For the cream

500 ml milk
rind of 1/2 lemon
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
4 tbsp sugar
4 egg yolks
4 tbsp flour
1 slice peperkoek, grilled and crumbled

Peel and core the apples. Slice thinly. Squeeze the lemon juice over the apples to prevent browning. Cook with sugar, cinnamon and lemon rind over a low heat, covered. Stir occasionally. Remove from the heat when the apples begin to caramelise, about 5 min.

Bring milk, lemon rind and vanilla to a boil, then turn off the heat. Whisk sugar and egg yolks in another saucepan until pale yellow. Sift in the flour and mix well. Remove lemon rind and vanilla from the milk and pour it into the egg mixture, whisking all the time.
Cook this cream in a double boiler (bain marie) over a medium heat for a few minutes, until it thickens.

Pour apple mixture into a dish and pour warm cream on top. Alternatively you can divide the dessert over small martini glasses or bowls. Let it cool, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Decorate with grilled peperkoek crumbs.

Notes:
The cream was quite thick, I recommend to use small tbsps of flour.
After tasting both apples and cream, I added more sugar.
I need to work on the technique for grilling the peperkoek crumbs, perhaps our cook from Normandy can advise...

Apple crumble

Recently I tasted a special crumble, made with speculoos, which worked quite well. I was asked for my own recipe and apparentely I haven't posted it yet. So here comes my friend K's delicious recipe, without picture because I haven't made it in a while.

Serves 6

6 apples
200 g dried raisins (or raspberries)
125 g butter
250 g flour
75 g light brown sugar
25 g dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix flour and butter, then add sugar.
Peel apples, remove core and cut them into pieces.
Grease an oven dish with butter, add a layer of apples, then raisins and cinnamon, and repeat.
Sprinkle the pastry on top.
Bake for 30 min at 200°C.

My addition is to soak the raisins in rum before adding them.
Of course this tastes great with vanilla ice cream.

Apple pie

So many nuts


- huge ones -


and so many chestnuts!


But this post is about apples. Also huge ones - boscoop, a sour variety meant for cooking - from my mother's garden, which I used to make a pie. I follow my friend K.'s simple and delicious recipe. It has lots of fruit and only a little bit of pastry around it.

2 eggs
125 g sugar
125 g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
750 g apples
a bit of dried raisins
butter

Separate the egg whites from the yolks and beat the whites.
Then beat the yolks with half the amount of sugar until you get a creamy and light coloured mix.
Add the egg whites.
Mix baking powder and cinnamon into the flour and add this to the egg whites.
Peel the apples, remove the cores and cut them into pieces.
Add them to the mixture together with the raisins and mix well.
Grease a pie dish with butter and add a little flour.
Add the mixture.
Sprinkle the remainder of the sugar on top and add a few pieces of butter.
Bake in the oven for 50 min at 180° C.

The pie was eaten by candle light in a cosy appartment ;-)

Note: I added a bit of rum.

Chestnut soup and Danish apple dessert

Today I had lots of time to cook, hooray! So I invented a soup with the last of my chestnuts.


Chestnut soup

Serves 2-3

150 g chestnuts
1 leek, chopped
1 sprig of white celery, chopped
1 small potato, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1/2 tsp. vegetable stock
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 bay leaf
thyme

Peel the chestnuts (see Chestnut and pumpkin pie) and cut them in 4.
Fry the shallot in olive oil for a few min. Add leek, celery, bay leaf and thyme, and fry for a few more min. Then add potato and chestnuts and fry for a few more min.
Add boiling water, vegetable stock, salt and a lot of pepper.
Let the soup boil, then let it simmer on low heat for 15-45 min. until the chestnuts are soft.
The taste is just divine!

For dessert I finished off the apples from my mother's garden with a recipe from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'.


Danish apple dessert

4 apples
175 g sugar
3 tbsp. flour
3 eggs
150g ground almonds
1 tsp. cinnamon

Peel the apples and cut them in pieces. Cook them with a few tbsp. water until they are soft. Mash them with a wooden spoon.
Add 75 g sugar and flour and 2 eggs and cinnamon. Mix this well.
Grease a tin and pour in the apple mixture.
Mix almonds, 100g sugar and 1 egg into a paste.
Rub a little oil (e.g. sunflower) on your hands to avoid that the paste will stick.
Take pieces of the paste and press them flat between your hands.
Cover the apples with these pieces.
Bake in the oven at 180° C for 25 min. until the paste is brown.
You can eat this hot or cold.

Apple shalet

Shalet is a dessert with apples which I make very often. It's very easy to make and it's delicious. The recipe comes from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food'.


1 kg sour apples
100 g raisins
125 ml white wine
175 g sugar
4 eggs
100 g chopped walnuts
1 tsp cinnamon

Peel the apples, remove the core and cut them in pieces. Put them in a pan with the raisins and white wine. Cook them for 15 min. on low heat until they are soft. Mash them with a fork and add the sugar. Cook for another 1-2 min. Let them cool off.
Add the egg yolks, walnuts and cinnamon to the apples. Beat the egg whites and add them too.
Put the mixture in a buttered dish and bake in the oven for 30-40 min. at 180 °C, until the surface is brown.
Serve hot or cold.

Variations

You can add a little lemon rind.
You can also add some old bread, without crust, soaked in water and squeezed out.

If you're in a hurry, you can add the apples uncooked, cut in small pieces. Leave out the white wine and use a little rum instead. Bake it for a little longer.

Baked apples

I asked my aunt what I could do with all these apples and she sent me two recipes for baked apples. I sent them to Labelga and we ended up cooking together yesterday evening. She made fegato alla veneziana and I made the apples.


Baked apples

Remove the core of 4 apples. Mix 50g corn flakes (or any type of biscuit) with 25g walnuts and 25g raisins. Chop this mixture coarsely.
Add 1 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp maple syrup or cane sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice.
Taste the mixture and add more sweetener if it's not sweet enough.
Fill the apples with the mixture and add some butter and cinnamon.
Bake them in a buttered dish 45-60 min in the oven at 200°C.
Serve with sourcream.

I used honey and Labelga's agave syrup as a sweetener, very nice.

Apple cake and starlings

With the apples from my mother's garden I made an apple cake.



I used the recipe from the cookbook of the 'Boerinnenbond', the Flemish Farmer's Wives' Association. This was the cooking bible of many generations of Flemish women and men. My grandmother gave me her copy when I was a kid.
It's a very basic recipe so I don't bother copying it here.


While I was setting up my blog yesterday, a flock of starlings came for a rest on the crane outside my window.