It's a simple and moist breakfast or afternoon tea loaf, a cakey bread that takes minimum time to prepare.
First of all, make the rhubarb compote.
Use 50g sugar and half of cup of water to make a simple syrup, add sliced rhubarb, about 3 stems.
Peel and clean and dice one large Granny Smith apple and add 20g of sugar and a tsp of cinnamon sugar, half tsp of vanilla to coat and set a side.
Add rhubarb compote to apple and mix well once it's cooled a little.
For the loaf:
100g butter, room temperature
80g sugar
300g SR flour
100ml Milk
100g sour cream
2 eggs
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda
Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy, beat in eggs, one by one. add milk and sour cream, beat till smooth, sift in flour and bi-carb soda, fold in apple chunks and and rhubarb compote.
Sprinkle the top of the loaf with extra cinnamon sugar.
Bake in 190C oven (pre-heated) for 40-50 minutes, till skewers come out clean. Cool a little on rack, slice best serve it warm with cream, or toast, serve with butter.
We only have Bianca around every second weekend, and that's usually the weekend I make some desserts after dinner.
We love our sweets, but not the sizes of our waistline so we usually move the cakes and cookies to afternoon snacks, smaller portions and hopefully eating at a earlier time will help us burn some of those calories off.
It's winter, so out of abundance of fresh apples, I decided to make another apple dessert.
Individual Apple Upside Down Cake - Pudding
Make 6
1 large granny smith, braeburn or pink lady apple, skinned, sliced.
6 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp water
Place water and sugar in a small clean saucepan and slowly bring it to boil. Wait until caramel is getting a little bit blonde and add apples. Cook until apple slices are getting a bit transparent.
Grease 6 ramekin moulds with a bit of butter. Share the apple with the caramel to each mould.
For the Cakes:
80g softened butter
150ml milk
100g self rasing flour
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g white bread crumbs
1 tbsp maple syrup
4 tbsp castor sugar
2 eggs
Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one by one.
Sift flour, cinnamon powder into another clean bowl.
Beat in room temperatured milk with the butter mixture and vanilla until smooth.
add flour, mix well and fold in bread crumbs.
Share into the moulds and bake in 150C oven for 45 minutes.
Serve with whipped cream, or, chocolate mousse?
We love apple strudels, and I do try to make different varieties of bread, loaves and cakes (the not so sweet versions) for our breakfast.
And we have quite a lot of delicious apples now, new season, juicy, and just right for a lot of apple bread, cake, pie, whatever.
So this is my Apple Strudel Bread, or a Yeasted Apple Pie.
The dough is the normal sweet bread dough:
400g bread flour
220ml milk
1 egg
50g butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
For the Filling:
2 Granny Smith apples, thinly sliced
60g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp nutmeg powder
Make the bread dough as usual and set aside to proof, cover by damp cloth.
Meanwhile, add sugar and spice to the apple slices and let it sit aside to develop flavour.
Once dough is proofed to double, roll out into a rectangle, as it's a yeasted pie, or a bread, it doesn't have to be that thin. Brush on a bit of melted butter, place the apple sliced on the pastry and roll up like a log, brush on melted butter as you roll.
I fold it into a ring and place it on slightly greased tray. Let it proof for another 45 minutes to an hour
Brush on egg wash and bake in pre-heated 180C oven for 35-40 minutes...
Hmmm.. I know something is playing my mind... what was I thinking. I mean earlier on, I bought some condensed milk. They have been sitting on the shelf for a while and I never really liked them as they were just too sweet.
And after the Masterchef's cans and frozen challenge, I thought, might find some way to use up some.
After using up some for pancakes, I found myself using the rest of the condensed milk, stewing some apples. Big mistake. It looked... funny.
Anyway, to rectify what I've done to the apple and condensed milk, I made this Apple Tea Cake, which is actually quite moist...
Apple Tea Cake
150g Self Raising Flour
2 eggs
50ml milk
150ml sweetened condensed milk
2 large apples (pink lady) sliced
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp all spice powder
100ml canola oil
1 tsp vanilla essense
First of all, of course, stew the apple with condensed milk until apple pieces just cooked, set aside to cool.
Whisk eggs and slowly add in oil, vanilla essense whisk till smooth. Add milk and whisk till smooth, then sift in flour, and spices. Add in the apple condensed milk mixture.
Bake in a greased loaf tin (I used my silicon tin) in a preheated 190C oven for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown.
It's a very moist cake and does take time to cook..
I did wake up a bit early this morning, wasn't the best weather for cooking, but it was humid and warm and I couldn't sleep well.
So I end up making pancakes for the family for brekky. I have some very ripe bananas, lots of apples and got some rhubarb stalks on sales the day before.
If I'm making sweet brekky for the family, I'd like to make sure they have some fruits.
Spiced Apple & Rhubarb Syrup
3 stalks of rhubarb, cut into chunks
2 royal gala apples, pealed and wedged (can be red delicious, pink lady etc)
2/3 cup of raw sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tbsp golden syrup
enough water to cover half of the fruits
The method is pretty simple. Coat the fruits well with the cinnamon, sugar and syrup, add water and bring it to boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes until the rhubarb is soft.
Banana Pancakes
2 large eggs
1 ripe banana
50g butter
4 tbsp white sugar
1.5 cup milk (approx)
200g self raising flour
Bit of olive oil for the pan
Beat eggs with sugar until it turns pale. Beat in softened butter.
In another bowl mash the banana, add room temperature milk.
Add the mixtures together and mix well.
Sift in flour, and add a bit more milk if needed the consistency should be just coating the back of a wooden spoon.
Serve pancakes with softened apple and rhubarb and syrup, and dollop of whipped cream (with a bit of icing sugar).
Happy family!
This is the other crostata made during the last Daring Baker's challenge..
It was rather fruity, and I used home made apricot jam, from the apricot tree in the back yard. The jam was the last jar left from the batch made last year, and I do hope we have a good harvest this year for a new batch of jam, and still enough for us to eat as fresh apricots.. Must say the home grown apricots are much nicer than the ones bought from the shops... Organic?
Anyway, this post is about the crostata, not the jam:
Crostata Di Mele
Pastry – Pasta Frolla:
200g plain flour (or 150g plain flour 50g almond meal)
100g cold butter diced
1 egg, separated
70g castor sugar
1 pinch of salt
Fillings:
200g home made apricot jam
4 apples, peeled, de-cored and thinly sliced
1 tsp cinnamon powder
½ tsp nutmeg powder
½ tsp clove powder
2 tbsp raw sugar
Method:
Use food processor, pulse to break down butter mix till it resembles bread crumbs.
Gently work the flour mixture to form a dough, don’t over work dough, wrap in cling wrap and put in fridge to rest for an hour.
Mix well sugar and spices.
Roll out pastry in 2 layers of plastic.
Form the tarte tin and take away excess dough
Lay the jam at the bottom of crostata, then a layer of apple, sprinkled on sugar mix.
Repeat for another layer.
Use the excess pastry to form stripes and cover sides.
Bake in 190C oven for 40-45 minutes.
Thank you John from Eat4Fun, I indeed had great fun doing this challenge... My first ever Daring Kitchen challenge.
I had all the intention of trying out canning whilst watching Italian Food Safari, but this challenge really got my lazy butt out and moving...
I made Apple Butter as challenge called - it's a new name in Australia and here we call it paste. Anyway, it's really nice with savory - pork or using as a spread on crackers and breads.
The original Canning or Freezing instruction and recipe can be found on The Daring Kitchen Website. I encourage all to try out, even you are not interested in becoming a Daring Cook!
I made marmalade using Tangelos and they are just soooo much better than shop ones, now that they are nicely canned, they will last for quite a while without me trying to find fridge space.... I've made jams, but never tried canning....
Now, this is my apple butter:
7 Small Pink Lady Apples – they are sweet crisp and very juicy and very very much Australian – a cross between Lady Williams and Golden Delicious. I use them in apple pies, crumbles, and tarts than Granny Smith, and my family gets fresh apple juice every day, mostly Pink Lady ones these several weeks. I guess the main reason to use Pink Lady is that I have got them on hand.
125ml Cider
1 tsp Mixed Spice (clove, nutmeg, etc)
1 tsp Cinnamon powder
½ tsp ginger powder
1 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp golden syrup – I’m not a fan of artificial sweeteners and would rather take the calories.
I peeled and cut apples in cubes, so they will break down quicker.
Cook with cider till they break down, and I simply mashed them with a potato masher – I suppose I could’ve used my potato ricer if I didn’t peel them first.
Add in sugar, golden syrup and the spices, keep mashing….
And cook further – I halved the original recipe, because I wasn’t sure of the outcome, so the same pot can be used again I suppose? I used the diffuser when I’m not stirring…
It’s only a small quantity so it was pretty easy to reduce, and I turned around the spoon, it’s not dropping…
It tastes quite nice on my sourdough bread, and I’m pretty sure hubby would love it with the chops or roast pork.
I’ve been doing a bit of researching about the preserving jars and unfortunately preserving is no longer popular in Australia and jars are hard to find, unless I order on line, and buy in bulks. I have made jams and chutneys etc, and made pickles with mum, but never preserved them in jars, we just made enough to go around until we need them again, or put them in freezer. So it’s a first time for me, and I’d like to try the canning option, even though it’s hard to get jars. Some forums on the internet here mentioned that you can use old jars, so I found this jam jar that was in perfect order with pop top lid, and the apple butter I made just fit into that 500g jam jar. Of course, the recommendation is always use new lids, but finding lids are not easy…
As I only have one jar, I said to myself, just try it and see how it goes, the jar was checked not leaking, and it was boiled and cleaned before I put the hot apple butter in again.
Put a tea towel at the bottom of the deepest pot I can find, and fill up with warm water – fingers crossed!
Set the timer for 30 minutes and waited until it cooled a bit before I took out my first “baby”… Pressed down the pop top, and it stayed down…
It worked, I couldn’t believe my eyes, but hubby said, what if I want it tomorrow? I guess we will just have to open the jar again very soon….
And I’m sure that I will be collecting jars from now on, we might get a good crop from our apricot tree again and this time when I make apricot jam, I don’t need to give them away to anyone I can find who would take them of me!
And for marmalade, this is the recipe I used.
I bought a bag of tangelos from shop for 99C, quite a lot of them, so I varied the quantity a bit and voila!
Cook the peels first...
Lovely Jam!
Mums in Luke's school been talking about winter dessert and the crumbles.
This was made last weekend actually, when we had enough numbers to sit down at the dinner table for a proper dessert, really quick and easy, a good way to make children eat some apples, and when we are rushed, it can be served with just fresh cream.....
Apple and Date Crumble
4 Pink Lady Apples, pealed cored and sliced.
175g raw sugar
165g plain flour
100g butter cut in cubes
1 tsp all spice
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
Juice of 1/3 of lemon
2/3 cup rolled oats,
½ cup slivered almonds
1 egg
2/3 cup sliced pitted dates
1. My oval baking dish is 18cms in width and 25cms in length (not counting the wings). Mix the apple with 100g sugar, cinnamon powder and all spice and dates, toss well and spread to the bottom of the baking dish, add vanilla and lemon juice and toss gently.
2. Mix flour and the rest of sugar, rub in butter until it resembles bread crumbs, add in lightly whisked egg and form a rough dough.
3. Mix in almond and oats, spread evenly on the apple. Bake in the 190C oven for 45 minutes or until top golden brown.
One thing I must say here is that a normal crumble recipe doesn't call for an egg in the crumble, I actually made it more like a pie because it's got quite a thick cookie top, but family liked the quick sweet fix regardless.
