Toffeeeee Apples!

I’ve been meaning to make toffee apples for years but I’ve always been a little afraid of the boiling hot sugar element and shied away... This year I finally made them and realised that there’s nothing scary about them at all! I didn’t even get close to pouring 140°C molten sugar on myself, result! I would however advise against using bamboo sticks in them as I did manage to give myself a nasty splinter from them, yowzer! 

The recipe below is from BBC Good Food and it worked perfectly. I actually made a batch, coated the apples, let them set and repeated to get another crispy coating. I also used Cox’s apples for mine as they’re nice and small. 

The best way to make these is with a sugar thermometer as the mixture needs to get up to 140°C, you can do it without but I find it a little trickier. 

But yes easy and nicely autumnal. Make them!

Ingredients

12 Cox’s apples

400g golden caster sugar

1tsp vinegar

4tbsp golden syrup

Method

Place the apples in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. This will remove the waxy coating and help the caramel to stick. Dry thoroughly and twist off any stalks. Push a wooden skewer or lolly stick into the stalk end of each apple.

Lay out a sheet of baking parchment and place the apples on this, close to your stovetop. Tip the sugar into a pan along with 100ml water and set over a medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes until the sugar dissolves, then stir in the vinegar and syrup. Set a sugar thermometer in the pan and boil to 140C or 'hard crack' stage. If you don't have a thermometer you can test the toffee by pouring a little into a bowl of cold water. It should harden instantly and, when removed, be brittle and easy to break. If you can still squish the toffee, continue to boil it.

Working quickly and carefully, dip and twist each apple in the hot toffee until covered, let any excess drip away, then place on the baking parchment to harden. You may have to heat the toffee a little if the temperature drops and it starts to feel thick and viscous. Leave the toffee to cool before eating. I would hear allow them to cool before repeating the process again.

Enjoy! x 

A British Bake Off Pie!

Like most I was obsessed with The Great British Bake Off this year, an X Factor but with cake, what’s not to love??? So you can imagine how happy I was to get my hands on the British Bake Off cookbook and I was not disappointed. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who has even the remotest interest in baking, it’s full of tutorials and recipes from the programme and I am in love with it. Tutorials and pretty pictures are all very well but of course I had to do a couple of checks just to make sure the recipes worked... :)

If you watched the programme you might remember that during pie week Holly made an insane looking potato pie? Now I’ve never really eaten a potato pie and I have to say that despite the thing looking delicious I was a little dubious...Potatoes wrapped in pastry? Now that’s a complex carbohydrate if ever I’ve heard one. You’ll be pleased to hear that I was able to put my reservations to one side in order to try it and oh am I ever glad I did! Potatoes, caramelised onions, stilton, gruyere, cheddar... Yes! Oh very yes!

Being a book about baking, the original recipe involves making your own pastry but I was short on time so bought the pastry...so I’ll write it up the way I did it! 

(I cannot recommend this pie highly enough, mine was finished by four people in one sitting! That could however say more about us than it does about the pie...)

Ingredients:

1 packet of puff pastry (I find pre-rolled stuff to be most excellent)

2 medium onions

30g butter

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1kg waxy/salad potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

100g stilton, crumbled

100g gruyere cheese, grated

140ml crème fraiche

60ml double cream

100g mature cheddar, grated

Freshly grated nutmeg

Black pepper

1 large deep pie dish

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C/gas mark 7.

Start by putting the onions in a frying pan with the butter, salt and sugar and fry on a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15minutes or until lightly caramelised. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Meanwhile cook the potatoes in boiling water for 8 minutes. Drain carefully and set aside.

Combine the stilton and gruyere in a bowl. In another bowl mix together the crème fraiche, double cream and cheddar. 

Layer the filling in the pie dish, working from the outside of the dish into the middle to achieve a domed effect. For the first layer use one-quarter of the potato slices, one-third of the onions and one-third of the stilton mixture, seasoning with nutmeg and pepper. Then make two more layers, each using one quarter of the potato slices, one-third of the onions, one-third of the stilton mixture, half of the cream/cheddar mixture, and nutmeg and pepper to season. Top with the rest of the potato slices and season with nutmeg and pepper. Ensure that none of the cream mixture is visible from the top.

Apply an egg wash around the rim of the pie dish. If using pre-rolled pastry, un-roll it and place over the top of the pie. Or roll your pastry out and do the same. Trim the edges and use a fork to press them down. Brush the whole pie with egg wash. If you wish, cut a decorative shape for the pastry trimmings and stick to the pastry lid with egg wash; brush the shape with egg wash. Cut a good-sized cross into the top of the pastry lid to let steam escape during baking. (I may or may not have forgotten this important step and been forced jab wildly at the pie with a knife halfway through cooking...)

Set the pie dish on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 180°C/gas mark 4 and bake for a further 25 to 30 minutes or until the pastry is crisp and golden. Serve hot.

Enjoy! x