This morning I woke to a stunning Autumnal morning, the garden had been given quite a dusting of sparkling white glitter from Jack Frost and it was so beautiful. It made me aware that our Autumn days will soon be behind us and that Winter will be well and truly upon us. Today was the first morning that Rosie had to go out and defrost her car before work ! It is time to start getting out the winter woollens and to begin thinking about warming hearty comfort food.
For now the garden is still providing us with apples and I am still finding inventive ways of using them while I can. I stumbled upon this recipe for salted caramel apple pies on Pinterest and just knew that I had to bake them, so yesterday whilst the gardener was here busy working away preparing the garden for Winter I went out and collected another massive pile of apples.
These individual little pies are perfect, served with custard or ice cream they give you everything that you could want from a dessert, light fluffy pastry, fresh tart apples and then the sweet toffee, finished off with a tang from the salt, absolutely heavenly. Now baking these from scratch, making all the pastry yourself may seem a little daunting, but you can cheat, all the TV Chefs are now telling us, buy pastry from the supermarket, its great! So if you don’t have the time or just don’t feel confident enough to make your own pastry, skip that step and whip out the ready made, far better than missing out on this stunning dessert.
Also if you have a tried and tested pastry recipe that you love, use that, as you know I love spelt flour, so I will be making a lovely spelt shortcrust for my pies, as with every recipe, make it your own, if you don’t fancy the salt, leave it out, if you don’t like cinnamon, leave it out, its entirely up to you, make it your own.
I am hopefully off out today to see a very dear friend, but if I am back in time later I may just have to bake this again, but this time I will make one big one in my pie dish, I will cram it full with apple and then quarter the toffees all over the top, before tucking it all away under the pastry lid, but for now I am going to sneak into the kitchen and have one for breakfast with a nice espresso.
Buon appetito
For the pastry if making, if not use shop brought:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup cold sour cream
For the filling:
2 cups small diced (peeled) Granny Smith apples, I used ones from the garden, the cubed apples should be no larger than the size of corn kernels to ensure they become tender during the bake time.
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
8 shop brought soft caramels, roughly chopped
Large flake sea salt
Egg wash (1 egg lightly whisked with 1 tablespoon milk)
Sugar to dust, large grain, Demerara is perfect
Prepare your pastry (If not using shop brought):
Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.
Add the cubed butter to the bowl and use your fingers to work the butter into the flour until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand.
Stir in the sour cream (the pastry will be very wet), and then turn the pastry out onto a well-floured work surface.
Knead the pastry a few times until it comes together, adding more flour, 1 teaspoon at a time, if the pastry is too sticky to handle. Roll the pastry into an 8×10-inch rectangle and dust both sides with flour before folding it into thirds as if you were folding a letter.
Rotate the pastry 90º and roll it out again into an 8×10-inch rectangle. Fold the pastry again into thirds then wrap it securely in clingfilm and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes while you make the filling.
Make the filling:
In a small bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, cinnamon, sugar and flour, stirring until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.
Assemble the pies:
Preheat the oven to 425ºF, 200C.
Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and unfold it onto a well-floured surface, rolling it out to a 14×14-inch square. If the dough is too firm to work with after refrigerating, allow it to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before cutting out the circular shapes.
Using a 3-inch circular cookie cutter or cup, cut out as many circles as possible. Re-roll the scraps and continue cutting out circles until you run out of pastry, ensuring you end up with an even number of circles. (You should have approximately 20 3-inch circles.)
Place six of the pastry circles on a parchment paper-lined baking tray. Spoon a small portion of the apple filling into the centre of each circle, leaving enough of a border around the filling. Top the apple filling with a portion of the chopped caramels and a pinch of sea salt. Place a second dough circle atop each filled circle then use a fork to crimp the edges together, sealing each pie.
As you can see from the photo below, I cut my apple up to big, but you live and learn and I will know for next time 😉
Brush each pie with the egg wash, and using a sharp knife, cut two or three vents on the top of each pie. Sprinkle the pies with Demerara sugar and if you want to , cut little pastry leaves out and place on your pies for added decoration.
Bake the pies for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until they’re golden brown.
Remove the pies from the oven and allow them to rest for 10 minutes before serving. Repeat the filling and baking process with the remaining pastry circles. If you have enough trays and room in the oven, I would just do them all in one hit.
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