Sticky Toffee Maple Sticky Buns for Maine Maple Sunday March 24th

OH MY!!!!! You do need to try these!!

When I first started baking I was leery of trying anything with yeast as it seemed so complicated and I thought you needed a degree in baking to make it work but slowly over the years I have tried more and more yeasted recipes and they have started to work for me - this one is a winner and always works out perfectly - won't you try it even if you too are made a little anxious but the mention of using yeast. I am doing these in honour of Maine Maple Sunday March 24th when many of the sugar houses in Maine are open to the public and you can watch the divine elixir being created from thousands of gallons of sap - or as in my own case from a couple of gallons :)

Yes the sap does get frozen in the tap on these chilly March nights. Each year I tap my one big maple tree and 'sugar down' on our trusty wood stove so we end up with a quart or so of our own lovely Maple Syrup - yum!!!!

For the best Sticky Buns EVER - gleaned from the best magazine EVER, British Country Living - I give you:

 Sticky Toffee Sticky Maple Bunnage Galore

RECIPE: Makes 12 buns – recipe easily cuts in half for 6 (I made a half recipe for this post and it worked perfectly) – you can replace any maple syrup with sugar if you don't have maple syrup on hand.

First make the Sticky Toffee Maple Sauce – this is so good you can put it on anything sweet – ice cream, cakes – anything! This is quite a lot of sticky deliciousness so you can pour more over the buns when they come out of the oven…YUM!!!! If you like your buns very sticky double the recipe - I know you'll always manage to find some way to use any that's leftover!!

10oz weight/ 1 scant cup maple syrup – preferably from Maine for it is Maine Maple Sunday March 24^th!! 

6oz butter/ 12 tablespoons – I prefer salted for that great salted caramel taste 

8 tablespoons of heavy/double cream or half and half 

1. Put all 3 ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a simmering boil until it starts to thicken and the bubbles are dense and lighter in colour.
2. Allow to cool while you make the buns.

3. Using about ½ of the sauce put about 1 tablespoon sauce into each space of 12 muffin pans OR cover the bottom of two 9” cake pans – I show pics of doing it both ways.

STICKY TOFFEE BUNS – oh my SOOOO good – like a really light brioche bread!!!

INGREDIENTS: 

1 tablespoon of active dry yeast

1 teaspoon maple syrup - again you can use sugar

6 fl. ozs/2/3 cup/150ml  warm almost hot to the touch water (the recipe uses milk but I find water is fine)

1. Mix these 3 ingredients together in a bowl/jug and allow to sit in a warm place for about 10 minutes to get all bubbly, creamy and gorgeous: 

Let your yeast mix bubble to this kind of amount - even if takes longer than 10 minutes - I have found this amount of bubble-age is the key to getting yeasted recipes to work well. if your yeast isn't bubbling after say 15 minutes either your yeast is old or your liquid wasn't warm enough - put the bottom of the jug/bowl into a bowl of warm water and see if that activates it.

My ingredients warming on the shelf of the wood stove - purring gently!

Everything should be at room temperature to help better activate the yeast.

1 pound/500g unbleached white flour sifted

Large pinch of salt

2oz weight maple syrup or sugar

2 large eggs beaten

4oz/1 stick softened butter – again I use salted but you can use unsalted if you want.

If you want to use nuts toast 4ozs or even 6ozs if you like a lot of nuts in a 350F oven for a few minutes until fragrant – keep an eye out as they catch and burn very easily – allow to cool – you can use almonds, pecans or walnuts.

1. Sieve flour into a large bowl, stir in the salt and sugar (if using sugar) – for maple syrup make a well in the flour and pour in the maple syrup, eggs, softened butter and yeast mixture and blend until it comes together.

(Remember I only made a half of this recipe so my dough ball looks small)

2. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.

3. Roll the dough into a ball, return to the bowl and cover with a tea towel, place in a warm spot (mine is on the shelf above the wood stove) and allow to double in size which should take about 1 ½ hours.

4. Turn the dough onto refloured surface and knead a little for about a minute.

5. Shape into a rough rectangle – about 14” x 20” I do half the recipe so my rectangle was 7” x 10”ish

6. Spread about 1/3 of the sticky toffee sauce over the centre of the rectangle thus:

7. Sprinkle nuts over if you are using them

8. Roll up the dough from the short side – don’t worry the sauce will ooze as picture below.

9. For full recipe cut into 12 even pieces – it will squush when you are cutting – don’t worry – my half recipe of course I cut into 6 pieces. 

10. Either put them in your cake pan or muffin tins and drizzle more maple syrup/sauce over:

11. Put back to the warm spot uncovered for about ½ until well risen again.

12. Meanwhile warm your oven to 350F and when ready bob in the buns for between 35-40 minutes until well golden brown:

with nuts and....

......without - more maple glaze - or just more plain maple syrup if you prefer - drizzled over the top!!

13. Allow to cool slightly before removing and then devour hot, warm or cold- when still warm drizzle over any remaining sauce –

14. GET THE KETTLE ON!!!!!

Let me know how you do – Happy baking!!! Please feel free to post your baking pictures on my Facebook page.

 

Apples, apples everywhere - Apple Nut Turnovers, Apple Cider Syrup and Glace Apple Slices!!

Isn't that Glace apple slice a thing of beauty - I just saw the recipe for it by accident on Pinterest while I was oogling a recipe for something else and I realized I just had to make them - they were surprisingly easy, turned out just beautifully and taste like a slice of toffee apple - YUM. Propping up the glace delight is a delicious Apple and Nut Turnover - equally as good and delicious created from a recipe in Country Harvest by Linda Burgess and Rosamond Richardson - a simply lovely book full of cosy photos and excellently reliable recipes for the Autumn season.

 To make your turnovers you'll need to start with making your pastry first as you'll want to bob it in the fridge for at least an hour before you start baking.

Pate Brisee by Martha

This is good for 4 nice sized turnovers - this recipe doubles well.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups/5ozs of white flour - I also added 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg to the flour just for a little extra autumn flavour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 stick/4oz butter I always use salted, VERY cold

1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water

METHOD:

1. Sift the flour and add the sugar and blend.

2. Grate the butter into the flour.

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal or swish in a food processor to achieve the same.

4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour - or as long as you like.

Whilst the dough is chilling you can make the other component parts:

APPLE CIDER SYRUP - make lots of this it is really good on pretty much ANYTHING!

If you use 8fl ounces of apple cider (that would be juice in England not alcoholic cider) all you have to do is gently boil it down until there is only 4 fl ounces left - that's it! When it cools it will go syrupy - if it doesn't, depending on the water content of your juice, then just simmer it a bit more. Allow to cool.

FILLING FOR TURNOVERS - refer to this chart for the type of apples you want to use - I used Braeburns which turned a nice pink and didn't break down in cooking but if you want more filling in your turnover maybe you'll want to chose an apple that turns mushy.

12ozs of apples chopped into bite sized pieces - about 3 medium sized apples

1oz sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon - I'm not a big cinnamon girl but it seemed right in this recipe and this is a small amount

2oz toasted walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans or almonds chopped - I used walnuts.

 1 fl oz/1/8 cup water

1oz butter

4 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1. Cook the apples in the water along with the sugar and cinnamon until mushy if you are using mushy apples or nicely cooked if you are using non mushy, as below:

 2. Fold in the nuts and syrup and allow to cool.

STICKY TOFFEE APPLE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz brown sugar

 1 1/2 oz butter
2 tablespoons cream or half and half 

6 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1. Heat sugar, cream and butter together in a small pan until sugar has dissolved and allow to bubble for a minute or so.

2. Add the apple cider syrup and stir - keep warm but not hot.

GLACE APPLE SLICES - wee hee I love these - found the recipe here.

Here's my interpretation: Set oven at 350F and grease a baking sheet lightly with butter.

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

1 small apple sliced fine on a mandolin - I think I did my slices much thinner than in the MyRecipes recipe but they worked out well - also they don't mention it's hard to get a whole apple slice the way it looks in their picture - and if you do get a whole slice you aren't getting too many of them because they'll only come from the middle part of the apple - so don't be disappointed if most of your slices are just circles with no character. MyRecipes also didn't mention that you need to use a non mushy making apple as mentioned above so check your apples are sufficiently sturdy :)

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil.

2. Allow to boil gently for a couple of minutes.

3. Add a few apple slices and stir them around gently - watch them go transparent pretty quickly especially so if your slices are as thin as mine.

4. When they are transparent gingerly move them to the baking tray -

 - I found tongs were the best way to do this - flatten them out as best you can and bob into the oven for about 5 minutes to start - check how they are if they are starting to go golden they are ready - they actually went white again for me which confused me but when I took them out and put them on a cooling rack they went transparent again. You may have to play with this a little to get them right but you can put them in and out of the oven until they go crisp when cold. DO make sure you take them off the baking tray and put on a cooling rack whilst they are still pretty hot though or they'll stick. Don't throw away the apple simple syrup you have now made - there's always something you can do with it!

  Now to assemble your turnovers.

Set your oven to 350F.

You will need one beaten egg yolk.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll out to a square about 12 x 12" and cut into four even squares:

Bob 2 tablespoons or so of the apple mix onto the square thus:

 Dab some of the beaten yolk along the 2 front edges and fold the pastry in half over the filling to form a triangle - press with a fork along the edges to press the top and bottom pastries together - you don't want any gaps or holes of the filling will ooze out whilst cooking. Now wash the top of the turnovers with more egg yolk and a goodly sprinkling of sugar:

Can you believe how yellow my egg yolk is - it's from Farmetta Farm - best eggs around!

 ...and into the oven with them for about 20 minutes until golden brown and piping hot.

 Allow to cool slightly, cover with the sticky toffee sauce and some of the apple mix if you have any leftover - decorate with a glace apple slice or two and off you go - these are SO GOOD!!!!!

HAPPY BAKING!!

If you make these please feel free to post on my Facebook page - I'd love to hear about it!

Here's an excellent apple usage chart from Pocket Change Gourmet and some more info on apple varieties HERE

Until quite recently I thought all apples were created equal and didn't know you used different varieties for different things - now I know!!

Upside Down Maple Syrup Cake for Maine Maple Sunday

Our first daffodil bloomed today - about two weeks earlier than usual but I can't say I wasn't thrilled to see it!

Not a very thick cake but still a very good cake - chewy, syrupy goodness abounds!

This year the maple syrup tapping started early and I wasn't aware I should have my buckets out until a couple of weeks ago - as soon as I realized I was missing the sap boat I put my little buckets out and garnered myself about 2 pints of the Maine liquid gold!!

This coming Sunday is Maine Maple Sunday when many of the sugar houses are open to the public and you can buy all manner of delightful Maple Syrup products as well as seeing how the syrup is produced in the 'sugaring down' process.

In honour of this day and in order to make something somewhat British with my stash of Maine gold I decided to make a Maine Maple Upside Down Cake I have been eyeballing for a while from a very old issue of British Country Living. The recipe turned out to be a little odd once I started using it in that it didn't give me an oven temperature and the cake part was kinda flimsy and I think in retrospect should have been twice the amount they stated - but with recipes you live and learn - so many recipes don't come out right the first time and you have to tweak them so bear that in mind the next time a recipe doesn't work well - it may not be you but the recipe itself!!

Always read the recipe through first to make sure you know in what order to do things!!

MAINE MAPLE SYRUP UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

Topping: MAKE THIS FIRST!

2oz/60g butter

2oz/60g sugar

6 fluid ounces/18cl of maple syrup

2oz/60g of walnuts, or pecans if you prefer, broken into good sized pieces.

Pinch of salt if you like that tangy flavour

1. Melt all above ingredients together on low heat in a pan until it foams as below - not a very good photograph but the steam kept fogging up my lens.

2. Pour this sugary goodness into a glass dish about 21/2" deep and 7" across - I bet you could do it in an 8" round also - then crumble the 2 oz of walnut over as below - allow to cool.

Now make the cake part: Pre-heat oven to 350F

CAKE INGREDIENTS: This is the amount I used in accordance with the magazine recipe but if you want more 'cake' then do double this part of the recipe.

1oz/30g butter

3 rounded tablespoons of sugar

1 large egg beaten

5oz/125g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 fluid oz/10cl whole milk

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add beaten egg in 3 goes and beat well in between - if it curdles a little that's OK - it will come together again with the addition of the flour.

3. Sift dry ingredients together - add a third of the flour to the butter mix - then half of the milk then another third of the flour then the other half of the milk and finally the last of the flour and stir well between each of these additions until you get a smooth batter like this -

4. Now gently dot the batter over the maple and nut mix being careful not to push it down into the maple mix thus:

5. Gently smooth over with a wet palette knife or back of a spoon thus:

6. Now pop into your pre-heated oven and bake for about 35 minutes (the recipe said 25-30) but mine took a good 35 - start checking at 25 for doneness - recipe is done when the top is pretty evenly browned:

7. Remove from oven and allow to sit for a couple of minutes before turning upside down on to a plate and there you have a sticky, glistening maple delight.

Happy Maine Maple Sunday and let me know how your cake came out - Patricia :)))