Rustic Pumpkin and Apple Upside Down Cake

This may sound like it could be a heavy carrot cakey like confection but surprisingly it turned out very light and delicate! and so very more-ish! I adapted it from this RECIPE from Aunty Beeb (the BBC) and found yet another way to use up some of my seemingly never ending supply of apples from my trees out the back:

The first order of the day is to peel and slice 2 medium sized apples and keep the slices in cold water with either a spoon of vinegar or lemon to stop them from browning. Now make my go to Sticky Toffee Sauce which I am finding can be added to almost any sweet recipe out there - I am a BIG fan.

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons cream or half and half

1. Put all three ingredients in a pan to melt together, mix and keep mixing whilst letting it bubble a couple of minutes until it gets a bit thick - allow to cool and pour into a 9" diameter cake pan.

2. Take apple slices out of the water, pat dry and arrange in the cake pan over the toffee sauce in whatever manner you chose and with as few or as many slices as you like. 

Now to make the batter for the cake:

CAKE: Have everything at room temperature

Pre heat the oven to 350F

3 1/2 ozs/ 1 stick minus 1 tablespoon of melted butter (I always use salted because that's what I like - if you don't use salted butter add a pinch of salt to the dry ingredients when you sift them) 

2 large eggs beaten 

5 ozs/ heaped 1 cup white flour  

1 1/2 teaspoons spice - your choice of combination - I used 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of cardomom, you may like nutmeg and allspice, nutmeg and clove, cinnamon and nutmeg - yes I like my nutmeg 

1 teaspoon baking soda/bicarb of soda 

8 oz shredded pumpkin (or squash of your choice)

1 tablespoon apple juice

4oz/ 1 cup sugar - brown works really nicely in this recipe 

METHOD:

1. Whisk the melted butter (cooled) into the eggs with the apple juice. 

2. Sift all the dry ingredients together. 

3. Fold the dry ingredient into the wet until evenly mixed. 

4. Fold the shredded pumpkin into the mix.

5. Gently dollop the batter onto the apples and sticky toffee so as not to disturb the apple pie order of the apples:

6......and smooth your batter nice and gingerly and seal the edges by smoothing the batter right to the edge of the tin - so the sticky toffee won't escape so much:

 7. Bob into the oven for about 45 mins until nice and evenly browned:

8. Leave to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then gird your loins and flip over onto a pretty plate:

This is the first one I made it was paler and stickier - I think because I used more apples and they were juicier too - maybe I also baked it for less time. This is the second one I made -

...which I decided to cover in some more sugar and broil/grill until the sugar bubbled and not only did it look nicer but it was drier in a good way.

First one stickier, wetter:

 Second one drier and more holding it's shape better - which all goes to prove it's hard to make things the same way twice even with the so called same ingredients because things like the weather, how juicy your fruit is etc can have an effect on the outcome - suffice to say they were both very good and I wouldn't even begin to say which one was better.

I should have gotten a better pic of the cake inside - but I didn't naughty moi - anyway you can see the little pumpkin shreds and the outside gooieness - yum!!

This cake most definitely should be eaten on the day it is made though as the following day it had gotten damp and moist in not a good way so bear that in mind - most of the cakes I make taste better the next day - not this one!

I hope you enjoy baking this cake and let me know if you do and how it comes out.

If you have an interest in either of the background fabrics featured in this post you will find them in my SPOONFLOWER shop - click HERE to bob on along there - thanks!!

HAPPY BAKING - Patricia

Continental Apple Slice, Sable Biscuits and making my own Apple Cider Vinegar!!

I made this from these windfalls:

And what you may well ask is THIS...it's a Continental Apple Slice full of gooey sour cream deliciousness, windfall apples and raisins atop a biscuit/cookie crust, a recipe gleaned from "Entertaining with Cranks" cookbook - the recipe requires Digestive Biscuits but as I didn't have any on hand I made the great Sable recipe from Martha Stewart HERE - lovely, simple, easy crisp biscuits that explode with buttery sugary happiness in each crumbly bite, they are a regular in this household - great sandwiched with a bit of butter and dunked in a good hot cup of tea - but I digress!! - I noticed Martha's recipe says it makes 110 biscuits - I think that really must be an error as I get about 24 out of it. I actually made half this recipe for my small 7" round dessert. 

Look how neat and tidy these biscuits/cookies are:

Do I see a little leftover cookie dough up there - and how long do you think that lasted in this house...ha ha ha!!!

So to start the actual apple recipe I made a biscuit/cookie crust - you can easily substitute graham crackers for this crust if you'd like OR in retrospect I think the recipe would work just as well with a nice pate brisee dough as the base - HERE is that recipe also from Martha (I add double the sugar just fyi - and a half measure of this recipe would work for the recipe I'm making here)

For the cookie/biscuit base:

6ozs crushed sables, Digestives or graham crackers

2oz melted salted butter (the salt really works in a cookie crust)

1. Mix the crumbs and melted butter together well.

2. Line a 7" loose bottom pie pan with parchment/greaseproof paper and push biscuit/butter mix evenly onto the base - the parchment will help a LOT in getting the dessert out and stop leakage via the loose bottomed pan.

3. Pop in the fridge to cool and get firm.

While the crust is firming up start assembling the pie/slice filling:

INGREDIENTS:

2 medium sized juicy, sweet and a bit tart apples - mine come as they are off the trees out the back - bruises and all, of course I just cut out the bruises: peel, core and slice thinly

2 oz/ 1/3 cup packed raisins

10 fl ozs/1 cup of sour cream

2 egg yolks

2oz/ 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon/1/2 teaspoon nutmeg or any combination of this you like

1/2oz/1 tablespoon butter

METHOD: Preheat oven to 400f

1. Put sliced apples and raisins in a pan with the 1/2oz of butter and cook gently until slightly soft but retaining their shape, be careful the apples don't stick as there won't be much moisture in the pan.

2. Remove base from fridge and cover with apples/raisins:

3. Beat together the sour cream, half of the sugar, egg yolks and spices and pour over the apples/raisins:

4. Put pie pan on a tray and into 400f oven for 15 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining sugar over the surface (with more nutmeg and or cinnamon if you like - I did) and return to the oven for about 20 minutes until the filling is puffed up, set and gloriously creme brullee looking like this:

6. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan then wait until a lot cooler before trying to slide off the parchment - I couldn't manage this so I left it on the parchment and pan bottom until the next day when it had firmed up enough to move.

The recipe says you can eat warm or cold - I tried it warm and removing a slice from the whole was a mess and it did taste good BUT today, one day later, the dessert has really set and was more DELICIOUS so if you can wait a day I would highly recommend it.

Yessirreeebobsyeruncle - that creme brulee-y type top is awfully nice!!! 

Are you ready to do the Continental?
 

FYI here is an excellent master weight - cups to ounces - chart from the fabulous KING ARTHUR website.

Here are some more pics of my apples, it's been a very good season - last year we didn't get ONE not one apple because there was a late frost that killed all the blossoms. I think this year has made up for it - yea!!! I love being able to walk a few yards from my house and find this bounty...so cool!!!

The deer will be happy this Autumn:

I've also been making my own apple cider vinegar from the cores and peels of the apples I've used for dessert making:

Who as a child used to play the game of trying to peel an apple in one go? I still do so with nearly every apple I peel - I drive myself nuts!

Just in case you're interested this is my fabric design and it's available here at Spoonflower

It's tasting pretty good so far - not as acidic as the bought variety but very much like a dry cider in flavour. Here's how you do it! It's ridiculously easy.

Well happy baking all - I have some more apple recipes I want to try soon - I had two epic fails last week but nevertheless I am not daunted - I will sally forth to unchartered apple delights.

And to finish a picture of sweet Eleanor asleep on the porch amidst the pink chrysanthemums - ah the joys of late summer!!! 

Clonlara Apple Pudding or Windfall Apple Pudding

The good old apple trees are still hanging on to some of their apples and will do for quite some time yet...but I availed myself of some more of those crispy crunchies lying happily on the ground to make my first Steamed Pudding of the season now that our wood stove is up and cranking....no wasted energy on boiling water for hours on end as we are using the stove to heat the house.

Ta dah!! The first Steamed Pudding arrives safely upturned onto it's plate - juices flowing and apples cooked to perfection.

Before you begin put a double boiler on the stove and get to a gentle rolling boil while you make the pudding. Please check the pan regularly to make sure you are not running out of water as this pudding steams for about 2 hours!!

THE RECIPE from Irish Traditional Food by Theodora FitzGibbon

Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 ½ cups of white flour, about 7 ozs
 
2 teaspoons baking powder
 
½ teaspoon salt
 
3 oz shredded suet, just less than 1 cup (you can use butter here if you like but it doesn't work as well as the suet...the butter can make the dough greasier and heavier so try to get suet if you can)
 
3/8 cup/about 3 fl ozs iced water
 
2 tablespoons sugar

1. Sift the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and nutmeg together then shred the suet or butter from the fridge or freezer (the shortening needs to be very cold) into the dry ingredients...I use a grater and literally grate the shortening with that.

2. Rub the suet into the flour until well blended but don't work too much - just like regular pastry you don't want to warm it up.

3. Add water a little at a time until you get a cohesive stiff dough.

4. Roll out the dough to fit the bowl with enough left over to make a 'cap' for the top of the pudding. Press the dough and mold into the bowl as necessary.

I used a 3 cup/24 fl.oz bowl...which must be steamable:

FILLING:

4 large apples, cored and chopped into medium sized pieces

2oz/half a stick of butter

3oz /3/8 cup  sugar

4oz/ 1/2 cup apricot jam...a nice tangy one

1. Cook the apple chunks with the butter, apricot jam and sugar until soft but not broken.

2. Cool and then pour into the prepared pastry lined bowl.

3. Put the cap on and seal using some of the juices from the apple to make the seal stick...it's ok if there's a big clunky rim around the edge as you see below...this is how your pudding should look before she goes for her steam!!

Then we cut a round of greaseproof paper to cover the bowl generously....cover the bowl, fold paper over down the sides and secure with an elastic band, or for purists with some nice string.

Now cut a circle of aluminium foil and do the same until you end up with what you see below

Now pop your little pudding into the top of the boiler...put the lid back on and get the kettle on for a cuppa while you wait for your pudding to be cooked.

Allow to steam continuously for about 2 hours...remove from the double boiler, remove the paper and aluminium 'caps' and  allow to cool somewhat for about 15 minutes before you unmold.

 

Now here comes the fun part - the unmolding...first run a knife gently around the edge of the pudding being careful not to break the pastry, then cover the pudding bowl with an appropriately sized other bowl...remember the juices will flow when you cut into the pudding so you want somewhere to catch those juices...wear oven gloves to stop getting burned from the hot pudding bowl now flip the whole thing upside down and hope the pudding conveniently falls out into the bowl...good luck with that. Mine just popped right out!! YEA!!!

You may have already twigged to the fact that this is a pudding for the strong of constitution, it is what we call in Blighty "STODGY"...Oxford English Dictionary definition of which is as follows: "(of food) heavy, filling, indigestible"...well I don't know about that last word I managed to digest it quite easily thank you very much but it certainly is a stolid dessert not for the feint of heart!!  So here we have the pudding just before cutting...SO neat and cute, like a hat without a brim!! Do serve hot with lashings of good cream or English custard...the resultant juices that flow are very sweet and delicious!!

Click this LINK for more interesting sustainable recipes and information over at the blog Frugally Sustainable!

Windfall Apple Pie Pudding for Great Maine Apple Day October 23rd....yum!!!

 

Above you can see the apple trees my windfalls came from .......what's weird is that I realized today that both the red apples and the yellow apples both came from the same tree...the one on the left above...the red apples are growing on one side of the tree the yellow ones on the opposite...I have never seen this before!!

 

 Anyhow...once I had gotten over this bizarre fact I gathered myself some of the yellow windfalls and proceeded to avail myself of a delicious recipe called "Baked Apple Pudding" which I have renamed "Windfall Apple Pie Pudding". I began by roasting a whole bunch of the apples in the wood burning stove and then, when they had popped and were soft and fluffy and cool, I pushed them through a fine sieve. I ended up with about 3/4 cup/6 ozs of nice, dense apple pulp from 10 apples cut into quarters and cored...I roasted them in a little melted butter and a smattering of sugar for added flavour. You could perhaps use apple sauce for this dessert but it may be too watery....so at a pinch you could heat the sauce in a pan and stir continuously to dry it out a bit....maybe??

Windfall Apple Pie Pudding from "Good Things in England" by Florence White

A recipe that has been in the Randolph family of Wyndham since 1740!!

Piecrust...Pate Brisee by Martha
Pre-heat oven to 425F

1 1/4 cups/5ozs of white flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 stick (4ozs) butter I always use salted, VERY cold
1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water
METHOD:
1. Sift the flour
2. Grate the butter into the flour.
3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal.
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.
6. Take the pastry out of the fridge, allow to warm a very little, roll out nice and thin, then line an 8" tart pie...preferably with a removable base, I used two small oval pie dishes instead of one large and they worked well. Put back in the fridge for about another 20 minutes til nice and cold...the colder the better...I have found the colder it is before baking the less the pie shell will shrink in cooking.

Pie Filling:

3/4 lb/ 6ozs apple pulp obtained as above

3 heaped tablespoons sugar

1 whole egg plus one yolk well whisked together

2ozs/ 1/2 stick salted butter

zest from one lemon

juice from 1/2 lemon

Grated nutmeg to finish

1. Add sugar to pulp.

2. Add lemon zest and juice and stir well.

3. Add eggs and mix.

4. Add melted butter and mix really well.

Pour into prepared pastry shell and bake for about 40 minutes at about 425F...the instructions in the recipe book were as follows "Bake in a good oven for 1/2 hour".....until your pie looks like the one below, below!! Directly beneath is the pie ready to go into the 'good' oven

 The pie turned out REALLY well...it tastes somewhat like a lemon meringue pie with added apple sauce and its kinda like a pumpkin pie with no pumpkin!!

Some more Fall/Autumn Maine colour for you all to enjoy....

 Dried Pee Gee Hydrangeas.....

and a leafy lane...

 ...more glowing beauty...again in Grove Cemetery, Belfast

...and also in a cemetery on the back lanes

Happy Baking and Happy Great Maine Apple Day...use your windfalls well!!