The best apple galette ever...seriously!!...for Great Maine Apple Day

I do have to blow my own trumpet and stand behind the title of this post as, indeed, I have perfected this recipe over the last few weeks to an amazing level of sublime. I will tell you in detail how I achieve above pictured deliciousness in hopes you will try this galette and be taken to realms of swooning only thus far imagined in your dreams - OK maybe that's a bit over the top but this is a WINNER!!!!

And one again we start with my go to delight:

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup sugar 

1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons cream or half and half

..and if you really like that salty tang - which I do - a good pinch of extra salt.

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 over (reserving about 2 tablespoons for the pecans) about 6 - 7ounces of sliced apples of your choice - I am still using the rag, tag and bobtail apples from my old apple trees behind the house:

 Now add about 12 pecans to the reserved sticky toffee sauce and stir them over medium heat in the pan until they are fragrant and a little toasted - about 3 or 4 minutes - set aside.

Set your caramelled apples aside also and now start making the pastry - if you do it exactly how I am saying you should get a crust that is like a crispy, melting cookie/biscuit - it is glorious!

PASTRY: Please do weigh your ingredients if you can - the result will be much more reliable!

Start with everything cold, cold, cold - I even put my flour and sugar in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour before I start making the pastry!

5ozs/ 1 1/4 cups of white flour

4ozs salted butter - hardened in the freezer

2oz/heaped 1/4 cup of sugar

about 2 to 4 fluid ounces/1/8 to 1/4 COLD water - the amount will vary depending on the weather and your flour

METHOD: This is by hand and not in a cuisinart but if you want to use a machine adaption should be easy - you just swish a couple of times for each step until the dough comes together in a ball.

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

2. Grate the hardened 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 start squushing the pastry and keep adding bit by bit of water until it can be formed into a non-sticky ball - less water is better so squush hard until it comes together:

How your pastry ball should look

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

TO ASSEMBLE THE GALETTE:

1. Take your pastry ball from the fridge and on a lightly floured board roll out to about 11" diameter - doesn't matter if the edge is raggedy - in fact it adds to it's rusticity!

2. Place the pastry on a well buttered tray - my tray is black so try for a black tray also or you're cooking time will vary from mine - a lighter coloured tray will take longer, I have a nice square baking tray that is perfect for the job, a tray with an edge is preferably to catch the possible running juices - you never can tell if it will run or not.

 Dollop the cold caramel apples in a high blob in the middle of the pastry:

3. Fold the excess pastry over onto the top of the apples trying to make sure there are no little holes/open spaces for the juices to escape...

4. Wet the top of the galette with water, just a little bit to dampen - or use any remaining sticky toffee sauce from the pecans - and sprinkle sugar atop the little darling:

5. Now pop her back into the fridge for about another hour - or longer - as you prefer - this is a necessary step to help the galette keep it's shape.

When you are ready to bake set the oven to 425F and when it's hot put the galette in for about 25 minutes - remember every oven is different so keep an eye on your galette - turn if necessary - my oven does brown more on one side than the other so I turn half way through - don't worry if juices leak, I have only managed a small percentage of none leaking galette's thus far - it will be OK, and bake until it is nice and toasty brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before tumbling the pecans atop and then make a couple of tablespoon of sugar icing with a little milk (a couple of teaspoons to start) and lots of icing/confectioners sugar - drizzle over and allow to set and VOILA - the best ever apple galette!!

So Happy Great Maine Apple Day - here is a link to MOFGA's events for the day - Happy Baking!!!

On a fragrant note - if, like me, you have lots of grungy windfall apples available that are not fit to cook with I have found you can add them to a pot of boiling water - we keep one on our wood burning stove in the winter months to humidify the air - and let them simmer away and they'll make your house smell like delicious apple sauce!

Just FYI - I have had the occasional partial collapse of the pastry during cooking and don't know the cause but it still has come out tasting fine if looking a little lobsided.

As you can see one of our dear, gnarly old apple trees still has quite the bounty to give up so I see a lot more of these galettes in my future!!

The Pee Gee Hydrangea's are spectacular right now o I thought I'd share a couple of pictures with you!

Be in touch and let me know how your galette goes.

Patricia

This delicious morsel is part of the AUGUST TEA TIME TREATS blog hop organized by the ever lovely LAVENDER & LOVAGE and The HEDGECOMBERS  

Click in the box below to go to the August tea time treats and peruse all the fabulous recipes!

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

Autumn's glowing leaf canopy!

 One of my favourite things to do at this stunning time of year in Maine is to wander along the crinkling, leaf strewn lane beside our house and take pictures of the glowing leaf canopy at a certain time in the late afternoon when the sun is low the leaves are set afire.

 We have been so lucky with the weather these last couple of weeks - the temps are above normal, the skies a singing cerulean blue, the air dry and clear, even warm some days, and the leaves and trees are just beautiful, as ever - full of textile design inspiration!!

What is Autumn/Fall like where you are?

Later today I will have a lovely seasonal recipe for Apple and Pumpkin Upside Down Cake so check back soon - thanks, Patricia 

Autumn's tapestry

There's something so textiley about the tumult of wildflowers this time of the year, the fields are tumbled with starry, sprinkling beauty, like a milky way of flowers  - everywhere I look I see the colours of rich European tapestries.....and then there are the leaves, which are only just beginning to show their majesty thus:

Tomorrow is the last day in a glorious week of opalescent, glimmering skies, balmy wafting breezes and blissful fragrant days - I am going to drink it all in to my memory banks for the coming season of blizzards and ice.

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!!!