House of Fraser – The Blogger’s Recipe Book and My Special Apple Pie Recipe

This is not just any cook book, oh no, this is a very special cook book… this is a cook book in which you can find on pages 16, 17, 18 and 19 my very own Special Apple Pie Recipe!

We have been published in a real cookbook; not just an e-book but an actual book that you can hold in your hands and physically turn the pages. I just love it!

As you can probably guess I am chuffed to bits over this.

The whole project started back in August. I received an email in which I was asked if I wanted to be published in a cook book. Hell yeah! Of course I wanted to have my recipe in a book. The big question was which recipe… in the end actually it wasn’t such a big question… from all the recipes we have covered I knew that my Mums Apple Pie was the one which deserved fame the most. For years it was a closely kept secret but once we “let cat out of the bag” there was nothing to hide anymore. The recipe was out there, so why not immortalize it in print in a lovely cook book from House of Fraser.

We re-wrote the recipe a little making it clearer and easier to follow. Then I had to bake one in order to shoot the “perfect” picture.

I think it worked.

The recipe reads well and the picture shows the pie in all its glory.

I feel very proud!

The whole book contains 14 recipes from UK bloggers; mostly cakes but who doesn’t love a good cake?

Just in case you had never heard about My Special Apple Pie Recipe before – here it is again – the new and upgraded version.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

6 eggs – yolks with whites separated

250g of unsalted butter

350g of plain flour

250g of icing sugar

2 tea spoons of vanilla sugar

3 tea spoons of baking powder

1kg of apples

Cinnamon (to taste)

Method:

1. Pastry

Mix the flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and butter (ideally all ingredients should be at room temperature)
After the pastry starts to form add the six egg yolks, one at the time. Mix everything together until you are able to form a ball. Cover with cling film and pop into the fridge to rest.

2. Apples

Peel and core all the apples, using a grater shred them into small pieces. Once ready, put the apple shavings into a sieve to help get rid of any excess juice.

3. Preparation for meringue

Take a flat baking form – a roasting tin can be used if needed – grease the bottom and sides with some butter.
Remove your pastry from the fridge and split into two parts (¼ and ¾) – put the ¼ sized part back into the fridge for now; take the ¾ part, gently roll flat and place at the bottom of your greased baking form. Once ready cover the base with the shredded apples (make sure that they are not dripping with juice or you will end up with a soggy base, if necessary give them a squeeze with your hands before adding to the base). Sprinkle some cinnamon over the top of the apples. Now you are ready for the meringue part…

4. Meringue

Put the six egg whites into a mixing bowl. Whisk or beat until firm. When soft peaks start to form begin to add the icing sugar slowly. Once all the sugar is added and you are able to form stiff peaks stop whisking and with a metal spoon place the mixture on top of your cinnamon apples.

5. Topping

Once you have meringue covering the top of your pie; take the final ¼ of leftover pastry; and again with a grater grate tiny pieces on top of the meringue.

Bake in the middle of a preheated oven at 220C, after 10 minutes reduce the temp to 180C and bake for a further 20 minutes Or until the meringue peaks have a nice light golden brown colour.

Once cooled, you can dust with a little bit of icing sugar to make it look even more amazing.

Have fun if you decide to bake it!

Alphabet Project | S is for Scrumping

Scrumping – Stealing fruit, especially apples, from someone else’s trees.
Oooops 😉

Alphabet Project is hosted by PODcast

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Regis Stone Non-Stick Breakfast Challenge

JML challenged me to create a healthy fried breakfast using their new Regis Stone non-stick pan. I’ve heard about non-stick pans before but to be honest they never seemed to work as advertised, so I was really keen on trying Regis Stone.

I wanted to prepare a full English breakfast but then I thought to myself “hmmm, sausages have fat in them so my frying will not really be fat free, therefore I will not be able to truly test the new frying pan”… I could of course cook the eggs first but it would be such a waste of all that tasty nice sausage fat…

This led me to a new cunning idea – I will make Apple & Cinnamon Breakfast Pancakes! No fat in them so I will actually be able to make a fat free breakfast and thus test if the pan is really non-stick.

So how did it go?

Perfectly! I am quite amazed by the Regis Stone pan. I must admit I was tempted to add just a drop of oil… just in case… but I didn’t. My pancakes were cooked without any fat whatsoever and the pan didn’t even require a wash afterwards.

If you would like to try my breakfast pancake recipe, this is what you need and how you make them.

Ingredients:

• 1/2l milk
• 2 eggs
• 300g flour
• 100g white sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 2 apples
• Icing sugar for serving

Method:

Separate the eggs whites from their yokes.

Place the whites in a separate bowl, ready for whisking.

Place the flour, sugar, salt, soda, cinnamon, milk and both yokes in a large bowl and mix all ingredients with a whisk until everything is well combined.

Wash, peel (or not), core and dice your apples. Add them into your main mixture.

Whisk the egg whites until they are able to form firm peaks and then gently fold them into the main mixture with a metal spoon.

Now, you are ready to start cooking.

As I used a Regis Stone pan, I had no need for any fat. I just grabbed a good spoonful of my mixture and place it in the preheated pan. It should take you just over a minute for each side to cook and brown nicely.

Serve warm after dusting with icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Oh, and if you are in need of a new frying pan, I would highly recommend Regis Stone! We are going to order a large 28cm one. This is really one amazing frying pan!

*  I received one 24cm Regis Stone pan for free as well as shopping vouchers, to cover the cost of the ingredients, but all opinions expressed in this post are honest and my own.

What’s Cooking – Apple and Oat Cookies

Home-made cookies always make for a lovely treat and kids love them but what about sticking some goodies into them? This quick and easy recipe for Apple and Oat Cookies is a perfect combination of both – it makes for a perfect treat and it is full of good ingredients (more or less) 😉

This is yet another recipe from Make, Bake, Cookies – The Recipe Book I told you about some time ago. These one are from chapter 2 – soft & chewy and yes indeed they come out just as intended – nice and soft with lovely chewy middle. They are really nice with a cup of coffee, or milk or even a hot chocolate and make for a perfect snack.

So how do you make them?

Easy… let’s start with the ingredients:

• 2 large apples, peeled and cored
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 225g unsalted butter, softened plus a little extra for greasing
• 100g brown sugar
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 225g self raising flour
• 150g rolled oats
• 85g raisins

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C / 350F or a Gas Mark 4.

Grease three large baking sheets.

Dice the apples and toss in the lemon juice.

Place the butter and sugars in a bowl and beat together until creamy. Gradually beat in the egg. Sift the flour and add the oats, raisins and apples. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture on the prepared baking sheets spacing them well apart.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden around the edges.

Leave to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

That’s all.

Nothing else to do but eat 🙂

Do you think they would count as one of your 5 a day?

What’s Cooking – Apple Pie, Irena Style

This is my Mum’s recipe for her famous Apple Pie. I called it Apple Pie, Irena Style.

 

Every holiday, birthdays, family gatherings or any other special occasion my Mum would bake this pie, so we can share it with others. Every family has some speciality; my Gran used to bake yeast dough, my auntie Barbara would bake a Cheese Cake, my auntie Halinka would prepare gingerbread and My Mum would always have her Apple Pie.

When I left home for University I asked my Mum to teach me her secret. I wasn’t visiting home very often and from time to time I just wanted to bake myself this reminder of my family and happy childhood. Now I bake it for my family and friends, so we can all enjoy it.

Try it and you will love it.

 

Apple Pie, Irena Style

 

Ingredients:

6 eggs – yolks and whites separated

250g of unsalted butter or margarine

350g of plain flour

250g of icing sugar

2 tea spoons of vanilla sugar

3 tea spoons of baking powder

1kg of apples

Cinnamon (to taste)

 

How to make it:

1. Pastry

Mix flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and butter (ideally all will be at room temp)

After pastry starts to form add 6 yolks, 1 at the time. Mix all together, form a ball, cover with cling film and put into the fridge.

2. Apples

Peal all apples, use grater to shred into small pieces. Once ready, put into sieve to get rid of excess juice.

3. Preparation for meringue

Take a flat baking form – roasting tin can be used if needed – spread some butter into it.

Split your pastry ¼ and ¾ – ¼ leave in the fridge for now; take the ¾ part, roll flat and placed at the bottom of your baking tin. Once ready fill with apples (make sure that they are not very wet and juicy or you will end up with a soggy base). Add cinnamon on top of the apples. Now you are ready for meringue…

4. Meringue

Put 6 whites into a mixing bowl. Mix until firm. After about 5 min of mixing, add icing sugar slowly. Once extra firm and solid place on top of cinnamon apples

5. Topping

Once meringue is on top of your pie; take 1/4 leftover pastry; split into tiny pieces and put crumbs on top of meringues (you can also use a grater to do this)

 

Bake in the middle of the oven at 220C for about 30min. After the first 10 min, reduce the temp to 180C.

 

Once cooled, you can add a little bit of icing sugar on top to make it look even nicer.

 

Enjoy and please let me know if you had any problems with it and I’ll try and fix it for you. Happy munching… 🙂