Healthy Baking – Apple Strudel

In continuing my quest to battle the bulge and lose that extra weight, I am always on the look out for tasty, yet low calorie treats. So when the Baking Mad Healthy Baking challenge arose, I jumped at the chance to be a part of it.  I selected the Apple Strudel recipe since we had access to hand picked apples from a local source. It also happens to be a favourite dessert of my husband from his childhood visits to Austria.

The baking challenge was sponsored by Baking Mad and Silver Spoon Half Spoon sugar, which has half the calories of regular sugar.

This recipe serves 6

650 grams Apples Eating, Cox’s (approx. 5 apples)

30 grams Almonds ground

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

35 grams Half Spoon Granulated Sugar (Silver Spoon)

1 orange finely grated zest**

Approx. 4 tbsp sunflower or grapeseed oil, plus extra for brushing and greasing

6-8 ready made filo pastry

cinnamon and Half Spoon sugar for sprinkling

**I didn’t have an orange, so I used lemon zest as a substitute.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan170°C/Gas 5.

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples into a bowl. Add the ground almonds, spices and sugar and orange zest (or lemon zest).

Unroll the pastry and cover with a damp cloth to stop it from drying out. Taking one sheet at a time brush each sheet of filo pastry with the oil, then place the sheets of pastry on top of each other onto a large sheet of greaseproof paper.

Arrange the apples in a narrow strip, lengthways down the centre of the pastry to within 3cm of each shorter edge.

Fold the 2 shorter edges over the filling and then fold over 1 long edge and tuck the fruit firmly underneath the pastry. Brush with any remaining oil and fold over the other edge, so that it overlaps by at least 5-6cm.

Carefully transfer the strudel to a large oiled baking sheet. Brush with a little oil. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until crisp and golden.

Leave the strudel to cool down slightly. Dust with a light sprinkle of cinnamon and Half Spoon sugar. Serve with greek yogurt.

This is a very tasty recipe. You’d never know it was low calorie. The flavours of the apple, almond, cinnamon and Half Spoon sugar worked so well together. The only downside of this recipe is the filo pastry was a bit too chewy around the folded edges. When I make it again, I’ll probably use half the amount of filo.

I had never made strudel before, and after this recipe challenge, I’ll definitely make it again.

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

When I started this blog a year ago, one of my goals – or resolutions if you will – for 2011 was to make cannoli. Originating from Sicily, they are a popular dessert in New York City.  I miss the days of being able to stroll over to Veniero’s Pasticceria and enjoy one.  So, this year I decided I would learn how to make them myself.  I ordered the tubes from Amazon, as none of my local cookshops knew what I was talking about when I asked if they carried them. I had also meant to make them long before December, but this year has flown by, but New Year’s eve seemed like the perfect time.  I have ticked all of my ‘resolution’ boxes now. Start a blog – check, maintain the blog through the year – check, lose weight – check and finally make cannoli.

So as Peter says to Rocco in The Godfather – “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

I followed Gennaro Contaldo’s Cannoli Siciliani recipe from UKTV Good Food, which worked really well.

Ingredients:

250 g plain flour

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp coffee, freshly ground

30 g butter, softened

25 g sugar

60 ml white wine

1 egg, beaten

olive oil, for deep-frying

icing sugar, to decorate

For the filling:

600 g ricotta cheese

150 g icing sugar

25 g chocolate chips

1. First make the filling. Place ricotta and icing sugar in a large bowl and whisk until creamy. Fold in the chocolate chips. Set aside.

2. To make the pastry, place the flour, cocoa powder, coffee, butter and sugar in a large bowl and mix well together. Gradually add the wine and mix well until the mixture forms pastry dough. (You may need more flour or more wine depending on how dry the flour is or the humidity.) Form the pastry into a ball and wrap in cling film. Leave to rest for an hour.

3. Lightly flour a clean work surface and roll out the pastry to a thickness of about 3mm. With a round pastry cutter, cut circles with a diameter of about 7.5 cm.  Roll the circles again until they are even thinner, then wrap around the tubular moulds, securing the edges with the beaten egg.

4. Heat the olive oil in a large pan to 180°C. Fry the cannoli until golden-brown (2-3 minutes). Drain on kitchen paper for a minute then gently remove the moulds.  It’s best to remove the moulds before the shells are completely cool.  They come away much easier.

5. Leave to cool, and then fill the cannoli with the ricotta mixture. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

We’ll see if cannoli are as popular in the UK as they are in Sicily/NYC… I’m looking forward to enjoying one with a glass of champagne!

Happy new year… here’s to 2012! *cheers*

French Apple Tart

It’s that time of year when British apples are coming into season. The autumn season is my favourite food and weather-wise. I know, you say it is still summer, but in the UK not really. So, now I am thinking of all the wonderful ways to use the late summer/early autumn fruits. Originally, I thought about doing an apple pie, but Martin suggested an apple tart. As I had never made one before, I took on the challenge. I turned to Eric Lanlard’s Home Bake for his version of an Apple and Quince Tart. Quinces were not on the menu in our house so they were left out. Here’s my version:

To start, I used 2 Bramley apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped and placed them in a casserole dish. Then I covered the apples with 3 tablespoons of caster sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and a teaspoon of cinnamon. I covered the casserole dish and put in a 160˚C preheated oven for 20 minutes.

While the apples baked, I prepared the pastry. I used ready rolled sweet pastry in a sandwich tin. It’s not the traditional vessel for a tart, but we divide our desserts into portions and freeze them and this is the easiest dish for that. Put the prepared pastry in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

The apples from the oven will have formed a compote. Mine looked like they exploded and I thought I was going to have to start over, but after the bubbles relaxed and I gave it a stir, it was the perfect consistency. Leave these to cool.

Once your pastry is chilled and your apple compote is cool, start to prepare the apple slices. Using 2 Bramley apples, peel, core and thinly slice the apples. Remove pastry from fridge and spread the apple compote on the bottom of the prepared pastry. Arrange the thinly sliced apples in a circular pattern around the tin. Once the compote is covered by the apple slices, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Bake in the 160˚C oven for 35 minutes. The tart is done when the apples are softened, the edges of the fruit are going a bit crispy and the pastry is a golden brown.

Leave to cool. Once cooled, brush the tart with sieved apricot conserve. Not only does it make look fancy, it adds a subtle sweetness.

We served our tart with Cornish vanilla ice cream. Serious, YUM!

100% Fruit Filling

Last weekend I really fancied making a cherry pie.  I hadn’t had much success with homemade pastry in the past, but the alternative of using store bought pastry for a pie didn’t have much appeal. Since I had so much success with the chocolate cake from Eric Lanlard’s Home Bake, I thought I’d give the sweet shortcrust pastry recipe a try.

While the pastry rested in the refrigerator, I put together the cherry filling.  After perusing many recipes, I put my own together with 2 cans of black cherries – drained, some cherry jam we made in the summer, a bit of cornflour, a bit of sugar and a bit of lemon juice and simmered until it was the right taste and consistency.

Success! The pastry came out perfectly. This book hasn’t let me down so far!  Ideally, I would have liked to make a whole cherry pie with a lattice top, but since it’s just the two of us I made individual mini pies so we could have some now and freeze the rest for later.

I’ll make a whole pie with the lattice top one of these days, but I think I’ll have to double the pastry recipe.  Until then, I’ll just enjoy a mini cherry pie with custard… Eat your heart out Mr Kipling!

I had some leftover cherry filling in the fridge and didn’t want it to go to waste.  I referred to many of my cookbooks for inspiration on how I could best use the fruit and decided on a crumble.  This one included ground almonds which will compliment the cherries perfectly.

The recipe said it served 6 so I cut it in half, but still had extra crumble.  I didn’t want that to go to waste so I got out the damsons we’d frozen in the autumn and made a damson crumble.  Economical and tasty! We’ll be set for desserts for a while.

Today’s baking soundtrack:  Rufus Wainwright