Applefest last week

Apple publishing have produced a bucket of little "500 of X" books. This recipe is from the cupcake one. They were delicious and disappeared in one sitting

Recipe : apple sauce & cinnamon cupcakes

makes 12

115g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened

115g (4oz) caster sugar

115g (4oz) self-raising flour

2 eggs

115g (4oz) unsweetened apple sauce

3/4 tsp cinnamon

50g (2oz) chopped pecans **

75g (3oz) sultanas ≠

1 small red eating apple, thinly sliced

2 tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 175˚C (350˚F / Gas mark 4). Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.

Place the butter, sugar, flour and egg in a bowl and beat with electric whisk until smooth, about 2 - 3 minutes.

Stir in the apple sauce, cinnamon, pecans and sultanas.

Spoon the batter into the cups. Lay the apple slices on top and sprinkle with a little sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes. Remove tin from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes

Remove the cupcakes and cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months :)

Ruth's notes :

** I used 1/2 pecans and 1/2 walnuts

≠ Zack wanted chocolate chips so I made up 2/3 sultanas and 1/3 chocolate chips = total weight of 75g

I tripled the recipe and it made 25 large cupcakes (filled to the top). I didn't have enough apple sauce to triple, but it doesn't seem to have made a massive difference.

This is Nigella's Apple Kuchen recipe. It's not bad but it's not amazing. The base took a lot of work - kneading and allowing it to rise overnight, etc etc. It came out lovely and bready which you then top with the apple, eggy-custard topping and the all-spice, slivered almonds, etc. It looks great but wasn't sweet enough or apple-y enough for me. I wanted something more sticky... more sweet throughout. Gotta keep trying.

toffee apple tower cupcakes

Australian Women's Weekly have given us the gift of a wonderful book on cakes, cupcakes and cookies. most of them are pretty ostentatious, and the photograph of this particular recipe is no exception. That being said, now that the actual cupcakes have been made, they are deliciously-scrumptious with their heavy handed helpings of grated apple and maple syrup. Huzzah!
Now all I need to do is make the icing and I can photograph them and post here.

apple streusel cake

Hummingbird Bakery are fabulous.
The hype is entirely justified.

sponge base, covered in granny smith slices and topped with streusel

double apple pie

I decided not to purchase a Magimix as a local kitchen emporium, Gill Wing, had exactly the tool I was looking for - a pastry blender. It's very old school but it certainly does the job, and at just a 40th of the price of a Magimix I am very happy thank you.

So for Saturday night I joyfully peeled 2kgs of apple, cooked it up, blended 2/3 of it and then assembled everything inside the glorious pastry case I'd manufactured with aforementioned implement. We then sealed it with pastry on top and Zack painted it with beaten egg. The final product was fabulous. I'd say the only improvement would be to change the ratio of apple that we blended to 50/50 or even 35% mush / 65% solids. Just got to do with texture.

Will make that one again. Yum !