Apple Cinnamon Pockets

When I crave a danish but I'm feeling too lazy to form a pretty braid I turn to pockets....simple and easy to form.  Sometimes a no muss no fuss strategy fits the bill.


Apple Cinnamon Pockets

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm skim milk
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 cup oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbls vital wheat gluten (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling:
Spiced Apple Butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
 
Sugar Drizzle:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 to 3 tbls water or milk


Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.  Stir in milk, honey, oil, and salt.  Mix in one cup of flour and vital wheat gluten.  Mix in egg and enough flour to make a soft dough.  Turn dough out onto floured board and knead for 5 to 8 minutes, adding flour as necessary.  Place in covered bowl and let rise for one hour.

Assemble filling.  Stir brown sugar, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and butter together.  Mix in flour.  Set aside. 

Turn dough back out onto floured surface and divide into 10 to 12 pieces.  Spread a piece of dough out into a rough circle.  Spread a layer of spiced apple butter across half of circle, leaving the edges of the dough uncovered.  Crumble a healthy portion of filling over the apple butter.  Fold the pocket in half and pinch the edges together.  Move pocket to greased cookie sheet.  Repeat with remaining dough.  Let pockets rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Brush pockets with melted butter.  Bake at 375 for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Mix together icing ingredients and drizzle over top of slightly cooled pockets.  Nom!

Apple Cinnamon Danish

Apple cinnamon glory....oh yes.  Perfect for a weekend breakfast.  I'm still playing around with using crumb topping as the filling in different sweet breads....it really does make a great filler.

Next time I need to thin my frosting a bit more....talk about a super thick drizzle.


Apple Cinnamon Danish

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm skim milk
1/4 cup raw honey
1/4 cup oil
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbls vital wheat gluten (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling:
Spiced Apple Butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

Sugar Drizzle:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 to 3 tbls water or milk


Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.  Stir in milk, honey, oil, and salt.  Mix in one cup of flour and vital wheat gluten.  Mix in egg and enough flour to make a soft dough.  Turn dough out onto floured board and knead for 5 to 8 minutes, adding flour as necessary.  Place in covered bowl and let rise for one hour.

Assemble filling while dough is rising.  Stir together both sugars, salt, and cinnamon, and butter in a medium bowl. Fold in the flour until well combined.  Set aside.

Divide dough into four sections.  Roll a section out into a thin rectangle.  Spread apple butter down the center of the dough.  Crumble filling on top of apple butter.  Using a knife or pizza cutter....cut dough on each side of the filling into strips.  Fold strips, alternating sides, over the filling in the center.....I always think of it like a shoelace pattern.  Place danish on greased cookie sheet.  Repeat with remaining portions of dough.  Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool on racks.  Drizzle with sugar mixture.

Spiced Apple Butter

Cherry Tea Cakes post this amazing recipe.  Seriously....aaaaahhhhmaaaaazingly good.  I will be making this again and again in the future.

I made just a tiny batch for immediate use.  As much as I love apple butter I don't go through it very quickly.  ;)


Spiced Apple Butter

2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
3 tbls apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp Chinese five spice

In a small sacuepan, cook apples and cider over a low heat until soft.  Toss mixture into food processor until smooth.  Return to saucepan and add remaining ingredients.  Cook over low heat, until thick and bubbly.  Remove from heat and allow to cool before chilling.

Apple Salsa

I was so tickled with the mango salsa I decided to make an apple version....so tasty.  Apples are one of my favorite fruits....I had to show them some love.  ;)  I used Pink Lady's, but I'm thinking some Granny Smith would be interesting too.


Apple Salsa

2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced (Pink Lady's)
4 jalapeno peppers, diced
1 anaheim pepper, diced
1/2 cup cucumber, diced
1/2 cup red onion, diced
3 tbls lime juice
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix everything together in a bowl.  Serve with chips.

Toffee Apple Pound Cake

This cake is not diet friendly...which is probably why it tastes so darn amazing.  Aaaaamaaaaazing.  Impossible to resist.  Gimmie an extra slice now before I have to get rough...amazing.  Extra treadmill time is in my future...ehehehe.

Originally I had only planed on doing a praline glaze, but I wasn't thrilled with how it looked.  Enter chocolate glaze....my go to plan for fixing the appearance of any dessert.  ;)

Seriously though....this cake would be great without any glaze at all....maybe a light dusting of powdered sugar for an extra dose of pretty would work just fine.  Sometimes simple can hit the spot.

I was short 1/4 cup of butter so I used some sour cream to fill the gap.  The substitution wasn't noticeable at all.  Running out of butter....I'm still shaking my head over the shame.  ;)


Toffee Apple Pound Cake

Cake:
1 1/4 cups butter
4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
6 eggs
1 tbls vanilla
1/4 cup non fat sour cream
3 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp allspice
2 tsp cinnamon
1 large apple, peeled, cored, and diced (Pink Lady)
1 cup toffee pieces

Cream butter and powdered sugar together.  Mix in eggs, vanilla, and sour cream.  Add flour, cinnamon, and allspice.  Fold in toffee and apple pieces.  Pour batter into a greased bundt pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for 75 to 80 mins or until cake tests as done.  Cool in pan for 15 mins before removing from pan.

Praline glaze:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup non fat evaporated milk
1/4 tsp vanilla

Combine sugars and milk in a saucepan.  Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring constantly.  Cook mixture until is reaches 236 degrees.  Remove from heat.  Stir in vanilla.  Continue stirring for a minute or so.  Spoon over cake.  Let stand for 10 minutes or so.

Chocolate glaze:
14oz non fat sweetened condensed milk
6oz milk chocolate chips
6oz semi sweet chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
 
Mix together sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and vanilla. Heat on high in the microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval until mixture is melted and smooth.

Spoon glaze over top of cake.  Use a fork to drizzle some lines of chocolate across the top.  Chill to set the chocolate.

When the praline glaze didn't look as pretty as I wanted....did I go straight to my chocolate glaze?  Of course not...I tried a second round of praline.  You can see how thick that made the praline layer in spots.  Little bit more of a crunch factor than I wanted.  Experimentation....sometime it nips you in the tushie.  ;)

Maple Apple Braid 1.0

It's pretty to look at and the bread was quite tasty, but I wasn't too happy with the overall result. I should have divided the dough into thirds instead of halves.  The bread to filling ratio was really off.  The apple filling was yummy....the apple filling mixed with the cream cheese I wasn't thrilled with.  Next time it's all fruit baby!

The maple flavoring in the dough and the frosting was quite nice.  It was a lovely, subtle flavor.

Definitely need a do over on this recipe though.


Maple Apple Braid 1.0

Dough:
3 cups unbleached flour (approx)
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup skim milk
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/3 cup tub margarine
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten lightly
2 tbls vital wheat gluten

Dissolve yeast in about 1/4 cup warm water.  Heat milk and margarine together until milk is warm and margarine is melted. I use the microwave to heat the milk instead of the stove top, but either works fine. Stir into dissolved yeast. Mix in maple syrup and salt. Add in a cup of flour and the vital wheat gluten. Stir in eggs. Work in enough flour to create a soft dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead in remaining flour. Continue to work your dough for 8 to 10 minutes.

Place dough in covered bowl and let rise for an hour in a warm place. The microwave makes a great spot to rise dough. Take a glass of water and heat it to boiling in the microwave. Leave the glass inside and put the covered bowl inside and shut the door. It's a warm, steamy spot.

Turn dough out onto your board and divide in half.  Roll each portion of dough out thinly with a rolling pin into a rectangle. Spread a layer of filling down the center of the dough.  Use a pizza cutter to slice one inch wide strips in the dough surrounding the filling.  You want to slice the strips at a slight downward angle.

Tuck one strip of dough across the filling.  Bring a strip of dough from the other side across the top of the first strip.  Continue alternating strips of dough until you reach the bottom.  Think of shoelaces here.

Cover the braid and raise in a warm place for 30 minutes.  Uncover and bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes, or until braid is a lovely golden brown.

Drizzle frosting across the top with a spoon or fork.


Apple Filling:
2 Fuji apples or your current favorite
1 tbls sugar
1.5 tbls flour
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of salt
1 tbls lemon juice
1 tbls tub margarine

Peel and core apples.  Slice thin and then chop into cubes.  Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt.  Toss the apples in the mixture.  Turn covered apples into a pan and top with lemon juice and margarine.  Bake at 375 for 30 mins or so stirring occasionally until apples are tender and cooked down.  Cool.

Cream Cheese Filling:
4oz reduced fat cream cheese
1 egg yolk
2 tbls sugar
1/2 tbls flour
1 tsp lemon zest

Mix everything together and combine with the apple filling.

Maple Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbls skim milk
2 tbls pure maple syrup

Mix everything together.  The icing will actually be too thick to drizzle at this point until you heat it for 10 to 15 seconds in the microwave to loosen it before drizzling across the hot bread.  Alternately you can thin it further with milk instead of heating it.

A few more pics....

Pretty...yes.  Too much bread and too little filling....I'm still a little cheesed off about that since I should have seen that coming.  I didn't think about the whole double in size bit in the final rise....how I could not think that through I do not know considering how much bread I bake....ehehehe.  The cream cheese baked into the bread as well which surprised me a bit. Honestly it looked like I only had a fruit filling going.

The nekkid braid.  I had one little flap sticking up on the tail end of both braids.  It was like the loaves were flipping me off.....too funny.  My bread was issuing it's own feedback.  ;)

An egg white wash right before baking would give the crust a prettier finished look, but honestly I knew I was going to cover it with frosting so I didn't worry about it.  Something to think about for next time.

I added this treat to the Sweet for Saturday #3 over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies.  So many wonderful treats over there to check out and drool over.

Apple Crisp for Two

I have sooooo been craving some apple crisp.  It smells amazing.  I can't wait to have it for dessert tonight, topped with some ice cream.  Cue the happy dance!

Apple crisp is one of the few recipes that you can make a very small amount of without a problem.  I can't be tempted to dive back in for more if there isn't any leftovers.  ;)  It's painful being a sensible eater I tell you...ehehehe. 

Apple Crisp for Two

Apple Filling:
1 Fuji, peeled and sliced thin
1 tbls sugar
1 tsp flour
1 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp cinnamon
dash of salt
1 tsp tub margarine

Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt.  Toss the sliced apples in the mixture.  Pile coated apples into small baking dish.  Top with margarine and lemon juice.   Bake at 375 for 30 to 35 minutes until the apples have become tender and baked down a bit. 

Crust:
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 1/2 tbls tub margarine, melted
2 tbls brown sugar
1/8 tsp cinnamon

Mix everything together.  Sprinkle over the top of the baked apples and return to the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.  You can serve it immediately after it's done baking if you wish....or if you can stand the wait...let it cool.


Another pic of the process...

I like my apples to be tender and reduced down a bit, which is why I always bake the filling on it's own first.  I do the same with my apple pies.  This way I know I'm going to get the filling just the way I like it without putting my crusts at risk of overbaking.  Personal quirk there, but I do not like to bit into a dry bit of apple.  ;)