Apple tart

I first tried this tart at my neighbour’s and I found it delicious. I think it's a recipe from one of the Thermomix’s books, but you do not need to have one to make it. The most laborious part is to prepare the apples and this must be done by hand.

This tart is bound to be a success!

APPLE TART

6 (or more) Golden or Pippin apples

2 egg yolks

1 egg

150 g of white sugar

130 g unsalted butter

1 Tbsp. of brandy

170 g flour

1 sachet of baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1 lemon

Ground cinnamon and brown sugar (for topping)

Peel, remove the core and cut the apples into quarters. Finely slice the outside of each quarter without separating them. Sprinkle some lemon juice to prevent browning.

Mix the eggs, sugar, butter and brandy. Then add to this mixture the flour with the baking powder and salt.

Put the mixture in a baking mould. It should be large enough so that it spreads into a not too thick layer. Cover as much as possible with the apple quarters, exposing the slices. Sprinkle generously with a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Bake at 180 degrees C for 45 minutes or until the cake is completely done.

Tuna pie

Perfect for birthday parties or any other event where you have guests and you are going to prepare some snacks.

Buying ready-made puff pastry, the only time consuming task is to prepare the ratatouille (and even this, you can buy it canned ready-made).

TUNA PIE

2 sheets of puff pastry

2 boiled eggs

2 small cans of tuna

Beaten egg or milk (to paint the pastry)

And for the ratatouille:

2 onions

3 Italian green peppers

2 cloves of garlic

1 zucchini

4 or 5 ripe tomatoes

Olive oil

Salt

In a pan with some oil sauté the onion, pepper and garlic (everything finely chopped). You can add some salt at this point to help cooking the vegetables. When the onion begins to turn transparent, add the zucchini, cut into small cubes. Continue to sauté, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Peel and cut the tomatoes and add to the vegetables. Let everything cook until tomatoes turn into sauce. Add more salt if needed. If the result is slightly acidic, you can also add some sugar.

When the tomato mixture has cooled assemble the pie.

Place a sheet of puff pastry on the baking sheet on top of parchment paper. Prick the pastry with a fork over the entire surface to prevent it from rising when you bake it. Distribute the ratatouille on the pastry, leaving a 1 cm margin all around. Add the chopped hard boiled eggs and flaked tuna. Cover with the second sheet of pastry and seal the edges by pressing the pastry with your fingers or a fork. Prick the top pastry with a fork and make two small cuts so that the steam generated inside when baking can escape. Paint with beaten egg or milk and bake at 220 degrees C until the pastry is golden brown.

Chocolate chip cookies

Last Friday my sister came to visit me. We took the opportunity to make cookies. She gave me this recipe years ago. She got it from an American girl she met when she was studying at university, and although I guess I can not compete with Americans at making cookies, the result was great. If anything, next time I will take them out of the oven a little bit earlier because when they cooled completely they were a little bit too crispy.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

112 g unsalted butter

110 g brown sugar

55 g white sugar

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

205 g flour

½ teaspoon of baking soda

¼ teaspoon of salt

180 g of chocolate chips (I put 130g of black chocolate and 50 g of milk chocolate)

Mix well butter at room temperature with the two sugars. Add the egg and vanilla extract and re-mix.

Aside mix the flour, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips and add to other mixture.

Place the mixture in the freezer for a while until it gets a bit solid so that you can roll little balls with it. Put them on parchment paper, leaving enough separation between them, and bake at 190 degrees C until they begin to brown at the edges.

With these quantities I got two trays full of cookies.

Chocolate muffins

Here is the “brunette” version of the muffins. Because there are days when it is not bad to take a good dose of chocolate to lift our mood.

Ah! and if you are feeling really low, you can add chocolate chips to the mix and you will get the shock treatment for depression. :-)

Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE MUFFINS

280 g of all-purpose flour

174 g of sugar

½ tsp of baking powder

½ tsp of sodium bicarbonate

3 tsps of pure cocoa powder

170 ml of milk

150 g of sunflower oil

The preparation is quite simple. Mix the dry ingredients in the one bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in the another one. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and mix with a spatula just until incorporated.

Place the paper cups in aluminum molds so that the muffins rise upwards and not sideways, and fill ¾ full. Place in a oven preheated to 200 degrees C and bake for 10-15 minutes. You will know that they are done when inserting a toothpick in the muffins, it comes out clean.

Ginger cookies

Christmas is coming. Nothing better that some ginger cookies to start getting into the Christmas mood, specially if everyone likes them at home!

Well, my kids were a bit disappointed when they saw that the cookies didn't have the shape of little men, but I still have not found a recipe in which the dough is easy to work to cut out the shapes. In this recipe, you just have to make little balls and then flatten them slightly.

I got the recipe from the web Joy Of Baking. A page with all sorts of American pastry. 

GINGER COOKIES (Makes 4 dozen cookies)

170 g unsalted butter (I used half butter and half margarine)
105 g ​​brown sugar
100 g sugar
60 ml molasses
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
260 g flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
200 g sugar for garnish

Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the molasses, egg and vanilla and beat again until they are completely incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Add to butter mixture and mix until well combined. Cover and refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes or until firm.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper.

When the dough has chilled sufficiently, roll into 2.5 cm balls and coat them in the additional 200 grams of sugar. Then, flatten them slightly with the palms of your hands and place them on the trays leaving enough space between them (several cm) because they increase in size when cooked. Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes or until cookies are dry and firm on top.(The longer you bake them the more crispy they will be. Also note that they will harden as they cool). Cool on a wire rack.

The best thing about these cookies is the aroma when they cook ...

Till next time!

Muffins

I like trying new pastry recipes, especially if my kids eat what I make. Nothing better than muffins. What kid does not like muffins?

This time I tried this recipe and the result was very good. The recipe is based on the video by isasaweiss (yes, I know I like this girl recipes), but I have used milk instead of cream and added a touch of cinnamon. Also I simplified a bit the process, I didn't beat the liquid ingredients for so long and left it to rest only in the fridge. It seems that the secret to good muffins is not to over mix the liquid ingredients with the dry ingredients. It also helps to bake them with heat only from the bottom of the oven.

MUFFINS

4 eggs
350 g all purpose flour
250 g sugar
250 ml sunflower oil
100 ml whole milk
1 sachet of baking powder
The zest of one lemon
Cinnamon powder

In a bowl mix the eggs with the sugar, lemon zest and a pinch of cinnamon powder. Add oil and milk and mix well until everything is incorporated. To this liquid mixture, add the flour previously mixed with the baking powder (I used a large colander to remove any lumps of flour). Add the dry ingredients to the liquid mixture using a spatula and mix until dry ingredients are moist. Do not over mix.

Introduce the paper cups in aluminum molds so that they do not spread when they bake and fill them with the mixture, leaving about 1 cm margin to allow some room for rising. Sprinkle with sugar and leave it to rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes. The quantities in this recipe make enough muffins to fill the whole tray

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees C (heat from top and bottom). Introduce the muffins in the lower third of the oven and change to heat just from the bottom and 210 degrees C. Do not go too far, they will be ready very quickly!

See you soon!