Foodie Friday -- Apple Toffee Coffee Cake

I originally found this recipe on the Baker Mama blog. But I changed it a little bit. One of the ingredients I had wasn't exactly what was called for. AND, this is the biggie, I suspect my self-rising flour had exceeded it's ability to rise--I have no idea when I had bought this flour. My bad. This didn't make it as much of a coffee cake as a 'blondie' - type brownie texture.

Don't get me wrong. This was a wonderful recipe, but I think you need to be warned that your results might be different.

Apple Toffee Coffee Cake

2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups peeled and diced tart apples
1 bag (8 ounces) chocolate toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 13 inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir in flour. The batter will be very thick at this point. Stir in apples and 1 cup toffee bits. Spread into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with toffee bits.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool slightly before cutting.

Hints & Suggestions:

• I finely diced the apples, which made the apples a little less prominent
• I didn't have chocolate toffee bits, so used plain Heath toffee bits. And the package had been previously opened, so I just saved some to sprinkle on top
• Check your self-rising flour to make sure it's still viable. Sometimes the baking powder in the self-rising flour will lose it's 'umph'.

There were three of us and we managed to demolish the entire pan in less than twelve hours. Jus' sayin'.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Apple Cake--redo

I woke up at the abominable hour of 3:20 AM. I lay in bed until I decided that I wasn't getting back to sleep again and proceeded to haul my sorry a$$ out of bed at 4:05. After a cup of coffee, a little FB surfing and email reading, I decided to read a couple of chapters of THE HOBBIT. This is about the gazillionth time I've read this story, but I needed to read my new copy prior to the release of the first movie due out in Dec 2012. I also organized my WW blog posts so I can get to town on my non-fiction story.

Sometime during these last two hours, I decided to make Breakfast Apple Cake for the family. Usually, they wake up around 8:00-8:30 and want a coffee cake for breakfast. I usually have to break it to them that coffee cake tends to take 45-60 min. to bake, then they opt for pancakes. This time I'm thinking ahead! I had everything on hand, except raisins, but I'm not much of a raisin fan so no loss.

Plus my poor kidlet has been fighting a cold all week and this was the first day she could actually sleep past 6:10.

When I went to link the recipe to the title, I realized that the one posted was the lower calorie one with Splenda and applesauce. If you want that recipe, here's the link.

Erm . . . here's the real recipe.

Breakfast Apple Cake

1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick-nuked in 30 second intervals until melted)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup raisins (omitted)
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans)
2 1/2 cups peeled apples, small diced (2 med. Granny Smith's green apples)
1 Tbls. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 8 x 8 square pan with cooking spray.

Mix together sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Add melted butter (cooled), eggs and raisins. Fold in vanilla, nuts, and apples. Pour into prepared pan, spread flat. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean in center of cake.
It took about 35 min. in a glass Pyrex dish in my gas oven.

Foodie Friday -- Applesauce

It's a sad statement about today's kids when they don't realize applesauce doesn't come in a jar. I found this out about a year ago when my daughter had a friend over and they were trolling for snackage. The little girl didn't know you can actually make applesauce.

As astounded as I was about this, my hubby told me that not everyone can cook, nor do they have the desire or the time to cook. *insert gasp*

But what do they do with apples that are starting to get a little soft, or mealy, or just taking up space in the fridge? Oh, I suppose you can make a pie, or strudel, or muffins, but applesauce is just too easy not to make. You need at least four apples, preferably green Granny Smiths, and sugar, water and cinnamon.

 Easy-peasy.

Applesauce

4 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped in ½ chunks

Sugar (Splenda works well, too), a Tablespoon or two, depending on apple tartness
Cinnamon, I didn’t measure it, but shook it heavily
Water

Place apples in medium saucepan; add enough water to come to the top of the apples. Place pan over medium-high heat and bring to boil. Cook apples for about 15-20 minutes, checking for softness and water level, add more water if apples are too dry.  While the apples are cooking, add sugar and cinnamon, stirring/tasting until desired color/taste.

When apples appear to be mushy smush apples into sauce using hand blender or potato masher. Taste for flavor and consistency.

Add more water, sugar or cinnamon, if desired.

If it’s too thin, then cook a little more water out.

*be careful. It’s thick and splashing apples can become like tiny napalm bombs*

 Enjoy those leftover apples!

FOODIE FRIDAY-- Cranberry-Apple Pie

All-righty then! This recipe is originally from Bon Appetit magazine. I believe we made this recipe for Thanksgiving in 2010, AND again this year, because it is a nice autumn fruit pie/tart. During Thanksgiving, I didn’t even touch this recipe as my sis-in-law and nephew did all the work, BUT I made this for my hubby’s holiday work party last Tuesday. The only thing I did different from the recipe was to use a 2-inch deep tart pan (9-inches) instead of a pie pan. I liked heaping up the apple-cranberry filling and didn’t have to worry about overfilling and causing a mess if the juices went over the sides (they couldn’t--tart pan’s tall sides).

**I cut the apples a smaller than this-- ½ inch chunks**

Cranberry-Apple Pie

CRUST:

1 ¼ cups flour
1 Tbls sugar
½ tsp salt
¼ cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into small pieces
¼ cup (½ stick) chilled butter, cut into small pieces
3 Tbls (or more) ice water

FILLING:

1 ½ pounds Granny Smith or other tart green apples, peeled, cored, cut into 1 ½-inch chunks**
2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
¼ cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ cup sugar

2 Tbls flour
3 Tbls butter, melted, cooled slightly
1 large egg

White chocolate (< 1 oz., melted for drizzling), optional

Crust: Mix flour, sugar and salt in processor. Add shortening and butter, process using on/off turns until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 3 Tbls water. Process until moist clumps form. If dough is too dry, add more water by teaspoonfuls. Gather dough into ball, flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic; chill for 1 hour. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling.)

Preheat oven to 400° F. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 12-inch round. Transfer to deep dish tart pan with removable bottom. Trim crust and fold over making sides 1-inch high. Freeze 15 minutes.

Line crust with foil. Fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake 15 minutes. Remove foil and beans. Bake crust until pale golden, piercing with fork if bubbles form, about 10 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely. Reduce oven temperature to 325° F.

Filling: Mix the first five ingredients in large bowl. Spoon filling into pie crust. Bake 30 minutes.

Whisk next four ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg) in small bowl to blend. Pour mixture over filling. Bake until apples are tender and filling begins to brown, about 1 hour. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Tent pie with foil and store at room temperature.)

Drizzle with white chocolate in decorative pattern, if desired.

Enjoy!

FOODIE FRIDAY--Breakfast Apple Cake

Today I’m posting another breakfast item. I cut this recipe out of the newspaper in 2007--I actually wrote the date on the silly thing this time! Yay! And I have “Rachel loves it!” written on it. So if you have kids who are finicky, then this recipe might work for you!

I ran it through the Weight Watcher points plus recipe cruncher, using Splenda instead of sugar--the numbers are the same. Remember one of my blog posts where I said it didn’t matter if you used zero calorie sweeteners your body still gives the same insulin push? Well, the WW conversion proves that is true. So this has fewer calories, but your body will react as if it has had a shot of sugar.

I lightened up the original amount of butter by substituting half with applesauce.

Breakfast Apple Cake

1 cup Splenda

1 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
Pinch of salt
¼ cup butter, melted
¼ cup applesauce
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans)
2 ½ cup peeled and chopped apples
1 Tbls. vanilla

1. Mix together Splenda, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt.

2. Add melted butter, applesauce, eggs and raisins
3. Fold in nuts, apples and vanilla
4. Pour into 8 x 8-inch greased square pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Easy-peasy--enjoy!