Apple pie

A dream came true: I could cool down an apple pie on a window sill! Or wait a minute, is that actually a dream of mine, or just the American dream? Well anyway, it was a nice feeling, and it was very nice to bake for a change. How could I resist the lovely apple season.

Otherwise I've been quite busy at work, so the days have just flown by. I had autumn break from my Danish classes this week and now have to study for my first exam, so exciting! It's going pretty well, but people are still very hard to understand sometimes. Of course that's normal for language learning, but I don't have any patience and already want to be fluent.

So for this pie, I used Paul Hollywood's muffin recipe as the dough base, as that always seems to work in different combinations. You can find the recipe here. It's best left in the fridge overnight to develop, which makes the baking bit also much easier the next day, as you then have the dough ready.

Then I just added apple slices and cinnamon on the top of the dough and baked the pie. It was a lovely apple pie and it disappeared in no time. It's a nice change to get freshly baked goods at home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Your VegHog

Nutty apple pie

It's apple season and perfect time to enjoy some lovely apples. I was explicitly looking for a nutty apple pie recipe and found this one on a website of a Finnish magazine. I followed it pretty closely, but here is the translation. It was nice and moist and full of apples. 

For the crust:

1 dl oat flakes

2 dl wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 dl sugar

½ dl hazelnut crush

1 tsp vanilla sugar

75 g margarine

2 eggs

1 ½ dl Greek yogurt

For the filling:

4 British pink apples

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1 ½ tbsp hazelnut crush

Method:

Grease a pie tin (about 25 cm diameter).

Melt the margarine.

Mix the dry ingredients for the crust and add the other ingredients into the mix and make a smooth dough.

Spread the dough into the pie tin.

Wash the apples and cut them into thin slices or wedges. Place them onto the dough.

Melt the butter and add the sugar and cinnamon to it. Pour the mix onto the apples

Sprinkle the hazelnut crush on the top.

Bake at 200C for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Apple pie

Apple crops in Finland in August 2013.

Fancy an apple pie for the weekend? Here's a really easy recipe for one spicy and nutty apple pie. You don't have to be a master baker for making this. This is all you need to know:

The base:

3,5dl flour

1 egg

125g soft butter

2tbsp water

1tsp vanilla sugar

The filling:

4-5 pink lady apples

0,5dl maple syrup

1tsp cardamon

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp ginger powder

0,5dl almond flakes

0,5dl mixed nuts chopped

Mix the ingredients for the base together and knead them to an even dough. Wrap it into cling film and let rest for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

In the meanwhile peel and slice the apples. Once the dough has rested long enough press it into a pie dish as a thin base.

Place the apple slices on the top and season with cardamon, cinnamon and ginger powder. Pour the maple syrup on them and finally the almonds and nuts.

Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Kartoffelpuffer – German potato fritters with apple chutney

As you may already know The VegHog used to live in Germany and its kitchen has been somewhat influenced by some German dishes. German cuisine tends to be very meaty, but you can find rare vegetarian gems among the traditional food. One of those gems is Kartoffelpuffer, also called Reibekuchen, which are potato fritters made of grated potatoes. Kartoffelpuffer are offered at pretty much every German public outdoor event and it's indeed nice to get a vegetarian alternative offered.

I'm going to share my Kartoffelpuffer recipe with you today. I made my potato fritters fairly traditionally German, but added a British twist to the dish by serving them with apple chutney. Germans would eat their potato fritters with apple puree, but I wanted something more savoury and a British style chutney seemed to be the right choice.

Ingredients for the apple chutney:

2 pink lady apples

1 small onion

50ml cider vinegar

50ml dry cider (I used Wyld Wood organic cider)

80g sugar

Salt

Let's start by making the chutney. This recipe doesn't make such a huge amount, but multiply the ingredients if you want to store some of this chutney for a later use. Grate the apples and chop the onion very finely. Heat the onion, grated apples, sugar, salt, vinegar and cider gently in the pan. Let it simmer at low heat for about 20-30 minutes until the consistency becomes sticky. If needed add more sugar or cider. Then let this chutney cool and make the fritters.

Ingredients for the potato fritters:

1kg potatoes

1 large onion

3 eggs

2tbsp flour

Nutmeg

Salt

Black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Grate the potatoes and chop the onion finely. You could also grate the onion if you have a good device for doing it. Dry the potatoes with a tea towel or kitchen roll in order to remove the excess fluid. Mix the potatoes and onion with the eggs and flour. Season the mix with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add more flour if the mixture is too moist. The fritters should stick together nicely in the pan.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan and shape fritters of the potato mix. Normally Kartoffelpuffer tend to be quite large, but you can make smaller ones if you prefer. I would call mine medium size. Fry the fritters at moderate heat on both sides until they are golden brown and crispy outside and fully cooked inside.

Serve them with the apple chutney. For serving I also made a few fresh apple strings as decoration.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog