Monday, March 15, 2010

Chaussons aux Pommes: The Story of Saving Apples

Have you seen Where the Wild Things Are? I had been wanting to for a while and finally got around to it this afternoon. You really should make the time for it. I don't know if most kids would enjoy it but it blew me away. I'm still feeling that happy-sad-imaginative-weird feeling that kept washing over me throughout the movie. The music is great too. So... that's that.

Onto apples. That fruit that I've always claimed to like yet rarely ever buy. There are so many things you could do with an apple too (apart from piercing its skin with your teeth and trying to get all the juice to run directly into your mouth so that it doesn't run down your hand and onto your arm and get all sticky and ant-attracting). 

A week ago, we were watching a cooking show when this guy made this lovely looking grilled apple dessert thing with whipped cream, cinnamon and brown sugar. Really nice stuff. So on our next trip to the supermarket, we pick up some apples and go on excitedly about how we're going to go straight home and try out that lovely looking  grilled apple dessert thing. We ended up watching 3 shows in a row instead and going to bed early.

Time passes and the apples remain in the fridge. I eat one. He eats one. The rest keep each other company, still all together, red and green, in the fridge.   

I generally suck with using up all the vegetables/fruit in the house. What is it about me that makes them go bad? They're borderline suicidal in our house. So I decided that before the apples die of boredom, I will have to use them! I will be a waster no longer! 

Apples to be rescued:   
Chaussons aux Pommes
2 tablespoons of butter
3 cooking apples 
1/4 cup sugar 
A pinch of cinnamon
A pinch of allspice
A few walnuts, broken up
A little less than a handful of raisins
A squirt of lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon flour
3 sheets of frozen puff pastry, thawed but still cold 

Glaze:
1 egg yolk, beaten with a teaspoon of water
Extra caster sugar for sprinkling


Core and peel the apples. Cut the apples into small pieces. Melt the butter in a pot. Add the apples. Cover the pot and cook for 7-10 minutes. Add the sugar to the apples as well as the raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, allspice and flour. Stir for a few seconds until the flour dissolves and cook until the sugar caramelizes. Add the lemon juice and cook for another 5 minutes or until the apples become soft and coated with sugar. Leave to cool for a while. Cut puff pastry into rectangles. Spoon the apple mixture over half of the pastry leaving a margin. Brush the margins with the egg glaze. Fold the pastry and seal the edges. You could seal the edges using the tines of a fork.  Place on a damp baking sheet and slice 3-4 vents in the top of the pastry. Brush the pastry with more glaze and sprinkle some caster sugar on top. Let it rest for 15 minutes in the fridge.  Oven at 220 degrees Celsius. Bake the pastry for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 190 degrees Celsius, and continue to bake until golden and puffed up.  Cool slightly and serve. Let me know how it goes. 
Happy killing apples before they kill themselves. 

6 comments:

  1. Those look scrumptious! I've ALWAYS wanted to make apple pies.. great photos as well! We shud get together and cook and hmm come to think of it, I think we'll eat up before we get a chance to take pics hehe Xx

    - Jino

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  2. yummy yummy yummy i can eat through the photos begad appealing i have to try this though i am on diet but it wont hurt to have a bite... love ur work ya S :))))0 bravooooooo

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  3. Thanks ya Mura! I miss you and I'm very proud of you for sticking to your diet walahi. :)

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  4. Jino: That's always the dilemma: to take a bite or to take a picture!

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  5. my absolute favorite pastry in the whole world....when i was in Paris, it was love at first bite...sigh....I do miss Paris
    thanks for sharing!
    Dennis

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  6. ChefDennis: Nice of you to drop by! I love these too. :)

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