Paulchens FoodBlog?!

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It’s Monthly Mingle Time again!

This time Nina of Nina’s kitchen is the hostess with the mostest inviting us to join her apple affection.

Ha! This one is easy I thought. Apple! We are apple lovers in my family. Except for my father who gets tummy ache from eating them… how sad, more apples for us!! *smirk*

Ask my Mom what her favorite sweet dish is she’d reply “Apfelstrudel” for sure. Same goes for my Grandma. You can never go wrong with Apfelstrudel (apple strudel) for the women in my family!

When my brother and I want to soothe my Mom we’d bake her apple strudel (without the nasty rasins of course). I’ve been sitting many hours contemplating on how to transfer an apple strudel into a proper cake for Mother’s Day or her Birthdays just to please her because she does not fancy cakes at all!

No, I do not come very much after her, in case you are wondering! I am a Daddy’s girl ;o)

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Even here on my humble foodblog I have posted some recipes with apples:

• The latest being my entry for Paper Chef: Austrian Scheiterhaufen where apple traditionally is a main ingredient.
• Heart Healthy Apple Muffins for Mrs Q. who loves breakfast muffins *wink*
• Apple Pear Banana Tart, just because…
• Another take on Breakfast Muffins, with apples of course!
• Kerry Apple Cake – a favourite of mine, not only because it’s an Irish based recipe (i found it ages ago at an Irish site I sadly forgot the link to) but also becuase it is really yummy and Mrs Q.’s brother is also a fan of it!
• Stuffed Banana & Apples with clotted vanilla-cocos-almond cream – oh I should make these again soon!
• You can even go savoury and pair them with Leberkäse!
• Or add them to your Garlic Chicken… would you believe?
• Sweet apple parcels with cinnamon & galangal honey
• When apple strudel meets pie – an Austrian take on that whole pie thing…

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There can never be enough recipes with apples, right?

When I was browsing trough my favourite FoodPorn sites (like I do every morning with my morning coffeebesides from twittering with the ColdCoffeeClub gals) I found this on Foodsnots: Bavarian Apple Torte and was caught by the lovely picture of this apple cake.
Ideas of how I’d be making it already began to form in my mind and so I checked my pantry whether I had all needed ingredients at home. …

Of course I had, there are no fancy ingredients to add anyway: apple, butter, flour sugar, cream cheese, cinnamon,… things that are in my pantry most of the time.

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Bavarian Apple Cake

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose (white spelt) flour

8 ounce package cream cheese curd, softened
1/4 cup sugar malvacae sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
2-3 large green Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced

My modifications:
I used curd instead of the cream cheese ’cause that’s what I had.
I ommited the vanilla extract ’cause I simply use my home made vanilla sugar whenever a recipe calls for sugar and vanilla.
For the filling I used my home made malvacae sugar, which added a nice flowery taste to the cake.
The original recipe calls for Granny Smith, I do not fancy this kind of apples so I just use our favorite apples Pink Lady.

Method:

1. Crust: For the crust cream together the softened butter, with vanilla sugar and the flour. Press it into your springform or baking dishes.
   I am not sure why but I needed about 1/2 cup additional flour to be able to form a nice doughball which would allow me to roll it out or press it  into the forms without sticking to my fingers.
   I guess I could have chilled it before filling the forms but was too lazy to wait… the crust was delicious this way so I think it did not hurt…
   
2. Filling: Combine curd (or cream cheese) in a medium bowl with the sugar until creamy. Add the egg and mix well.
3. Spread onto your crust in your baking tin.
4. Topping: In another bowl sprinkle your peeled, cored and sliced apples with some cinnamon (and some sugar if you like, I omitted the sugar here ’cause we do not like it too sweet) Then layer the apples over the filling.
   You can just toss them in or layer them neatly, just as you like! If you want to have a nice photo of the finished product you might want to go the “neatly” way tho, just sayin’…
5. Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes at 450°F (230°C), reducing the heat to 400°F (200°C) for another 20-25 minutes of baking time.
   Note: I made mine in small single serving pans, so I reduced the heat right away and baked them for about 20 minutes at about 170°C (on convection mode), I’d go for slightly higher temps if I did not use convection, like about 200°C.

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Bavarian Apple & Cherry Tartelettes

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Because I had some nice ripe cherries on hand too I used some of them with the same recipe. The cherries were perfect with the crust and the curd filling.

Mrs Q. even liked the cherry version better then the apple one.

Verdict:
I have to say that both versions were very yummy and it was easy and very quick to bake so I think this is a keeper for occasions like “oh I’ll have guests for afternoon tea/coffee and no cake to offer, what shall I do?”.
The only thing I’d change is that I would cook the apples in some butter and some sprinkles of sugar to make them  a little more mellow and more pleasing in my mouth ’cause they were a bit chewy and dried out to my taste.

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Happy Mingling!

…and stay tuned for the round up in July at Nina‘s place!