Toffee apple cake.

I went to my Dad's house today, because my sister was sick and wanted me to hang out with her. She likes to watch the O.C, and I like to bake things. So we did both. This cake was super easy to make. Caitlin made the batter, and I peeled the apples. The end.

But wait! There's more! This cake is more than just a regular apple cake. Soft morsels of cinnamon-y apple hiding amongst a moist cinnamon-y cake, topped with a crunchy, hard coating of sweet, buttery caramel. Goodness me was this combination delicious. We ate half the cake in one go!

This cake is a Smitten Kitchen recipe, and I trust what she says in all her recipes, but I couldn't stop thinking about caramel after I saw David Lebovitz's post on how to make dry caramel. So we added that as well. I hadn't made dry caramel before, but it's really easy. I think I prefer it to regular caramel made with water.

I don't have anything more to say about the cake, so here's a heap of photos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's six thousand words for you to look at. Hopefully they convey this delicious experience.

Toffee Apple Cake:
Slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen

As I said above, my sister made the batter, so I'm not sure how much she deviated from the recipe (if she did at all. She follows the rules), so I'll give you the original batter recipe. But we did mix it up a bit with the caramel topping (which wasn't in the original recipe) and by changing around the order of the batter/apple layers. Also, the recipe said to bake the cake for 1 1/2 hours, but after an hour, our cake was done, so I've changed the baking time in the recipe. Like I said, only slightly adapted.

6 apples, we used golden delicious, peeled, cored and diced
1 tbsp cinnamon
5 tbsp sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup orange juice
2 1/2 tsps vanilla
4 eggs
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a bundt tin.
Toss the apples with the cinnamon and sugar, set aside.
In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl, mix oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla.
Mix wet ingredients into the flour mix.
Add eggs, one at a time.
Arrange half the apples on the bottom of the tin.
Pour half the batter onto the apples. Arrange the remaining apples and then pour the rest of the batter on top.
Bake for about 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean.
Turn the cake out onto a large plate and pour over the caramel topping.

For the Caramel Topping:
With help from David Lebovitz

Pour 1 cup caster sugar into a heavy based pan. Place over medium heat. Don't stir it, but just watch it until it starts to liquify around the edges. When this happens, start to drag the liquid bits into the middle of the pan, but try not to stir it too much, otherwise it can crystallise.
The sugar will start to caramelise at this point, so keep watching it until all the sugar is dissolved and the caramel is bronze coloured. Try not to burn it, as burnt caramel cannot be fixed. If you're using a black pan, lift some of the caramel out of the pan to check what colour it is. Once all the sugar has liquified, and is bronzey coloured, it's ready!
If you prefer a buttery caramel (I sure do), add a tablespoon of butter and stir it in. It will bubble up as the butter melts, but keep stirring it in until incorporated.
It hardens fairly quickly, so only make the caramel when you're ready to pour it over the cake.

French apple tart & Sunday dinner.

I've always wanted to host a dinner party. Always. In my Ideal Dinner Party Situation, everything would be perfect. The wine would be good, the table would be set in a fancy design, there'd be lots of people in lovely dresses/suits, the food would be amazing, and I would play the perfect hostess. Instead, we don't live in a house big enough to host a dinner party, so alas, I'll have to keep dreaming about the perfect dinner party. One day. It'll happen one day.

But in the meantime, I can have dinner with as many people as can fit in our lounge room, and around the tiny table that I borrowed from my Dad. That makes a total of four whole people. So there was Brent, Me, Brent's sister Kirby, and her boyfriend, Arie. We squished around this table that I set up (at the time, it didn't look like the one above. I didn't take any good photo's at the time, because I was embarrassed, I've never had people watch me take photos like that before, so I re-set the table when I was cleaning up this morning. Sneaky. In an Ideal World, my table setting would have looked [like this]), and ate this huge meal in the space of an hour, because we decided to catch a movie after. We had a simple tomato Bruschetta, Beouf Bourguignon (Julia Child's recipe, of course), and French Apple Tart (also Julia Child's). I could tell you about all the bad things about the meal, but let's focus on the positive, shall we? The tomato Bruschetta was nice, the tomato/fetta/red onion combination never fails. The sauce for the Bourguignon was really rich from the wine and tasted really good, but I think the mushrooms and the onions (which had been cooked in an indecent amount of butter) were my favourite bits. The apple tart looked really pretty, if I may say so myself, I was super proud of my lovely apple-pattern on the top. The apple sauce mixture underneath was really tasty and spiced just the right amount (it was even good for breakfast this morning with some yoghurt and some homemade granola). I'll give you the other recipes at a later date, but we'll start with the apple tart. As my Mum always says, eat dessert first. So that's what we'll do.

The apple tart wasn't hard to make, it was just time consuming: making the pastry, peeling/coring/slicing all the apples, making the apple sauce. But I think it's worth it, especially for a special occasion. It makes you feel very domestic-goddess, being able to produce something like this from your very own kitchen.

French Apple Tart:

From Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Makes one 25-26cm tart.

For the Pastry:

2 cups pastry flour ("00" flour)

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp white sugar

200g cold butter, chopped into bits

1/2 cup iced water

Mix flour, salt, sugar and butter in a big bowl. Rub the flour and butter together with the tips of your fingers until the mix resembles crumbs. Don't over mix, you don't want the butter to get too warm.

Add the water and quickly mix in with one hand. Add a few more drops of water if the mix hasn't come together. The dough should hold together without being sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board. With the heel, not the palm, of your hand, knead the dough to blend it together. Sprinkle it lightly with flour and wrap in baking paper and place in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight before using.

When ready to use, place the dough on a floured board. Roll out into a thin circle bigger than your baking tin. Lift the dough off the board and lay over your greased tin. Press the dough into the tin and prick all around with a fork. Cover with a square of baking paper and then pour in rice, dried beans or baking weights. Blind bake in a 200C preheated oven for 8-10 minutes until base is set. Remove the paper and weights and bake for another 3-5 minutes until pastry starts to colour.

For the Apple topping:

2 kg apples (I used golden delicious and fuji's)

1/3 cup apricot jam

2/3 cup white sugar

3 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

zest of 1 lemon

Peel, core and quarter the apples (You might like to have a sit on the couch whilst you're doing this). Cut enough of the apples into thin lengthwise slices to make 3 cups. Toss them with 1 tsp lemon juice and 2 tbsp sugar. (for the top of the tart).

Cut the remaining apples into chunks, about 8 cups, and place in a pan with 3 tbsp water. Cook, covered, over a low heat for 20 mins, stirring occasionally. The apples should be tender.

Mix in the remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil and cook until the apples have turned into a thick sauce.

Preheat oven to 190C.

Spread the applesauce on the blind baked pastry shell. Arrange the apple slices on top of the sauce.

Bake for 30 mins, or until apples have browned and are tender.

Spread an apricot glaze (1/2 cup apricot jam mixed with 2 tbsp sugar heated until just simmering) over the top of the apples.

The tart can be served either hot or cold.

Fight for your right to birthday party - Gin and Tonic Jelly.

I made this Jelly for Brent's sister, Kirby's Birthday. She likes gin a lot.
Unfortunately it didn't look as pretty as I'd hoped, but it tasted good and Kirby and her boyfriend, Arie, seemed to enjoy it.

Nigella Lawson suggested putting white currants around the jelly, but I've never seen a white currant before, let alone know where to buy them. I used cucumber instead because Kirby and Arie often put it into their gin and tonics, and it looked pretty.

I was so excited about the jelly when I was making it. I told everyone at work about it, and I was so excited to give it to Kirby instead of a regular cake. I waited until the very last minute to unmould it, because I didn't want it to collapse from sitting around for too long. Unfortunately, the jelly wasn't firm enough and after I put the jelly on a plate, one side of it slowly, ever so slowly, fell away. Like a cliff crumbling after a storm.
I thought this was the last of it, and I turned away to get the cucumber and lemon out of the fridge. When I came back, a little crack had appeared in the middle. As I watched, the crack got bigger until it had split the whole way across. Luckily this part didn't fall away from the rest, but it didn't look good, and golly I was worried.
I perservered and cut up thin slices of cucumber and lemon and lovingly arranged them, hoping to distract from all the cracks.

The car ride over to Kirby's house was definately an interesting one. Brent thought it was hilarious that the jelly wobbled around so much. It looked like a little translucent squid, covered in cucumber. Thankfully he drove carefully and the jelly didn't crack any more.
In the end, I think I'd file this one away as a success and I'm planning to make lots of different flavours. Imagine the possibilities! Vodka and Cranberry! Rum and Coke! Martini! Man Panda!
I'm excited just thinking about it...

Recipe:
From Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a domestic goddess'.

300ml water
300g castor sugar
zest and juice of 2 lemons
400ml tonic water
250ml gin
8 sheets of leaf gelatine

Put water and sugar into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil for 5 mins.
Take off the heat and add lemon zest. Let sit for 15 mins.
Strain sugar syrup into a measuring jug. (If you don't strain the jelly, you'll get all those little zesty bits that are on the top of my jelly.)
Add lemon juice, gin and tonic. This should reach 1,200ml
Soak gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 mins.
Put 50ml water into a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
Take off the heat and whisk in the gelatine leaves (squeeze excess water off the leaves first).
Pour some of the gin mix into the sauce pan, then pour it all back into the jug.
Pour mix into a 1 1/4 L greased jelly mould and leave to set in the fridge for at least 6 hours.