Share Your Sweets: Apples

The theme for Serious Sweets this week is apples. Since I don't have a go-to apple recipe in my repertoire I did a little search for something new and I came up with these - baked caramel apple doughnuts.

This recipe (available here) came from Tracey Benjamin's website, Shutterbean. I had never really checked out her site before but was familiar with her stuff from her podcast with Joy from Joy the Baker. The recipe called for apples and a doughnut pan so it seemed perfect. 

To begin, peel and then shred up three apples with a box grater. It goes reremarkably quickly once you get started.

Mix the wet ingredients in one bowl and dry in a second. Mix the wet with the dry until just combined. 

Add the apples and combine.

Into the pan and bake for about 18 minutes. 

Too quick trying to get one out of the pan

Since I only have one doughnut pan with six holes, I got impatient and also used a muffin tin so I could bake more than six at a time. It's basically just a sweet muffin batter anyway, so no real difference. In fact, if you don't have a doughnut pan, there's no reason not to make these. Almost everyone has a muffin tin.

While I was waiting for the doughnuts to cool I started getting the caramel topping together. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures of this step. It was extremely simple. Unwrap the caramels, put into a microwaveable bowl or large measuring cup and add the milk. Microwave at 10 second intervals until everything is melted.

I think the final result turned out really well. I took a cue from a comment Tracey made in her post and added a little bit of fleur de sel to the top of a few of the doughnuts and it was amazing.

I only made half the batch of caramel because I thought it was going to make too much. I was wrong. For the rest of the doughnuts, I mixed up a bit of cinnamon and sugar so they wouldn't be left naked. 

I would certainly make these again. If I did, I think I would add the salt to all of them. It was interesting to see that the caramel completely soaked into these overnight. So I would suggest, if you're planning to make them for company, make them the same day or you'll lose the visual appeal. They were just as tasty the next day. 

What's your favorite apple dessert?

Share Your Sweets: Breakfast Breads

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve participated in the Share Your Sweets slideshow on Serious Eats. Seeing that the theme for this week was ‘breakfast breads’ I figured I had to participate. As evidenced by the Great Bake Sale of 2011, I love loaves and quick breads. We’re entering into my favourite season, and there’s nothing that says Fall more than pumpkin, so I figured I might as well make a pumpkin loaf to submit for the slideshow.  

Despite how much I love pumpkin, I don’t really have too many pumpkin recipes in my repertoire. I’ve made pumpkin cinnamon rolls and pumpkin crumble bars (both soon to be posted here), and of course I’ve made pumpkin pie (probably my favourite food ever in life), but I didn’t have a recipe for a pumpkin loaf.

I started searching around on the internets and finally came across one from a familiar source. The recipe comes from Lynne Frappier’s blog, The Twisted Chef. Lynne was one of the judges at the infamous Ottawa CupcakeCamp that inspired the whole desire to document my baking adventures. Over the last year, she and I have become Twitter buddies (in my mind anyway) and often discuss baking, cupcakes, and the like. Here’s the thing I love about Twitter – we’ve never actually met in person. Despite having a mutual friend in real life (Hi Amanda!) and spotting her at Montreal CupcakeCamp, we’ve never actually managed to have a face to face conversation even though I feel like we have. The wonders of the internet.

Apologies for the tangent. Lynne’s pumpkin loaf recipe was just what I was looking for. A straightforward recipe (that she’d made many times with great success) that also provided some variations. I decided to go with the chocolate chip. 

This is what happens when I make a recipe I found online and forgot to print. It gets written out in shorthand on the back of a random envelope. This is scaled to half of Lynne's original recipe.

The recipe came together really easily and I loved that I didn’t have to pull out the KitchenAid. Two bowls, a whisk, and a spatula were all I needed. I cut the recipe in half because I only have one 9” loaf pan and I’d already brought a bunch of baking into the office the day before and figured my poor co-workers didn’t need to worry about devouring two huge pumpkin loaves on top of everything else.

I made a couple of small modifications. I used half allspice and half cloves. Instead of a full 1/3 cup of water I used about half water and half maple syrup just because I had it around. I don’t think it made any noticeable difference to the taste so definitely feel free to go along with the original recipe.

Trust me - it tastes better than this picture makes it look

I loved this. It tastes like Fall. It’s super moist. It’s delicious. A few co-workers were unsure about the pumpkin/chocolate combo but they liked it a lot after tasting it. It holds up well too. Today is day three and it’s still delicious. I would most certainly recommend you try this one out.

What is your favourite recipe for Fall?