More ******* Windfalls!

A couple of days ago a friend gave me a carrier bag full of windfall apples.  This is the same friend who gave me lots of windfalls a couple of weeks ago and I still didn't feel like peeling the buggers, I can see why she gives them away (lol, to coin an acronym!).  Last time I cut the apples into chunks, roasted them and used them in a number of ways – see here for details. 

This time I decided to make the apples into a sauce, the easy way which is to cut them into pieces with the skin on but discarding the core and pips. Rinse in cold water, drain but leaving quite wet, put into a large pot, sprinkle with caster sugar to taste, cook over medium heat stirring from time to time till they have broken down and gone all mushy.

I strained the whole “mess”, pushing down on the debris in the sieve to extract as much apple flesh and juice as possible.  This resulted in about 1.5 ltrs of apple sauce ...

... a bit of a challenge especially as I have already written about what to do with apple sauce here. 

So, it being National Cake Day (I wonder which nation) I decided to use some of the apple sauce to bake with.  I tried three things …

Maple Pecan Oatmeal Muffins 
- makes 12

115g soft butter

90g light brown sugar

1 egg

170g plain flour

a pinch of salt

1 tsp baking powder

 ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

180ml apple sauce

 90g pecans – very coarsely chopped

2 tbsp maple syrup

~   Preheat oven to 350°F/180ºC/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~   Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.

~   Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda.

~   Cream together the butter and sugar.

~   Whisk in the egg together with a spoonful of the dry mix.

~   When the egg is full amalgamated whisk in a bit of flour a bit of apple sauce, a bit of flour, sauce, flour, etc. till all merged.

~   Fold in the nuts and divide the mixture between the muffin cups.

~   Bake till risen and bounce back when pressed with a finger.

~   As soon as they are out the oven brush with a little maple syrup.

~   Cool in the muffin cups till cool enough to handle.

 Applesauce Cake

230g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

(see here for why it is important to use extract)

200ml apple sauce

110g soft butter

180g caster sugar

2 eggs

~   Preheat oven to 350°F/180ºC/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~   Lightly grease a 23cm cake pan.

~   Sift together the first four ingredients.

~   Stir together the next 3 ingredients.

~   Cream together the butter and the sugar.

~   Whisk in the eggs together with a spoonful of the dry ingredients.

~   Whisk in the rest of the ingredients, a bit of wet a bit of dry, till al incorporated.

~   Scrape the batter in the cake pan.

~   Bake till risen and golden and springy which takes 30-40 minutes.

~   Turn out and cool on a rack, then do with it what you will – ice or frost or fill etc.

Sticky Ginger Cookie/Cake Things 

-  makes about 10

90g dark brown sugar

40g apple sauce

50g golden syrup

160g plain flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp ground ginger

pinch of salt

1 egg white

1 knob of stem ginger – coarsely chopped

~   Sift together the dry ingredients.

~   Beat together the first three ingredients for a good long while – a couple of minutes at least so a stand mixer is best for this.

~   Beat in the egg white.

~   Add the dry ingredients and whisk for a minute.

~   Fold in the chopped ginger.

~   Chill till really cold for as long as you like within reason, up to a week or so.

To cook …

~   Preheat the oven to 350°F/180ºC/160ºC fan/gas 4.

~   Line a couple of baking sheets with baking parchment or silicone baking mats.

~   Prepare a shallow bowl of caster or granulated sugar.

~   Now then – take a spoonful of the cold goo and drop it into the sugar.  Gently nudge the dough or shake the bowl, do whatever you can to coat the dough with sugar.

~   Somehow transfer the sugared ball or similar to the baking try and repeat.

~   Make sure the cookies have plenty of space around them to spread – 3” or perhaps something similar in metric.

~   Bake till they have spread and risen a little and are still a little soft in the middle – about 15 minutes.

 Ginger Cookie Notes and Comments ...

1. 
   
2. These have no fat in them so are good for those on a special diet. I have heard before of substituting apple sauce for fat when baking but this is my first go at it myself. More info about this can be found at Wikihow here 
3. I made a terrible mistake whilst preparing the batter; I read 37.5g apple sauce as 375g and only realised once it was being mixed with the sugar and golden syrup!  Did I panic?  No I had a good idea (I hope, more on this in a few days), set the mixture aside in the fridge and started again.
4. This are sticky and chewy and a little crunchy on the edge and a bit strange in the middle, not unpleasant but unusual in a cakey sort of way!

Talking of cake it was Stir up Sunday last Sunday but I’d already done my cake on Toss Together Tuesday.