Apple Cornbread

After reading this cornbread recipe, I very much wanted to make something similar.  I modified the ingredients slightly to fit what I had in my kitchen.
This cornbread has a pleasant smell and is just sweet enough to be a dessert.  I am very satisfied with the texture, which is crumbly without being mealy.

Ingredients:

♕125 g / 1 cup white flour
♕115 g / 1 cup corn meal
♕13 g / 3.5 t baking powder
♕6 g / 1 t salt
♕1 1/2 large apples, or 3 small ones
note: select apples that are good for baking.  Very crunchy as well as mealy apples tend to bake poorly, so if possible, select more sturdy types, such as Gala, Fuji, or Granny Smith.
♕85 g / 6 T unsalted butter
♕2 eggs
♕30g / 1.5 T wildflower honey
♕75 g / 0.3 cups + 1 T brown sugar
note: Turbinado or molasses-darkened sugar both work here
♕240 mL / 1 cup milk
♕Optional: generous handful mixed berries and/or raisins



Procedure:

♕Preheat oven to 205˚C / 400˚F
♕Chop apples into slices or rounds no thicker than 0.75cm / 0.3 inch.  Remove peels if they are rough.
♕In a bowl, stir together flour, corn meal, baking powder and salt.

♕Heat butter until it is still solid, but very soft.
♕Add in butter, honey, sugar, eggs, and milk to the bowl.
♕Mix until no clumps are present.
♕If using, stir in berries and raisins.
♕Oil a 30cm / 12 inch diameter round baking dish, such as a cake pan or cast iron skillet.
♕Place one third of the chopped apple slices on the bottom of the dish, and cover with one half of the batter.
♕Place another third of the apple slices atop of the batter, and then cover with the remaining mixture.
♕Place final third of apple slices on top of the batter.
♕Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a brown crust is present and the center does not jiggle.
♕Serve warm.

Apple Charlotte

Looking up "apple charlotte" in English yields recipes that look like a mix between an apple dumpling and an apple pie.  This recipe, instead, is for a Russian apple charlotte.  Russian charlottes are less dense than American ones, and also have a more simple flavor profile.  The current ingredients are not 100% authentic, since Russian charlottes usually don't have yoghurt or sour cream, instead opting to neutralize the baking soda with vinegar.  I hope to make a few more versions of this recipe with different fillings as well as different dough composition.

In this recipe the ratio of dough to apple can be adjusted easily.  The given proportions are for an apple-heavy dish, maybe a 5:1 ratio.  The current dough is very eggy, almost like challah.

Ingredients:

♕ .75kg apples of moderate to low sweetness, like granny smith, golden delicious, and/or gala
♕ 1 cup/150g flour
♕ 1/2 cup/60g sugar
♕ 1 t/5g baking soda
♕ 1/2 cup/60g sour cream or yoghurt
♕ 3 eggs
♕ 1.5 t/7mL vanilla extract

Procedure:

♕ Preheat oven to 350˚F/180˚C
♕ Get a cooking vessel, like a bundt pan or a deep dish cooking tray.  Grease it and coat the inside with breadcrumbs.
♕ Peel and core the apples.  Slice into very thin sheets.
♕ In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients, and before adding apples, stir in the two wet ingredients.  Stir to make a dough, stopping as soon as it is homogeneous.
♕ Place the cut apples on the baking vessel, leaving space between the slices to let the dough go between them.
♕ If you wish, push raisins into the dough, or garnish with nuts or spice.
♕ Bake for 30-40 minutes.  Once the top has browned nicely, remove from heat and let cool under a cotton cloth.
♕ Serve warm or cold.  Since it's Valentine's Day, I melted some chocolate and used that to trace designs on the top.

Apple Cookies

These apple vanilla cookies get a lot of flavoring from whichever sweetener you use, be it brown sugar or maple syrup.

When writing this recipe, I wanted something closer to American chocolate chip cookies dough-wise, with lots of vanilla and a little bit of apple and maple syrup.  I'll have to look into making a recipe like that sometime in the future!
I confess that this recipe is not too pretty, but taste-wise, they are light and cake like.  The cookies rise high but spread apart little.  I am more fond of more compact dough, but those who prefer softer cookies would like them.  These would be good to serve along with a variety of scones for tea, or like sandwich cookies with a cup of milk.

Ingredients:

♕3/4 cup/90g whole wheat flour

♕1/4 cup/31g all purpose flour

♕1/2 t/2g baking powder

♕1/4 t/1g baking soda

♕pinch salt

♕1 egg

♕1 small apple, chopped
♕1 t/5 g vanilla extract
♕2 T/ molasses or maple syrup
♕4 T/65g butter, room temperature
♕1/2 cup cane sugar (or brown, if using molasses)
♕1/4 cup/25g walnuts, peanuts, or almonds + 2 1/2 T sugar (optional) if you add molasses instead of maple syrup, feel free to use brown sugar, but make it packed and reduce the amount to 2 T.

Procedure:

♕Preheat oven to 350˚F/175˚C
♕In a food processor or otherwise, pulverize nuts with sugar to a fine crumb.  Pour into a bowl and set aside.
♕Core and chop apple up into small cubes, approximately half a centimeter tall. 

♕ Mix dry ingredients well, save for the walnuts and all sugar, sifting if your baking soda is clumpy.

♕In a separate bowl, cream the butter with the egg and sugar, then stir in other wet ingredients.

♕Gently stir in the dry ingredients and apple, being careful to cease mixing as soon as they are incorporated.

♕Pinch off balls of dough, roll them in the pulverized nuts, and place on a parchment paper covered baking sheet.
♕Bake for 16-20 minutes
♕Once the cookies are golden brown, remove from oven and let cool under a cotton cloth.

♕Done!