#if you cant work with cloves you can use a squeeze of the pre-crushed stuff

[spamshards]

even if you're just ok at cooking and burn the herbs its still really good

kill the shift manager in your brain

[sulla-slays-cronulla]

Rum & Cashew Apple Pyramids

While on a Youtube vortex I found a whole bunch of videos making ‘Turkish Apple Pie’. The shaping looked like fun, so I wanted to try, plus I had all the ingredients available and screaming to be used. Um. So my shapes aren’t exactly spectacular and the egg wash is dire, but I shall do better next time. 

Adapted recipe as follows - 

Pastry:

60g full fat sugar free Greek yoghurt & 30g Skim milk

Add to this 3g of natural brown sugar and a pinch of salt

Whisk/Mix, add an egg white (save the yolk in a small bowl, add one tablespoon of full fat milk to it and place ASIDE. NOT IN THE FRIDGE like I did), repeat whisk

180g self-raising flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder. Mix, I used a hand mixer because eurgh. So lazy. It’s seconds of work, just cant. 

40g melted butter, add and mix until just combined. Knead this for a bit, it shouldn’t be sticky. Just before leaving it to rest, covered, for at least 30 minutes, at kitchen-temperature, I added 3 drops of rum essence to round of the flavour a bit better. Most of this disappears but it does add some dimension. I figure you can add a full or half a teaspoon as long as it doesn’t make the dough too wet to wield later. 

Filling: 

Around 190g of apple and a deep squeeze of lemon into the bowl first to keep the pieces from browning. 1 green granny smith and half a same-sized, sharp flavour red apple peeled and grated (large holes). A whole small, sharp-flavoured red apple chopped roughly and in a mix of shapes and sizes but small, keep the skin on. The variation of texture for filling is something I strongly recommend. 

[ At this point, it could or should be around half an hour gone depending on your speed and enthusiasm. Suggest that at this point here you divide the dough into 6 equal parts and set them aside, covered again for at least 15 minutes, which is rest Stage 2 ]

Get a frying pan and scoop out some unsalted butter, throw in on medium heat and wait for it to kind of brown up, this might be 1-3 minutes. Add 2g of brown sugar and a full tablespoon of maple syrup. Ensure sugar dissolved, toss in the apples. 

You need to stir and cook until all the liquid is gone. When it is mostly reduced, add your spices. This includes a tablespoon of cinnamon, 2 cloves (which you remove after), a teaspoon of nutmeg, and a teaspoon of garam masala because it has a nice warm spice combo and I don’t need to blitz stuff separately. Squish the bigger chunks of apple down onto the pan to get as much water out as possible. When this seems totally dry, remove the 2 cloves, put into a cool bowl, add a half tablespoon of maple syrup, stir to mix, and chill in freezer. 

Crush a big handful of sun-roasted cashews to add and mix well just before wrapping in pastry. (If you use honey-roasted cashews, don’t add the last dose of maple syrup, it’ll be too diabetesweety...)

Wrappery: 

Coat your board/counter and rolling pin in flour, and roll out one of the dough balls, diameter around 6inches ish. 

Estimate 1/6 of the cooled apple mix and cashews, apply in triangular heap, point to centre. Cut from circumference to centre, on the left side of filling. Fold in clockwise manner making sure the base is secured. Youtube will show you. 

You can do little stripey designs on the final pyramid fold if you feel like it. 

Pre-heat the oven to 200C, where they will bake for 15-18 minutes. 

Once you complete all 6 pyramids, use the yolk-milk as a wash before sending them into the oven. My coats turned out manky because the wash was too cold, and the oven was ready when I realised. But still ok. It did ruin my cut designs, though. 

They are quite yum, and very light.