18. Cinnamon Apple Pie

Autumn is well and truly here. It’s rainy and windy and that awkward temperature where you need a jacket most of the time, but if you have to walk any distance you are going to get just that little too warm, but not warm enough to take the jacket off, but warm enough that when you finally get to where you’re going you suddenly notice that you’ve got a bit sweaty and maybe you should just keep the jacket on to hide that, but that’ll just make you more sweaty, oh no what have you done… just me?

Anyway, autumn means that the apple trees in my Great Aunt’s garden are ready for harvesting and honestly? They can be pretty damn tasty. With my shopping bag full of her apples, I decided there was nothing more autumnal than an apple pie with cinnamon. So I made one.

This may seem a very normal thing to do, but growing up I was not a baked fruit fan (apart from bananas, but that’s different). I found them mushy and the texture was just so wrong. Turns out, that if I’ve made it and can control how soft the fruit gets, I am A ok with apple pie, with or without custard. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did! I have about half of it left, so I’m taking it down to my rugby match today. I somehow doubt it’ll go to waste.

Make one pie, serves about 12.

Ingredients

Pastry

• 360g (12.5oz) plain flour

• pinch of salt

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

• 100g (3.5oz) golden caster sugar

• 225g (8oz) butter, room temperature

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs

Filling

• 4 or 5 medium sized apples

• 100g (3.5oz) caster sugar

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 3 tbsp plain flour

Method

1. Beat the pastry sugar and butter together until creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and the eggs and beat until smooth.

2. Fold in the flour, cinnamon and salt until a dough forms.

3. Chill your dough in the fridge, wrapped in clingfilm for at least 15 minutes to make it easier to work with.

4. Peel and core your apples. Then slice them into slices roughly 5mm thick. Place them in a bowl out of the way.

5. Preheat the oven to 175C and lightly grease your pie/tart tin. Mine is 23cm diameter.

6. On a lightly floured surface roll out two thirds of your dough into a rough circle about 1/6” thick. Use this to line your tart tin. Keep the overhang for now. Return the rest to the fridge while you do the filling.

7. In a new bowl mix together the sugar, flour and cinnamon for the filling. Transfer the apples to this bowl using your hands or a slotted spoon, leaving behind any liquid that your apples may have released. Toss them well in the sugar mixture and then use them to fill your pie case. I did a rose pattern again, like I did for the chocolate pear tart, but I hard enough apples to do the same again as another layer. I also filled the middle with similar sized slices of apple, as due to not being as tender as the pears I could only get so close to the middle. (See pictures).

8. Roll out the remaining dough into a rough circle and cut out the middle to make a steam hole.

9. OPTIONAL. Slice the dough into 16 segments, cutting from about 1 cm away from the steam hole right to the edge. Twist these segments in alternating directions. (See pictures).

10. Use a fork to crimp the edges together and then remove any overhang and excess dough.

11. Use some egg wash if you desire (I did no do mine very evenly, oops) and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving warm, or allow to cool completely and store in an airtight container.

14. Chocolate and Cinnamon Pinwheels

I’m back!!

After a much needed and long awaited holiday I am finally back in the UK with a decent wifi signal. I had a great time in Florida, but there was no possible way that I could get a blog post up without every photo taking hours to upload and process. Sorry for the radio silence!

I had planned on posting these while I was away and maybe doing a review whilst I was out there too, but all good plans. I made these just before I left and took them along to my most recent match for my team to enjoy. They seemed to go down ok.

Pinwheel cookies are just fun to make and you could do them in so many different flavour combinations, but, let’s be honest. I’ve been on a chocolate and cinnamon kick recently. I promise I’ll do something different soon! I know not everyone likes cinnamon… weirdos…

These are ideal to make with kids, cause they’re fun, easy and make PLENTY. Hope you enjoy!

Makes roughly 48 pinwheels.

Ingredients

• 125g (4oz) butter

• 100g (3.5oz) caster sugar

• 200g (7oz) plain flour

• 1 egg yolk

• 40g (1.5oz) plain chocolate, melted

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tbsp milk

• Pinch of salt

Method

1. Start by making your cookie mixture by creaming together the butter and sugar and then add in the flour, a pinch of salt, an egg yolk and a tablespoon of milk.

2. Move half of the dough into a new bowl and fold in the melted chocolate. In the original bowl add in the cinnamon.

3. On a sheet of greaseproof paper roll out one of the doughs to be about 1/8” thick. Mine ended up being about 20cm by 40cm. Might want to try and roll them to be fairly rectangular if possible! Repeat with the other dough on another sheet of greaseproof paper. You want them to be roughly the same size and shape if possible.

4. Brush the top of the cinnamon dough with a tablespoon of milk and then lay the chocolate dough on top. Use your rolling pin to roll with a gentle pressure a couple of times to get the doughs to adhere, but not so that you lose the definition of the divide.

5. Roll the dough into a long sausage, starting at one of the longer sides. Once you have your roll, chill it in the fridge for half an hour. This will make it a lot easier to cut it into rounds.

6. Preheat the oven to 180C.

7. Slice your log into rounds, slightly thicker than a pound coin and place your pinwheels on a lined baking tray.

8. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

9. Allow to cool and enjoy!

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You could try all sorts of flavour combinations if chocolate and cinnamon aren’t your thing, e.g. peppermint and chocolate, vanilla and lemon or ginger and cinnamon. If you want to get the pinwheel effect using two similarly coloured doughs, why not try using a little bit of food colouring to keep the fun?

Let me know if you enjoy them! Give them a share on Twitter or Instagram (where I’m @sophiespiblog) or on the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/sophiespiblog). I love hearing from you guys and whether it went well!

13. Spiced Chocolate Chip Muffins

Cinnamon is just SO GOOD. Whenever I want to make my bake a little more interesting, my hand reaches for the cinnamon just as easily as it reaches for the vanilla. Cinnamon is one of those flavours that a couple of people hate, and I simply don't understand at all. Other flavours that are bolder, e.g. ginger, coriander or aniseed, I can get why people wouldn't like them, but cinnamon is just so inoffensive. How anyone could dislike cinnamon I do not know.

With a couple of colder rainy days this week I decided that a spiced cake would help the cold feel cosy autumnal. There's a reason that pumpkin spice becomes a thing this time of year. There's nothing better than a little bit of spice to warm you up on a cold day! And I had chocolate chips to use up, so why not make them chocolate chip?

This cake also contains ginger and nutmeg to round out the spice profile, but I will undoubtedly be making my cinnamon cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting in the next couple months to help conquer the autumn! Keep an eye out for it!

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 6oz (170g) butter

• 6oz (170g) golden caster sugar

• 6oz (170g) self raising flour

• 3 eggs

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp ground nutmeg

• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 5oz (150g) chocolate chips, preferably dark

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in the eggs.

4. Add in the flour and spices and mix until well combined.

5. Add in the chocolate chips and fold the mixture a couple times until they are evenly distributed.

6. Divide the mix between 12 muffin cases, until each case is about two thirds full.

7. Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden brown and when skewered, the skewer comes out clean.

8. Leave to cool a little, but best enjoyed warm to beat the autumn blues.

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Review 3 - Ole & Steen

This bank holiday I had a delightful time in the company of Momma Jude (pictured on left). We saw Sounds and Sorcery at The Vaults, watched Christoper Robin at the Empire on Haymarket (lovely cinema, and cheaper than Odeon etc), and had some amazing food. I mean, amazing food. 

We hit up both Borough Food Market and Spitalfields over the weekend. I love a food market and Momma Jude had no complaints. We filled ourselves with Moules Marinière with chips (£8.50) from Furness Fish Markets in Borough and gorged on Asian goodness in the form of steamed buns (2 for £7.50) from Yum Bun in Spitalfields. It was a good weekend for our taste buds. However, the sweet tooth prevailed and we had to stop for a cakey bun.

Ole & Steen is a Danish bakery (or Lagkagehuset, literally cake house) with their flagship store being a part of St James's Market on Haymarket. They do a whole range of stuff including breakfast, open sandwiches, bread, stews and most importantly pastries.

Ole & Steen are currently running a deal where you can have a glass of prosecco and a pastry for £9, and so of course Momma Jude had to take up the offer. Her raspberry tart was apparently excellent, but I don't think it could possibly compare to my cinnamon social slice. 

The cinnamon social slice (£2.80) was HUGE. Easily the size of my hand (I have small hands, but still. A hand sized pastry is still pretty big). I genuinely thought I would eat half of it and have to get a takeaway bag for the rest. Fortunately, I was extremely brave and managed to eat it all in one sitting. A real tragedy I know. Each slice of the cinnamon social comes from one long pastry. Each of the original pastries (which you can buy for £13) feeds up to 8 people and is meant to be shared socially, hence the name. but it could feed just one person in several sittings. Or one sitting. I'm not judging.

The slice itself is sweet and filled with cinnamon sugar and vanilla custard, making it moist and oh so good. With a drizzle of icing on the top it is just heaven on a plate. I would highly recommend it. The custard got a little cloying for me on the last few bites, but maybe I shouldn't have eaten it all in one go...

So many social slices... oh, and other pastries too...

Review:

Item: Cinnamon Social Slice
9/10 for taste, 8/10 for cost. Heaven on a plate

Ole & Steen Details:

Hours:

Monday to Thursday 7:30 – 22:00
Friday 7:30 – 22:30
Saturday 8:00 – 22:30
Sunday 8:00 – 22:00  

Address: 56 Haymarket, No 2, St. James’s Market, London, SW1Y  4RP

Website: https://oleandsteen.co.uk/

3. Cinnamon Brioche Knot

Bread is not my forte. If Paul Hollywood were to taste my attempts at bread, at best I'd get an ok response. My bread would not earn me any handshakes. I make a decent focaccia and that's about it. Everything else I either haven't tried or has been average at best. So with my bread making expertise, I decided to make a cinnamon brioche knot. Because why start easy? 

When making this, the recipe I followed suggested baking it in a 8" cake tin. My knot was about 8" diameter before it had proved. This should have been my first inkling that I was creating a monster. But rather than let that put me off I just put it in a deep baking tray and hoped for the best.

It. Was. Huge.

This monster was bigger than my head. By a fair amount. 8" diameter? Not a chance. More like 16". I have no idea how this recipe created so much bread. I really don't. I couldn't finish it. Some of it went stale. It was pretty good for a first attempt, it tasted decent and the texture wasn't bad, but the sheer quantity of it. I have no words. 

I got this recipe for brioche dough from Artisan Bread in Five, which you can find here.

Ingredients

• 700g brioche dough, chilled (Artisan Bread in Five link above)

• 1/2 cup (100g) light brown sugar

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tbsp (30g) melted butter

Method

1. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon.

2. Roll the dough on a floured surface to a rectangle that is about 1/4" thick.

3. Brush the dough with the butter and sprinkle over the cinnamon sugar to get an even covering.

4. Roll the dough into a log, rolling along the long edge.

5. Chill the log for 20 minutes or so. It's a lot easier to handle when chilled!

6. Slice the log down the middle, starting about 1/2" from one end, so that it is still attached at the top.

7. Turn your two halves out so that the cut edges are facing up.

8. Lift one half over the other and repeat until it is all braided.

9. Starting with the cut end, start spiralling your log into a circle.

10. Place in a greased cake tin/baking tray (it's going to get bigger so choose one that it doesn't fill already!)

11. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rise at room temperature for an hour and a half.

12. Preheat the oven to 175C.

13. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

14. Allow to cool a bit before serving.