Apple Kuchen

The first Apple Streuselkuchen I made was more than a year ago.  It had a streusel topping and the dough was made in the bread machine. The dough was so fluffy and soft, and between both my daughter and myself, we finished half the loaf! So when I saw a recipe of Nigella's for Apple Kuchen, I knew that I wanted to try her version, which does not have a streusel but a topping of flaked almonds instead.

Just like all of Nigella's recipes, this is a winner!

I use about 2-1/2 medium Granny Smith apples.

Nigella mentioned that the dough can be mixed in the stand mixer or by hand. I chose to knead the dough by hand. 

1. Flour is mixed with salt, sugar and yeast. I use 2-1/4 cups of flour at the beginning, as recommended in the recipe, adding more later, if necessary.

2. The eggs are lightly beaten and mix into the lukewarm milk, together with vanilla, orange zest (original calls for lemon zest, which I do not have), and freshy grated nutmeg, stir to combine.

3. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, stir to combine. 

1. Add in the softened butter and knead to a dough,

2. I find that the dough is really wet

3. I then added in 1/4 cup of flour at a time, in total I used almost 3 cups of flour.

1.Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until they are smooth.

2. Cover loosely with an oiled cling wrap and leave to rise for about 1 to 1-1/4 hours until doubled in size.

3. Punch down the risen dough.

1. Spread the dough into the greased pan, size 12 x 8 inches, covering the base. Leave to rise for about 15-20 minutes. It will puff up a little. Brush the top of the dough with a mixture of beaten egg, freshly grated nutmeg and a little cream (I use milk).
2.Cover the dough with the chopped apples, and sprinkle the apples with a mixture of sugar and all-spice (I use ground cinnamon). Scatter some flaked almonds all over. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes, turn down temperature to 350F and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked.
3. Make the icing, stir together the confectioners' sugar and hot water. Drizzle icing all over the top. Then slice and .....

..... enjoy with a cup of coffee! This is so good! The bread is so soft and fluffy! Even with the icing, this cake is not sweet at all, just perfect! The apples has not gone totally soft, but has a light crunch which is so good with the crunchy fragrant almonds! 

Can you see the softness and fluffiness of the bread?

Yum! I had a big piece with a cup of coffee and later, another piece with a cup of tea! Great with both coffee or tea!

I'm sharing this with the following :

~ Twelve Loaves, where the theme for August is "Bread With Summer Fruit" hosted by Cake Duchess, Lifes' a feast and Parsley, Sage and Sweet

~ Bake Your Own Bread (BYOB) hosted by Girlichef, Delectable Musings and My Discovery of Bread
~ Recipe Box hosted by Bizzy Bakes

Apple Kuchen
(adapted from "How To Be A Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson)
Swiss-roll pan or rectangular baking dish approximately 12x8 inches
Serves 8
for the dough :
2-1/4 - 3 cups white bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon rapid-rise yeast
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
grated zest of 1/2 a lemon (I use grated zest from 1 orange)
good grating fresh nutmeg
1/2 cup milk, lukewarm
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

for the topping :
2 Granny Smith apples
1 large egg
1 tablespoon cream (I use milk)
grating of fresh nutmeg
1 tablespoon demerara or turbinado sugar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon allspice (I use 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon)
2 tablespoons slivered almonds

for the icing :
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon hot water

Put 2-1/4 cups of the flour in a bowl with the salt, sugar, and yeast. Beat the eggs and add them, with the vanilla, lemon zest, and nutmeg, to the lukewarm milk. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, to make a medium-soft dough, being prepared to add more flour as necessary. I generally use about 2-2/3 cups, but advise you to start off with the smaller amount; just add more as needed. Work in the soft butter and knead by hand for about 10 minutes or half that time by machine. When the dough is ready it will appear smoother, and springier. It suddenly seems to plump up into glossy life.

Cover with a tea towel and leave till doubled (1 to 1-1/4 hours), or leave to rise slowly in a cold place overnight. Then punch down and press to line the pan. You may think it's never going to stretch to fill, but let it rest for 10 minutes or so mid-stretch, especially if the dough had a cold rise. When it's pressed out on the pan, leave it to rise for 15-20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400F. Peel and core the apples and chop them finely; I use a processor but there's really no need. And you could use other apples, too, if your prefer; whatever you've got to hand; cooking apples can easily be substituted and are better if you want a pulpier covering.

When the dough's ready, beat the egg with the cream, grate over a little nutmeg and brush the top of the dough with this mixture. Cover the egg-glazed dough with the apples, then mix together the sugars and allspice and sprinkle over. Top with the flaked almonds and put in the oven for 15 minutes. Then turn down to 350F and cook for a further 15 minutes or so, until the dough is swelling and golden at the edges and cooked within.

Remove from the oven and make a runny paste with the sifted confectioners' sugar and the hot water. Spoon or trickle over the cake.

Leave to cool for about 15 minutes, then slice it, and eat while it's still warm and juicily, stickily fragrant.

THB : Strawberry Coffee Cake

It's our seventh bake at The Home Bakers (THB)! Our fellow baker, Alice from I Love.I Cook.I Bake has chosen Strawberry Coffee Cake for our bake. Alice is a dedicated baker with a wonderful blog, if you have not had the pleasure of knowing Alice, please do pay her a visit! 

I really, really, like this cake! Can you see the lovely moist texture, almost smooth crumbs! Although, there are several blunders that I made when making this cake, I'm so relieved and glad that it turn out fine in the end, more than fine, it was delicious!

The batter is made up of, other than the usual, eggs, flour, sugar, there's a mixture of cream cheese and butter, the proportion of cream cheese is double to that of butter. Seeing that the sugar is not too much for this recipe, I did not reduce the amount as I would have in most of the cakes that I baked. I only made half a recipe, using a 7" round cake pan, which is my first blunder. After the batter has been spread into the cake pan, I realized that the cake pan might be too small, but I was lazy to switch pan, and leave it at that. One of the raising agent is a small amount of baking soda, but I mixed in the full amount of baking powder instead, for half a recipe, and decided to omit the baking soda. (blame it on the hubby! he came into the kitchen to ask me something, when I was measuring the baking powder and got distracted! yeah! yeah!) Next on the "blunder list" are the strawberries! I have some leftover frozen chopped strawberries in my freezer and I used that, even though I knew that it is not a perfect choice, because the strawberries was frozen when they were really ripe and wet. Instead of discarding the overripe berries, I decide to freeze them. The thought of buying some fresh strawberries did come to mind as I knew that my frozen chopped strawberries will bleed and release their juices, but I went ahead to use the frozen ones anyway! Let's just say, I expected the strawberries juices will bubble, but keeping my fingers crossed that the cake will turn out OK!!

The instructions in the recipe mentioned that half the batter is to be spread into the pan, scatter the sliced strawberries over the batter and top with the remaining batter. Since I'm using chopped and wet strawberries and did not want them to sink to the bottom of the cake, I spread all of the batter in the pan and scatter the strawberrries on top, which I coat with 1 tablespoon of flour and which makes no difference at all, as all the flour disappear when mixed with the wet strawberries!! (I got to thaw my frozen strawberries as they are stuck together in one big lump!, hence the strawberries got really wet from their juices when thawed! oh well!). The mixture of nuts, I use almonds, and brown sugar are then sprinkle over the strawberries. When I am done with all this, the pan is already full to the brim! Oh well! Let's hope for the best. Into the oven the pan went!

The cake was bubbling into the 35 minutes of baking! The juices from the strawberries and the sugar on top, began to bubble and some of it dripped onto my oven floor. I then placed a baking sheet under the pan to catch the drippings! Not looking good, so far! I checked the cake at 45 minutes and it is still soggy in the middle! The top is browning nicely, so I tent the top with foil to avoid burning! Not looking good at all! I baked for a further 20 minutes until the cake is done. I guess the long baking time is due to the small cake pan than I've used, resulting in a higher and thicker batter, thus taking a longer time to cook! I let the cake cools in the pan for about 20 minutes and turn it out onto a plate. It looks OK, but the real test is when I sliced a piece to taste.

This cake is so good! I love the texture of the cake, you can definitely taste the cheese flavour, and the texture is compact, but at the same time, it is moist and soft, almost with a velvety texture that you would expect from a cake made with cream cheese! It is not too sweet, in fact the sweetness is just perfect! As for the strawberries, they are soft and juicy, and since I'm using our local strawberries, they are tart, but goes really well with the cake. The topping of mixed almonds and brown sugar added a wonderful crunch, since the strawberries are little bit sour, the sugar topping is perfect! This is one cake that I would be making again! Just got to remember to use a slightly bigger pan!

Please stop by Alice of I Love.I Cook.I Bake for the recipe and to see the rest of my fellow bakers'  bake on this cake, please visit The Home Bakers (THB).

THB is currently baking from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas, if you would like to join in, please hop over to THB for details on how to become a member. Everyone's welcome!

Red Chile Hot Drumsticks : IHCC

Feel The Heat! is this week's theme over at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), where we are currently cooking from Rick Bayless's recipes. I can definitely feel the heat, everyday, I'm referring to the weather! It is super hot (31C) now, no rain for the past week, dusty roads, some of my plants wilted and what am I doing, cooking up a fiery dish? Well, for one, the hot weather seldom stops me from enjoying my spicy and favourite food, in fact, just cooked some spicy hot prawns sambal yesterday! 

Can you "feel the heat" from the chicken drumsticks above? No, those are not tomato sauce!!! 

This is the Hot Sauce that I've made a couple of months ago, one of Rick Bayless's recipe. I have about half a jar left, since I am eating it alone as it is too spicy for the family. Found this recipe from Rick Bayless, Red Chile Hot Chicken Wings, that uses Frontera Red Chile Hot Sauce. I do not have Frontera Hot Sauce, have not seen his brand here before, but I do have my own homemade Rick Bayless's hot sauce, perfect!

The original recipes uses chicken wings, but I bought some mini drumsticks for these instead. The drumsticks are seasoned with a little oil, salt and black pepper powder. Since these are small drumsticks, I baked them in the oven for about 10 minutes each side and move them to the top rack in the oven to broil them for a couple of minutes on both sides until cripsy. When the drumsticks are done, melt some butter and hot sauce in a saucepan, until the butter melts. Add the drumsticks to the saucepan. The drumsticks are really crispy, I can hear the crunch as I transfer them to the saucepan with the tongs. Toss to coat the drumsticks completely with the hot sauce mixture. 

Then enjoy!

Yum, I had these five drumsticks all to myself! They are small, anyway!  :o)

To see the others' fiery dish from Rick Bayless's recipes, hop over to I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC).

I am sharing this too with :
Recipe Box hosted by Bizzy Bakes
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Frontera's Red Chile Hot Wings
(source from : Frontera, Rick Bayless)
Serves about 8
24 pieces chicken wings, tips discarded, split at the joint
vegetable oil
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/2 stick butter
1 bottle (5 ounces) Frontera Red Chile Hot Sauce

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Coat chicken wing pieces in oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer on a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Roast chicken wings, turning once, until cooked through and skin is nice and crispy, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven.
2. Heat butter and hot sauce or enchilada sauce in a large skillet until butter is melted. (If using Enchilada Sauce, simmer a few minutes to thicken it slightly). Add wings to sauce mixture and toss to coat wings thoroughly. Arrange on a warm platter and serve with plenty of napkins.