Rustic Apple Galette

The monsoon season is well and truly underway here in my cosy corner of the world, and on a particularly wet Sunday afternoon last week, I popped in the LOTR: The Two Towers DVD and got to work with my hands. There's something immensely comforting about the smell of baking on a lazy day in while watching your favourite epic fantasy film; especially the smells of butter, cinnamon and the wonderful vanilla bean pods the boyfriend brought back from a recent work trip to the African continent. 

A galette is basically the lazy person's go-to pie or tart, and is so easy to remember that it's the perfect recipe to have in your repertoire for those occasions when you want to bake but have no access to your cookbook or the internet (you know... like a short weekend visit to your grandmother's place). You can use any fruit you have on hand, the riper the better, and I just happened to have a bushel of green apples that are starting to get a little bruised looking. 

Rustic Apple Galette

• Basic pie crust recipe (I used roughly a tennis ball sized amount of leftovers from a standard batch)
• 3 green apples, cored, peeled and sliced
• Juice of 1/4 lemon
• 1-2 tbsp raw honey
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• Seeds from 1 vanilla pod (or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste) 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, line a baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Roll out your pie crust dough to the size of your baking sheet (so long as it fits the width) and place on the baking sheet, then set aside
3. Core, peel and slice the apples then toss in a large bowl with the lemon juice to keep them from browning. Mix in the honey, cinnamon and vanilla seeds to coat the apples
4. Arrange the apples around the centre of the prepared crust, leaving around 2 inches of crust around the edges. Fold over and pinch the dough to seal the mixture in, then brush the crust with milk and sprinkle on some sugar 
5. Bake the galette for 40 minutes, then serve as soon as it has cooled enough to eat

Sweet & Savoury Pizza

The first time we attempted to make pizza dough was a bit of a mess... Al and I had neglected to read the whole recipe and used the wrong type of yeast. We just sorta... rolled with it (gettit?). Yikes. So, as I had a bit of free time this week, I thought I'd give it another shot. This time, I made sure I had all the ingredients needed and read it word for word, and all the comments, and various other recipes to cross check if it would work.

This recipe for the pizza dough is incredibly simple, it only takes an hour minimum to rise, but you can keep it overnight if you would prefer a lighter, softer crust. I usually like my pizza crust a little on the crispy side, but as it was far too late for pizza when I made the dough last night, I decided to let is rest and have it today instead.

My family's always been a bit torn when it comes to pizza topping, as my dad likes the spicy stuff, mum prefers the hawaiian, and my siblings are all over the topping chart. I do think that I'm the only one in the house who appreciates vegetarian pizzas, so today I was on a mission to civilize. I wanted to highlight the freshness of the ingredients, the mix and play of flavours, and just really... to let the fresh toppings speak for themselves. No sauce was prepared for these mini pizzas, and instead I just slathered on various cheeses.

Let's not waste anymore of your time, as you'll be knead-ing (heh) it while you wait for the dough to rise before dinner time.

Easy Peasy Crispy Pizza Crust
Courtesy of thekitchn.com

• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp sea salt

1. In a large heavy mixing bowl, pour the lukewarm water over the yeast and let it sit untouched for around 10 minutes. Then stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve the yeast
2. Add the flour and salt, then combine with the spoon until you get a messy-ish, but dry (as in doesn't stick to your fingers to create a webbed look) dough
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it gently for around 5 minutes. Pop the dough back into the bowl and cover it with a clean, damp cloth to let it rest and rise for a minimum of 1 hour
4. If you're not using the dough immediately, then just put it into a ziploc bag, or wrap in clingwrap, then just leave it in the fridge for up to 3 days. Before using, be sure to take it out and let it sit on the counter for at least 30 minutes
5. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200C/fan, cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle a tsp or less of semolina onto the paper then with your lightly floured hands, spread the dough out using your fingertips into the desired shape and thickness
6. Drizzle with olive oil, and then pop your toppings on. Bake for 15 minutes or until the crust is golden

I'll also share the two toppings I prepared today with you here, but really I just don't wanna forget what I put on so I can recreate them soon.

Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza

• 1/2 golden pear, peeled and sliced thinly
• Gorgonzola cheese
• Light mozzarella, sliced
• Salt and pepper
• Fresh rocket leaves
• Balsamic glaze

Spread the Gorgonzola over the top of the crust, then place the mozzarella slices where you want them. Cover with the pear slices, season and bake for 15 minutes. When done, garnish with a handful of rocket and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Caprese Pizza

• Salt and pepper
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Parmesan cheese
• Mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 1 fresh tomato, sliced
• Fresh basil
• Balsamic glaze

Drizzle olive oil over the crust, then season with salt and pepper, then rub the garlic over the entire crust. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese, then place the mozzarella slices where you want them, and top with the tomato slices. Go ahead and twist some more black pepper on there if you are so inclined. Bake for 15 minutes, then top with balsamic glaze and fresh basil. 

The pizza crust turned out great, though next time I'm not gonna make it so far ahead as I prefer a crispier base. The toppings were fresh, ingredients tasted beautiful, and it was just enough for an early dinner. I even got my brother to eat the pear pizza! Shocker!

Now that I know how easy it is to make my own pizza, I'm definitely going to have a lot of fun coming up with different toppings for my lunch and dinners. Who knows? Maybe I'll pack some dough and we can make fresh pizza over lunch?

Lots of love, Nabs

A Very Happy Unbirthday

I've definitely moved past the pretense of having reasons for baking anything. As you can see from the image above, every day is cake day if we go by the the Mad Hatter's habit of celebrating Unbirthdays. Which I wholly subscribe to.

This beetroot chocolate cake was long overdue, however, as Jessica and Angie have been asking me to make it since I made it last (Angie's birthday). So as we were due for a lunch meetup, I thought I'd bring a treat for the Unbirthday girls.

For this particular rendition of the cake, I used the exact same recipe that I used here, but added a touch of Wilton's delphinium blue colouring to the cream cheese frosting (in 2 different degrees of colour) to create the effect that the lovely Miz Rosie posted over at her crazy cool blog, Sweetapolita.

Didn't quite pull it off as she did, as my frosting was a little too runny, but I think it's still quite adorable.

If you're looking for a heavy, beautiful chocolate cake, I suggest you give this recipe a shot and treat yourself to an Unbirthday Cake.

I'm saving my recipe share for the next post, and this one is more of a picture dump of the stuff I've been up to in the past week, so please bear with me as I share the more mundane details of my personal life with you.

Above is a collection of iPhone pictures I took of the wedding cake and cupcakes order that I received a few weeks ago. For the cake, I used 4 layers of my favourite white cake recipe, with lemon curd filling and lemony swiss meringue buttercream. To decorate the cake, I used the Wilton 127 tip and swirled around on my revolving cake stand. The cupcakes were in 3 flavours: chocolate, earl grey, and the white cake, using plain swiss meringue buttercream, piped on with Wilton's 104/103/61 tips. I made 2 full batches (the recipe in the link is a quarter portion of a full batch) of the frosting recipe for both the cake and cupcakes, and coloured them in 4 shades of pink.

Then my two favourite Sarawakian Siblings and I decided to finally get down to business and try our hands and making our own pasta. The first batch (you can see the cling wrapped roll on the lower left hand side of the picture above) didn't turn out very well as we might have used too few eggs (note to self: always read the whole recipe twice before trying)...

For the second batch, we got some valuable advice from a very skilled friend of the families, on the optimal egg to flour ratio (100g flour:3 eggs), and went a little gentler with the mixing. I'm not too sure what went into the sauce, as that was J's area, while Al and I worked meticulously on the rolling, filling (ricotta cheese), and cutting out of the ravioli.

All in all, we had a great meal, and so much fun preparing it. I've had a great time these past few weeks with the baking and cooking, and general experimenting with flavours and ingredients. Honestly, I can't wait to see what the coming weeks will have in store for me. 

I leave you with this gem that J found, as it's been my kitchen soundtrack for a week now, and I love it! 

Amanda's Sugar Cookies

I posted a similar recipe before that I adapted from my aunt's, but this time I decided to try out Amanda from iambaker.net's recipe. I wasn't up for adding frosting, especially considering these cookies are just so delicious when plain. I whipped up two batches that day, and I have to say that mixing this dough with a kitchenaid is ten times more satisfying than using a hand mixer.

Never before have I managed to create such a solid dough, it just mixes and incorporates everything so well!

Best item I own, by far.

Amanda's Sugar Cookies

• 3/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until fluffy, then gradually add in sugar until you achieve a smooth and creamy mixture
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then add in the vanilla and almond extract
3. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cream of tartar, baking powder and salt
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mix a cup at a time, beating at medium speed with the paddle attachment the whole time, mix until fully incorporated
5. Drop the dough onto a large piece of cling wrap, fold it tenderly like you would clothe a baby (I even baby talked at it, the dough was so cute!) and refrigerate for at least an hour
6. After you've showered, watched an episode or two of Community and dried your hair, (lol in other words: when you're ready) roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface til it's around 1/4 inch thick, cut out your cookie shapes and pop in the oven
7. Bake at 180C for around 8-10 minutes.

Delicious! I brought a tupperware full of these cookies to work and they've been my perfect tea-time snack during the days.

Thanks, Amanda, for sharing this great recipe!

x Nabs