Apple Caramel Speculoos Tart

Today is not my day for 'food photography'. Excuse me as I'll make up for it another time. Too much baby crying, soreness from getting back into working out and after a long day making risotto, I just said well, screw it. A picture is a picture, at least just for today. I'm still kicking myself in the butt for not being able to prop and plate everything like I wanted but that is life and my belly was awaiting. 

Speculoos is becoming so mainstream that the number of uses really need to go up. Here is one and I think for Fall, I'll be using speculoos as a tart crust for quite a few things in the coming week. I will share, of course. Recipe adapted from (Tartlet Sweets)

Ingredients:

Tart crust:

9 oz lotus speculoos cookies or Biscoff

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

Apples and Caramel:

6 apples chopped and cooked (or pie filling if you want)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or all spice

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

Enough caramel to drizzle over tart - you could either make your own or use store bought.

(I used a homemade recipe of my choosing)

In your food processor add cookies and run until fine, once done add melted butter and sugar, mixing until combined and place into tart pan. Press down and make sure it is as evenly distributed as possible. Place in the refrigerator for 15 minutes while oven preheats on 350 degrees F (150 C) then bake for 10 minutes and set aside.

Meanwhile, add butter and brown sugar, stirring until melted down well - add apples and spices of your choice. You really can't go wrong with that you add here. Place apple filling on top of pie crust, spread evenly and let cook again on 350 degrees until warm. Take out of the oven, drizzle caramel and serve warm. 

If this isn't making you go "mmmm" I don't know what will. Delicious, perfect Fall dessert. Now, accompanied with hot chocolate or some milk and you can't go wrong. 

What is your favorite Fall dessert?

Brownie Speculoos Swirl Cookies

Lately, I've been spending time with my little girl and my husband. Having a baby is an amazing experience but it is also hard. I can't seem to balance out having time for myself and doing everything I need for her, I'm slowly learning how to do it, but of course, it's taking time. I find happiness in baking in my kitchen, baking or cooking up a dish off the top of my head or trying out a new recipe - I haven't gotten to do that much lately, mostly I've been throwing things in the crockpot and leaving. My husband knows I've been having the itch, took the baby and demanded that I find something to bake while he took care of her. I simply have to say best. man. ever.

I have so many things I could make for dessert, S'mores Baked Donuts, Speculoos Apple Tarts, Apple Dumplings, Scones, etc the list goes on. All of which will grace the blog in the coming week but I opened my cabinets and I had chocolate, just sitting there and calling my name. I love boxed brownies, don't get me wrong, but nothing is better than making something from the heart, homemade and from scratch. I pulled out the chocolate and an idea popped into my head - if I was going to make a speculoos apple tart with the actual cookies, why not include speculoos in my brownies since I had the cookie butter?

My love affair with speculoos was started long before we moved to Germany, though Germany has made it far worse. The rising craze for the stuff here is outstanding and fun to say the least because it makes for coming up with new ways to use it, that much for exciting.

I went to town in my kitchen as my husband hovered over me, asking what I was doing. Why I was doing that. Dipping his fingers all over my kitchen, being simply impatient to the final product. I love that he is supportive and wants to learn how to make things. Once they were done, I was over the moon. They came out moist, rich and exploding with flavor.

If I had to do anything different though, I would have swirled the crunchy speculoos cookie butter into the batter instead of swirling it. It would have had far more of an intense flavor and impact on the final product OR I would have food processed speculoos cookies and made a crunchy bottom for the brownie cookies. Either way, there is always a next time to experiment.

Notes: If you want even more chocolate melt down the 7 oz, and add another 5 oz of chopped chocolate into the batter for a chocolate lover's heaven.

Ingredients:

Brownie Cookie (adapted from Bakers Royale)

• 7 oz of chocolate, chopped (5 oz unsweetened, 2 oz semi-sweet)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350º degrees (150º C), line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside | Recipe makes about 14 one inch cookies. - most likely could have made more if I didn't make them so thick. 

Speculoos Cookie Butter

• Crunchy or Creamy - Can be found at your local store or easily made, also known as Biscoff.
• Bowl for melting

Place the 7 oz of chocolate into a pot over low heat and stir until melted. If you have bad lucky with melting chocolate and it burning, take a bigger pot, fill it with water and put the smaller pot into that one. It will keep the chocolate from burning even if you can't watch it while keeping it warm and smooth. I used different chocolates because I personally didn't want anything too terribly sweet, you can use whatever ratio of chocolate you'd like. Once melted, set aside.

In a large bowl, add eggs, sugar and vanilla mix with a stand or hand mixer for 15 minutes - until pale and creamy. (it will be a lighter yellow and creamy looking in texture, this part is important) Add flour, baking powder, and the melted chocolate (this would be where you'd add the extra 5 oz of chopped chocolate to the batter if you want something for the ultimate chocolate lover) - let sit for about 5 minutes. 

Spoon 1 tablepsoon of mixture onto wax paper for larger cookies, spread out a bit if possible. If you'd like brownie texture more than cookie, do 1 1/2 tablespoons and don't spread out as much. If you'd like more of a cookie texture, add 1/2 of mixture but spread out a bit more for a cookie feel. I personally wanted the brownie feel still so I made them thicker, which left them moist and delicious on the inside. 

Now, swirl cookie butter into batter and bake 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven so keep an eye on these babies. 

I loved this recipe and I will be making many changes to it, especially flavors wise. I hope you all enjoy. What's your favorite way to have brownies?

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Apple rings? Yes, you heard right.

This recipe was a hit. My husband almost ate all of them from me. A very good source of fun, sweet, a little tang kick mixed with it just being perfect for Fall. I'm apple obsessed, no matter what season it is but this, I will definitely be fitting in again. I found this recipe on pinterest linked me to her: Recipe -- I adjusted this recipe just a bit for my own tastes.

Here is everything you'll need for these easy Fall treats.

For the rings:

• 1 large egg
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 pink lady apples (can use any)
• vegetable oil for frying
• cinnamon and sugar

For the icing:

• tbsp melted butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 1/4 cup powder sugar
• 1 tsp pumpkin spice

You'll need to heat up the oil, in a skillet or a cast iron skillet, while it's heating preheat oven to 400. I have a cast iron for meats and everything else, and then I have one for baking. I used my cast iron that is strictly for baking and heated the oil on medium. Whisk the egg white together until it starts to foam, then whisk in water and vanilla, once well mixed, you can then mix in the flour and salt. This will be the batter. You will need to core the apple and cut them from the side so they turn out like a circle, OR you can do what I did and use a apple peeler and corer that cuts the apples into spirals and peels them. I broke them off to create a circle with a very small line so when fried, they did not look separate.

Place apples in batter and place into hot oil. You will definitely need to turn these quite a bit before they are golden brown. You want them only to be golden and not a dark brown. Do not overload what you used to fry it because they will begin to stick together in a bad way.  Once golden brown, transfer to paper towel and sprinkle with just a little cinnamon and sugar. Place on a cooling rack or place on greased foil on cookie pan to be placed into the oven. Place in oven for 5-10 mins until crisp. Make icing by just putting everything together. Take the apple rings out of the oven and glaze with icing. Serve warm.

I hope this is just as much a hit for you, your family, or friends, as it was for me. Enjoy!

Be on the lookout for my upcoming apple salsa with cinnamon tortilla chips, peppermint bark cookies and a mud worms for kids this Halloween. 

Halloween themed hand pies.

*I'll be adding more photos later. Busy day ahead for Jerod's Welcome Home Party prep.

Since it is the month of October, I figured it was time to get more into the season. I love Halloween, my tattoos greatly reflect my love for the month, the love of everything scary, and very fun. These hand pies are extremely easy. It'd be kind of hard to mess them up! Get your favorite cookie cutters and have a field day. I followed a bit of her recipe, not much. Herriott Grace  -- I love her blog so much.

Pie dough:
2 cups flour
1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 salt
2 ounces ice cold water

Filling (I used):
2 gala apples
nutmeg
cinnamon
honey or sugar
4 tbsp lemon juice

Egg Wash:
1 egg
1 tbsp heavy cream

Add flour and salt together, make sure butter is cold and add to the flour, there will be clumps, so don't worry about it. Add ice cold water, gradually until flour becomes pie dough. It can be a bit crumbly, which is okay. Wrap the dough in clear wrap and chill for about 1 hour to 4 hours.

For the filling, I cut gala apples into tiny pieces, adding lemon juice, cinammon, nutmeg, and honey to my mixture. Set this to the side

Roll out dough and use any size cookie cutter you'd like. You need two pieces of dough for each pie. Fill the pie with whatever filling you decided to use and seal the ends shut. Add egg wash. Place finished pies onto greased foil and bake for 10-15 minutes. Cooking times vary, so take them out once they are golden brown.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! I got my cookie cutters from Walmart. I used a scared cat, ghosts, a coffin, and pumpkin. It also came with a bat and vampire teeth.

Lemon Lavender Cookies.

This is how I spent my first day of Fall/Autumn, and I couldn't have been happier. I've made Lemon Lavender cookies before, but I made a small batch to make sure I liked the taste and completely forgot to blog it. You can easily find dried lavender. I thought, "Using a flower in food?! No way." and I was terrible wrong. It's delicious, its light and it adds a hint of flavor that is so hard to describe, but the buttery taste combined with a slight hint of sweetness, just brings it all together.

You'll be surprised that lemon is sweet in this and not bitter and super tangy.
Here is all the things you'll need:

2 Teaspoons Lavender
2 Whole Lemons
A Zester
2 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Cup Butter (Two Sticks)
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Teaspoons Lemon Juice (optional)

I suggest having a food processor to make the dough, or you'll have to do it by hand and it will be tedious, yet worth it. I had to do it by hand, and I was just fine. Took a bit longer, but a little work out doesn't hurt. Haha, combine all of the ingredients and once done, place into plastic wrap and chill for at least 4-5 hours. I chilled mine for a whole 2 days. It let the dough soak up the flavor of everything much better in my opinion, but it needs to be used within 2 days. Heat the oven to 375 degrees and cook for 10-15 mins, depending on the size of the cookies. I cut mine into Fall leaves, and pumpkin mini shapes and mine only took 10 mins. They will not be golden on top, but will be toward the bottom, do not overcook them so they can still have a softer center. Cookie times vary of course, depending on size.

By the way, a zester is just a small grater. Not one you'd grate cheese with. When you zest the lemon, you are only getting the yellow part of the outside, if you grate the white you'll have very bitter cookies. You wouldn't want that.

This is honestly, the perfect light, Fall cookie that'd go great with all your teas and coffees you'll be devoring this time of year! You can use this same recipe with rosemary as well, even dried fruit if you want instead of lemons. I hope you all enjoy!

*Taken with iPhone. Working on getting photoshop back again so I can use my Nikon again. Maybe next month.

Apple Freakin' Pie Cupcakes.

 Now, I can't take credit for this recipe. I can say that I did change a lot around from the original and that is where my own creativity, and experimentation comes into play. Her original recipe: Original Recipes .

Here is what you'll need for the cinnamon cupcakes:

1 cup milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners.

Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Remove from heat. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

Using a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, beat eggs and sugar until thick ribbons form, about 5 minutes. Add flour mixture and beat on low just until incorporated. Add milk mixture and vanilla, and beat until blended.

Divide evenly among baking tins. Bake at 350°F for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

I did not follow everything that she did. I used pure sugar cane. Added one more egg for it to be more cake like, and moist. I added as much cinnamon as I wanted -- I'm a total rebel. Haha, and I also added as much vanilla extract as I saw fit.
Now, I did make my own apples. I think canned apple filling just doesn't add the feel that you'd need for something like this. I sliced gala apples up, and soaked them for 2 minutes, in apple cider vinegar. Lemons to me are too bitter. I, then chopped them and put them into a pan on my stove top. I added honey, a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, and let it cook until soft. Stir occasionally.

No caramel in my recipe. Of course, you can add to this however you wish. I like the keep things simple. Very easy, very simple and just in time for Fall.

Hope you enjoy my pictures of mine that I included. I got lazy with the frosting.