Like I mentioned a few posts before I feel like early fall. It’s not cold, but it’s very fresh in the mornings and evenings. And that makes me want something warm and heavy…. like a fresh apple pie! Warm apples, cinnamon and a crunchy crust. The recipe for the crust is from Cynthia Barcomi’s Baking Book. I just made some additions in the amount of sugar and I did cut the recipe in half because I was just using a 4,5 inch (12cm) pie form.

Recipe for the pie crust (by Cynthia Barcomi)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup (210 g) all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 cup (120 g) butter or lactose free margarine

1/4 cup (45 g Palmfett) shortening

1/3 cup (80 ml) cold water

In a big bowl mix the flour, salt and sugars. Cut the butter and the shortening in small pieces and mix it with an electric mixer in the dry ingredients until you have little crumbs. Add the water (which should be really really ice cold) and knead the dough with your hands together, form a disk and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Filling

I used 2 big “Jonagold” apples but I guess it’s always up to yourself which apple you prefer for your pie.

1/3 cup (60 g) brown sugar

2 tablespoons Vanilla sugar

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon Maple Sirup (Ahornsirup oder Grafschafter Goldsaft)

Peel and cut the apples in pieces or slices. In a bowl mix them well with the rest of the ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit (210 Celsius)

After chilling, you half the dough in two pieces and roll it out about 0,2 inch (0,5 cm) thick and cover the bottom and the sides of your pie form. Put the filling on top. Roll out the other half of the dough and either cover it completely and cut decorative slices, or you take a cookie cuter of your choice, like me the hearts and decorate.

Put the pie in the oven. After 15 Minutes turn the heat down to 375 (190) and cover the pie with aluminum foil. Bake for another 50 minutes. The pie crust should be golden brown.

Sachertorte is been around since 18th century and comes from Vienna.It is a light chocolate cake with apricot jam between two layers all covered in chocolate. I worked on it for two days, since you first need to let cool the cake then cover it all over with jam and let the melted chocolate get hard again.
But now it’s done and it turned out really good tasting. Oh I love cake!

And this one was a nice Sunday night dinner desert. I guess my first real Post is up now. Yay! I do my best to write more in my following Posts, I guess I just have to get used to it. The recipe is going to be up soon I promise.

So here it is. This time it’s in metric, so it’s all in grams, since t is a German recipe out of a German cook book it doesn’t say it in cups.

For the batter:
200g good semi sweet baking chocolate
8 eggs
200g sugar
100g butter or lactose free margarine at room temperature
2 tsp. Vanilla extract, or even better vanilla bean paste
120g flour
50g breadcrumbs

For the filling:
200g apricot jam

To cover the cake you’ll need about 200g semi sweet baking chocolate.

Put parchment paper on the bottom of a round 9 inch baking pan and preheat the oven to 390 Degree Fahrenheit (200 Celsius).

Mix the flour with the breadcrumbs and set a side.

Melt the chocolate in a hot water bath.

Divide the eggs into yolks in one bowl, egg whites into an other bowl. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites with the sugar until very stiff. Mix the butter with the vanilla on high speed with an electric mixer until creamy and add one by one the egg yolks and add finally the melted chocolate until incorporated.

Now you fold in the egg whites very gently using a wooden spoon.

Then you do the same with the flour breadcrumb mix.

Fill the batter in the form and let it bake for 15 minutes at 390 degrees. Then turn the heat down to 350 (180 Celsius) and bake for another 45 Minutes. After baking you let sit the cake for 5 Minutes in the form then get it out and transfer it to a baking wrack to cool for a couple hours.

When the cake is completely cool you take a big bread knife and divide the cake horizontal in two layers (don’t be scared to do it, it works pretty well. Or alternatively you divide the batter in two parts and bake them after each other layer by layer).

For the filling you heat up the jam in a saucepan just till it starts boiling, stirring well. Cover the lower part of the cake with the jam and set the upper part on it. Now you cover the rest of the cake completely with the rest of the jam and let it sit and dry for about 2 hours.

Melt the rest of the chocolate in a hot water bath and cover the whole cake with it then let cool about 3 hours.

Decorate or leave it just as it is 🙂