[Saka]

As the month comes to a close, I thought of another hobby thread. Does anyone else enjoy baking? I don't do it terribly often, but once in a while it's nice to have fresh, homemade stuff. Sometimes even hot, straight out of the oven.

My favourite recipe is a vanilla apple pie. Source moje wypieki



The crust ingredients:
300 g of wheat flour
200 g butter, cold
100 g of powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Instructions:
Knead all the ingredients for the shortcrust base (in a food processor or by hand - chop the butter with a knife and add the remaining ingredients, knead) until the dough forms a ball. Transfer to the dish. Cover with foil, chill in the fridge for 30 - 60 minutes.

The apple filling:
1.2 kg of apples, firm and hard
juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of water
20g of butter
2 tsp vanilla paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1 vanilla pod (you can add more) [more is gooood - Saka]
2 tablespoons of potato starch

Instructions:
Squeeze the lemon juice, pour into a larger container. Peel the apples, remove the cores, cut into eighths. Put the apple pieces into the bowl with the lemon juice and mix.
Pour sugar into the pan, pour water, mix. Heat (do not stir, you can only move the handle of the pan) until the sugar caramelizes and turns golden amber. Add butter, mix to combine.
Add the apples cut into eighths, vanilla to the caramel sauce, fry for a while, stirring, until some of the apples start to fall apart (most of them should remain in pieces, however). Dissolve the potato starch in a few tablespoons of water, add to the apples, mix, remove from the burner. Cool down.

Additionally: 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk, for brushing.

Combining the ingredients into pie:
Grease a t-art tin with a diameter of 24 or 25 cm with butter and sprinkle with wheat flour, shaking off the excess flour.
Remove the cooled dough from the refrigerator and divide it into 2 parts, one larger than the other (approximately 60% and 40%). Roll out the larger part to the size of the form, put it on its bottom and sides, pressing it down. Pour the apple filling over the dough, smooth it out. Roll out the smaller part of the dough as well, cut strips with a knife and lay them in a checkered pattern on the t-art, glue them together with the dough laid out on the sides. Brush the grill with the beaten egg.
Bake at 190°C for about 45 - 50 minutes. Take out, let cool.

Enjoy!

Do you have any recipes you would like to recommend and share? 😁

[GoLLuM13]

I really like vanilla's taste, that made me hungry

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I rarely try baking, and when I do, it would usually be with my mother. Sometimes we bake gingerbread for winter holidays together. But I was looking into baking more often, especially after I got that air fryer, the one I mentioned earlier in the Black Friday thread. I have not tried using it a lot yet, but I want to look into baking options there.

My main problem is that I am quite lazy when it comes to preparing food. Though perhaps "lazy" is a wrong term, for me, it is more that I can't find joy in it. I know there are people (my aunt is one of them) who genuinely enjoy cooking (it is a hobby and an art in its own right, too), all the chopping and boiling and dicing and frying, but I have no patience for that. I prefer simple food that does not require much time or supervision. In that sense, baking is usually not that good, with all the flour and all. I find it hard to motivate myself to attempt.

Incidentally, thinking about food popped a question into my head: have you watched The Menu?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch Does it help if you cook for a relative or friend who would be coming over? I know that I get terribly lazy when alone, but cooking for someone else and watching them enjoy it feels worth the effort.

The movie seems dark. Maybe I can counter it with this:

No idea why the trailer has CC disabled. But the body language and the "nailed" cakes show enough. The show itself on Netflix does have CC, as that's how I watched it.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka The Menu is a bit dark, but not overly so. It's a thriller.

Nailed it is... to be honest, I am not a fan of shows like this at all. I am not a fan of improvised sassiness, not to mention that the end product does not look appetizing. May be fun once or twice, but would get old for me fast. But that's me, if you enjoy it, then that's good.

That being said, I see your "Nailed It" and I will raise you with a bit of "Yakitate!! Japan":