How are you today? I hope your week is off to a great start dear ones. We're definitely heading towards autumn, the temperature has dropped just a little bit and leaves have started appearing on the lawn in our back garden to our furbaby Jade's delight 😊
Jade does love to play with the leaves, bless her 💗 One of her favourite things is to wait until her Dad has piled the leaves up when he's tidying the garden and to jump into them 😄 Yep, our furbaby goes full on Snoopy and her dad doesn't even seem to mind 😊
Last year Hubby bought one of those ... I have no idea what they're called. It's like a garden vacuum and or blower? He can use it to just vacuum up all the leaves and then empty them into the garden bin but he doesn't because he knows how much Jade loves her leaves 😊
Instead he'll blow them all into the one area of the garden so that Jade can have fun and after tidying away all of the other garden untidiness such as the fallen twigs and other garden debris he'll tidy the leaves away. Of course by then Jade will have usually gotten bored with playing with them and will be keeping an eye open for squirrels to play with. So far, not a single squirrel has wanted to play with her, even when she drops her ball at the foot of the fence for them 😍
Enough about the garden then honeys, although todays post is definitely connected to our garden 😊 Today I thought we'd head for the kitchen to make something delicious...
Do you remember that I recently gathered our very first real harvest of Bramley apples from our little tree in the back garden honeys? Our tiny tree is over 11 years old now and over the past couple of years has produced 2-3 apples but this year, no doubt at least in part, thanks to this year's gorgeous summer, and (counting the apples pecked off by our garden birds) there were 31 apples!
So, I thought I'd make some lovely apple turnovers as a treat for Hubby, and also thought I'd share how this wee Scottish lady makes her apple turnovers. There are as many recipes for turnovers as there are cooks because everyone has little tweaks they make to the recipe that makes their turnovers theirs 😋
Let's head to the kitchen then dear ones, why not make a quick cuppa and join me again in a minute or two?
Welcome back honeys 😊
OK, I'm wearing my apron, I've gathered my ingredients together, it's sunny outside, Jade's having a nap so here we go...
Rosie's Apple Turnovers
Ingredients
3 Bramley cooking apples (or 4 small to medium of your favourite variety of apples, try Granny Smiths, Galas or Golden Delicious, or you can mix them)
4 tablespoons of water
5 tablespoons of sugar (I used Demerara brown sugar because I had it on hand and love the taste but regular granulated sugar will do just fine.)
2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon (optional)
1 sheet of frozen puff pastry - defrosted in fridge overnight (I usually prefer my own homemade pastry but I'm battling dreadful pain in my spine right now so I'm happy to use frozen in exchange for less pain. I'll attach my own recipe at the end of this post for you though honeys)
1 egg - beaten to wash over pastry before baking.
Directions
1. Pre-heat your oven to 190C (around 160C in a fan assisted oven) 374F or Gas Mark 5.
Wash, peel, core and chop your apples. Place chopped apples directly into a small bowl of water as you chop. The smaller the pieces your apples are cut into the faster they'll cook.
2. Place the water and sugar into a non stick pot, drain your apples and add them to the pot. Stir over a high heat until the sugar has dissolved.
Turn the heat down to very low (I turn my electric stove down to the lowest heat) give the apples another good stir then put the lid on the pot and allow to cook over the very low heat. It won't take long honeys, maybe 3-4 minutes. No longer without checking though honeys, you don't want it to burn. Remove from the stove and stir.
The steam created by adding the pot lid will have helped cook the apples and they'll now be soft and the water and sugar will have been absorbed into your extra yummy apple mix.
3. Add your cinnamon to taste. I add 2 - 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon here but if you really like cinnamon, add more if you're not a fan leave it out, remember what I said about tweaking until the turnovers are perfect for you dear ones, it's all about making the recipe yours. Each time you make this (and you so will honeys, they taste sooooooo good!) tweak it a little more 😊
Place your perfect apples to one side to allow it to cool.
4. Gently unfold your pastry sheet onto a floured surface and cut into 4 equal squares. If (like me!) you prefer to make your own puff pastry I'll add my own recipe to make it at the end of this post but for today I've used frozen because even standing is painful and I knew I'd have to prepare apples so it's a trade off I'm afraid 😥
5. Spoon some of your lovely apple mixture along the middle of the pastry square...
Now this is where home made beats shop bought for me. Has anyone ever bought a pack of turnovers and thought "where's the filling?" Stores can be quite mean with their fillings sometimes I think. You're making these dear ones, don't overfill (very messy!) but make sure anyone lucky enough to sample them knows there's apple in there 😊
6. Fold your pastry across to form a triangle and press the edges down with a fork to seal them. Using a knife point, poke a tiny hole in the top to allow steam to escape while baking.
7. Fetch your baking tray and line with baking parchment or baking paper honeys. This is just to help to make sure your turnovers can come away from the tray when baked. I always spray a little olive oil onto the baking paper too.
I'm a "be prepared" kinda wee Rosie and there is a little glass spray bottle of olive oil constantly to hand near our stove 😊
8. Beat your egg in a mug or small bowl and brush a coating of beaten egg across the top of your turnovers. If you don't want to use egg, you can use a little milk instead...
9. This is where you have a choice again dear ones. With the turnovers all prepared and ready to pop into the oven to bake...
At this point you can bake your yummy apple turnovers as they are and drizzle some yummy icing sugar across the tops when cooled or you can do as I did this time (although we do love the icing sugar drizzled ones too!) sprinkle lots of lovely sugar across the tops before baking.
10. Bake your turnovers on the middle shelf for 12-14 minutes (check at 12 honeys, mostly they'll be ready by then.) When a lovely, golden brown, remove and carefully (they'll be lava hot, don't burn yourselves) place them onto a cooling rack...
yummmm!!!! Enjoy honeys 😋 As you can see, in the above photo I sprinkled with sugar before baking but if I hadn't, I would have made up some drizzle for them by mixing 3-4 teaspoons of icing sugar with around half a teaspoon of water, waiting until they were completely cool before drizzling it across the top of the turnovers.
Why not experiment with fillings for your turnovers?
Apple turnovers are just the most delicious, yummy treat but I realise not everyone is a huge fan of apples. Maybe you adore apples but friends or a loved one doesn't? Simply change the filling dear ones. Back to those tweaks, make the recipe yours.
Why not get a can of pineapple pieces and mash them, drain the fluid away (but keep to one side, you can use it to mix with icing sugar to make icing for the tops) and use the pineapple to fill the turnovers.
Mixed berries (prepare just as we did the apples above honeys on the stove with a little sugar and water) peaches, pears... fillings are only as limited as the imagination. Choose your favourite fillings, top with sugar or icing. Tweak and tweak again until you find your favourite turnovers and then the recipe is all yours dear ones 😚
Now, as promised, my puff pastry recipe if you'd prefer to make your own rather than use store bought...
Easiest Ever Puff Pastry
Ingredients
250g of plain flour
250g of butter at room temperature - yes we all try to avoid using full butter for health reasons but for puff pastry it works better.
150ml (approx) of cold water.
Directions
1. Sieve flour (and salt if using) into a large bowl.
2. Add butter which has been roughly cut into chunks. Make sure it's not too warm, you want it to be room temperature but not runny or melting.
3. Rub the butter through the flour until combined. You should still be able to see the butter a little. I use my little hand mixer with the bread hooks to do this because I'm incredibly squeamish about getting my hands icky :)
4. Make a well in the middle of the flour/butter mixture and pour in around 2/3 of the cold water. Make sure the water is cold so that it doesn't raise the temperature of the butter and cause it to melt.
5. Mix until you have a thick, firm dough, adding a little extra water if needed. Be careful though because it's easier to add water than remove it again!
6. When you have a firm dough cover your bowl with cling film or a clean tea towel and place into the fridge to rest for approximately 15-20 minutes.
7. Roll out on a flour coated surface being careful to handle it as little as possible to avoid raising the temperature of the pastry.
So, what do you think honeys? Are turnovers one of your favourite treats? Why not try making mini versions of these turnovers for wee ones, you could pop a mini turnover into their packed lunch or make a batch as an extra treat for parties? One of these lovely turnovers is the perfect partner to a lovely cup of tea or coffee too 😊 Let me know what you think, Will you be making these yummy pastries? Are they already a favourite? If so, what's your favourite filling?
Till next time dear ones, smile lots and hug even more, huggles always xx
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