Apple Tart with Hazelnut Brown Sugar Topping

Hello readers! It’s Mira writing from Amman, Jordan where I live. I am a dentist, and I spend my days fixing teeth, but my passion is making delicious desserts that decay them. Very business savvy wouldn’t you say?

I recently gave birth to my first child, a beautiful baby girl, and so even though I don’t have enough time to be baking just yet, I’m going to share a dessert I made a while ago when I was still pregnant.

As any pregnant woman knows, the last few weeks of pregnancy drag on forever! People around you begin to take personal offense every time they see you and your still sporting the baby bump. Around 20 times a day you hear, “wow! Your still hanging in there?!”, or ” can’t believe you haven’t given birth yet!”. No really, I already had the baby and decided not to tell you, and this bump? That’s just water weight.

After a few days of this constant nagging, I decided to start thinking of ways to get the birth ball rolling. Someone had told me that cinnamon could induce labour, so I decided to get my dose of cinnamon in the form of apple pie. After I saw this recipe for an Apple Tart with Hazelnut Brown Sugar Topping in my More from Magnolia cookbook I thought, even better! This tart comes together in a snap and tastes fantastic. The chopped hazelnuts on top gave the perfect nutty crunch contrast to the sweet softened apple filling. The filling was a little too simple for me so I added cinnamon and nutmeg to make it more apple pie like. Although the cinnamon tip didn’t work (I hung on past my due date) I still enjoyed every bite.

Recipe (Adapted From More from Magnolia)

Brown Sugar Topping

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts

Filling

3 cup thinly sliced tart apples
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Crust

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 160C

To make the topping:
In a medium sized bowl, mix together the flour and sugar. Using a pasty blender cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Add the hazelnuts and using your hands toss until all the ingredients are well combined. Set aside.

To make the filling:
Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and toss gently until fruit is evenly coated. Set aside.

To make the crust:
In a large bowl, on the low speed of an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the egg and the egg yolk and mix well. Add the flour and baking powder and beat until
just combined. Gather the dough into a ball and on a lightly floured surface roll the dough out to fit a 10 inch tart pan. Fit the dough into the pan and trim the edge flush with the rim of the pan.

Transfer the fruit filling into the crust and sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar topping. Place tart on baking sheet and bake for 50 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 1-2 hours. Serve at room temperature or warm.

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake

My first time making this I had high expectations, which this cake surpassed. It was so good. So, so good.  A little goes a long way and it’s visually impressive so this is a great celebration cake

   

So, although this cheesecake involves several steps it’s actually really easy.  We already made the brownie chunks yesterday, so what’s left is making the actual cheesecake batter, the crumb crust, and the chocolate ganache.  Starting with the crumb crust:

Step One: Crumb Crust
Adapted from Gourmet, 1999

The below includes quantities for a normal amount of crumb crust- a single portion, and a doubled amount.  I chose to double, because I like a lot of crust, and even then it didn’t seem like a lot.  The doubling amounts are written in parenthesis! I recommend doubling. 

1 1/2 cups (3 cups) oreos
1 1/2 cups(3 cups) oreos
5 tablespoons (10 tablespoons or 140 grams to double) unsalted butter*, melted
**1/8 cup (1/4 cup to double) sugar
1/8 (1/4 teaspoon to double) teaspoon salt
*I much prefer weighing butter then measuring it out into tablespoons…great timesaver! I recommend a kitchen scale. I’ll do a post on conversions for things like butter soon
**If you have seen the smitten kitchen recipe, I add a lot less sugar to the crust, it really doesn’t need the extra sugar. I recommend adding a little and tasting before adding more.

Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of a buttered 24-centimeter springform pan. Fill right away or chill up to 2 hours.

Step Two: Cheesecake Filling
Adapted from the Three Cities of Spain Coffeehouse

3 packages cream cheese, softened (you need 670 grams, about 2 and 1/3 of the big Kraft packets)
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups brownie cubes (from recipe above)

Make crumb crust as directed above for 24-centimeter cheesecake. Preheat oven to 350°F(175 C).

Make filling and bake cake: Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.

Fold brownie cubes in very gently and pour mixture into prepared pan. Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan. Pour filling into crust and bake in baking pan (to catch drips) in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until cake is set 3 inches from edge but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken. Don’t forget to put your cheesecake pan on another shallow pan! A lot of butter from the crust leaked out in my case, which would have made a big mess in my oven.

When completely cool, top with following glaze:

Part Three: Ganache Glaze
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken up, or 1/2 cup chocolate morsels
2 ounces butter (60grams)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon confectioners sugar (I put even less, around 1/2 tablespoon)

Grind the chocolate into powder in the food processor, scald the butter and cream in a saucepan (or in a Pyrex cup in the microwave). Basically, it needs to be hot with a little steam coming off. With the machine running, pour the hot cream/butter mixture slowly through the feed tube onto the chocolate. Blend until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down sides once or twice. Add the extract and sugar and process until smooth. Spread over cheesecake while ganache is still warm. Chill until ready to serve.

You’ll find the original recipe without my changes here:

So good.

One Bowl Brownies

I’m in the process of making a smitten kitchen cheesecake recipe I’ve had my eye on for a while now, a cheesecake with brownies swirled in and the first step is making the brownies to mix into the cheesecake batter.  To save on work, I decided to make the brownies one day in advance, pop them in a tupperware container in the fridge, then continue the cheesecake the next day.  Although I consider myself a pretty good baker, there is something about brownies that I seem to always mess up.  They come out too cakey, too dry, too grainy.  However, I’ve made a few recipes lately that have me convinced that even I can make a good brownie, and this very basic brownie is one of them:

Baker’s One Bowl Brownies:

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (Baker’s chocolate, optional of course)
3/4 cup (170 grams) butter
1 3/4cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350°F (170 C) . Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Grease foil.

Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on high for 2 minutes, or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well. Spread into prepared pan.

Bake 30 to 35 minute or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool in pan on wire rack. Remove brownies from pan, using foil handles.

After cooling brownies, you might find it easier to refrigerate them before you start cutting.  Cut them into 1 inch squares for use in the cheesecake.  I cut mine pretty big, so I might have to further crumble them up.  Using a pizza cutter made the process very easy.  You need two cups of cubes for the cheesecake recipe, which will be coming in my next post so you will have extra brownie bites.  This is a very dangerous thing…I couldn’t keep away from the tupperware of brownies in the fridge.  I really liked this recipe, and think it would make a good stand alone brownie recipe with the following changes: baking in an 8 by 8 pan with increased baking time to make the brownies thicker and fudgier (I like really thick brownies), adding 1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips to enhance the chocolate flavor.  This is a very easy recipe, and is meant to all be prepared in one bowl which really minimizes cleaning time after.  That is, unless you are like me and transfer the batter between three bowls, realizing each time the bowl you put it in is too small.  Next time, I’ll listen to the instructions when they clearly state “in a large bowl”!

Cheesecake post will follow… Happy Baking!