If it’s Friday, it must be Simply Baking

And if it’s Simply Baking, then it must be time for my blog stats to jump dramatically, as fans of the Nutter search for the recipes they’ve seen on the show. Knowing how frustrating it is to search for one thing and land in something completely other, today’s post is dedicated to the recipes!  (If, however, you are also interested in attempted analysis of recent junk food commercials, or exhaustive descriptions of crappy MTV/VH1 reality shows, please look around.)

Today Nutter promises classic French recipes. I hope my eyes can withstand the onslaught of his shirt, which is French-ish, I guess… possibly chartreuse? Anyway, let’s crack on.

Apple Tart (with a Nutter twist)

Almond pastry

225g plain flour (sifted)
pinch salt
75g ground almonds
75g caster sugar
2 egg yolks
175g butter, cubed

Shake all the dry ingredients together in a bowl to mix them. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolks and mix to a paste. While you’re mixing, tell an anecdote about a former employee abandoning you following a lottery win. Add the butter and mix lightly to coat the cubes with the dry-ish paste, then get your hands into the mix and start trying to draw it into a ball. It takes a couple of minutes to come together, first in a breadcrumby way and then into a ball. It’s best to wear a vile coloured shirt for this, so you can match the colour of the pastry as it develops. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour, or use the one prepared by the kitchen fairies.

The apple part

Some eating apples (I’m hoping for a better guide to quantities later down the track, but enough to fill a small baking dish – I counted four in Nutter’s dish and, in fact, he confirmed that in the Powerpoint slide at the end.)
3 tbsps lemon juice
5 tbsps Calvados (Cider is suggested as an alternative, but really? No. No it’s not. Maybe brandy mixed with some cider might approximate it? Look, I’m just guessing about that, but since Calvados can be found around and about and is delicious as a drink, so I’d say go for the real McCoy.)

Preheat your oven to 180C. Cut off the “bottom” and the “top” of the apples and peel and core, then chop in half. Pop them in a baking dish – they don’t have to be placed in any sort of formation, by the looks of things – and squeeze some lemon juice over them. Pour the Calvados over, cover with foil, and pop into the oven for about 15 minutes. They’re not supposed to be cooked through – this just takes the “edge” off and infuses the Calvados, apparently.

The tart part

Preheat the oven to 200C. Retrieve the pastry from the fridge, cut in half and roll out to fit a largish tin (that’s the best I can do, sorry! He said it should feed five or six, so that should be a guide). Once it’s rolled out evenly – you can mangle some Italian, French and Spanish phrases to help pass the time – roll it back onto the rolling pin and ease it (gently! gently!) into the tin. Don’t stress about holes as you can patch them with the trimmings. Put the apples around the sides of the tin, cut side down, reserving the cooking liquor. Roll out the remaining pastry, telling yourself that you actually enjoy baking. Yes you do. Enough to have a show entitled Simply Baking? Well, perhaps not. Lay the pastry over the apples and cut a hole in the centre (it looked to be about 5cm in diameter). Dust with 2 tbsps caster sugar and sprinkle with 2 tbsps water. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from tin.

The topping part

Mix 150ml whipping cream with a “touch” of caster sugar. Spoon in 2 tbsps of the reserved Calvados liquid.

The serving part

Spoon the cream into the centre of the still-warm tart and garnish with some thinly sliced apple and a pointless sprig of mint.

= = = = = = = = = =

I hope I’ve managed to get the recipe down properly.  Please report back if you try it and let us know how it went.  In fact, I’m out of Calvados at the moment and have been looking for an excuse to buy some more, so I might even have a go at this myself.

Sunday 2 May: Dawn has been hard at work making the pastry and is keeping us up-to-date on her efforts:

As you can see I donned a simply lovely yellow top to tone in with my pastry…stage one complete, now I am off to enjoy the advocaat!!! Couldn’t fit it in the picture…..pastry is in the fridge for 30 mins…stand by for final photograph!!

The pastry looks sensational – a perfect match for the yellow top! Good to see that you’re staying true to the Nutter method… Looking forward to seeing the final product and hearing how it tastes.

Later, the same day

Next stage….do you like my apron? No mint please note but the two tone apple segments just as Nutter had!

It looked pretty good  but I was disappointed in the flavour but as I couldn’t find Calvados in Batemans Bay, I made do with apple cidar. I think it needed more of something, perhaps almond essence in the apple cidar when cooking the apples??? Or a pinch of cinnamon in the pastry as well???? Anyway it was great fun…can’t wait till next Friday. The dinner guests are excited about what happens next too.

= = = = = = = = = =

Chocolate Pithivier

I’m quite excited about this one, because not only does it use puff pastry – you know you want to say it in Nutter’s accent! – but we’re told “it couldn’t be any simpler”. One of my favourite challenges is messing up things that are meant to be basic, so I’ll definitely have a crack at this one later.

The filling

110g butter, cubed
110g caster sugar
110g ground almonds
110g cocoa
1 egg
2 tsp dark rum

Cream the butter lightly with the caster sugar, being careful not to over-work (he’s talking about the ingredients, but it’s advice for the ages, really). As you’re doing this, relate a the history of the pithivier, or “Epiphany Cake” but be mindful of your audience and substitute “takes pity on you” for “takes the piss out of you” when you get to the bit about wearing the golden crown. Throw in the ground almonds and mix through, using your hands to make sure it’s all combined. Add cocoa and mix through, then add the egg. Unfortunately Nutter advises against using an electric beater, but on the positive side the mixing looks pretty perfunctory. It should come together as a dark paste.

The cake

225g puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 190C. Halve the pastry and roll each half out onto a floured surface, into oblongs. (Well, he says it’s a circular cake, but I guess all will become clear.) Grab a piping bag and fill it with the chocolate paste, then pipe the paste into the centre of one of the oblongs in a spiral pattern. If you don’t have a piping bag you can just “blob” it on to the pastry but in the interests of this being a fancy-shmancy version it’s probably best to have the piping bag. Brush some egg wash generously around the chocolate mixture and trim off the excess pastry to leave a (very rough) circle. Lay the second oblong over the chocolate mixture and mould it around the chocolate snail. Pat it down and trim about a centimetre from the (actual) edge of the snail. Crimp the pastry in towards the centre by pushing the edges in towards the mound. Place on a baking sheet and glaze with a little more egg, then etch a pretty pattern into the pastry with a cocktail stick. Brush with a little more egg wash over the crimpy bits and cook for about 40 minutes until golden brown.

The cooked pastry will be about double in size, so it’s worth making Nutter’s little “dum DUM” sound effect as you take it out of the oven.

Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.