Apple Pancakes

Was back late last week from a week long holiday to attend a big fat Indian wedding of two buddies and since then I've hardly spent any time in the kitchen (read that as experimenting), barring the necessity cooking. Thanks to a bad stomach, I did enough and more justice to plain khichdi, south indian rasam and curd rice for four days!! When I awoke on Tue morning, it was with a sense of loss and deprivation. Four days of my life had passed by with bland food! Even before I was out of my bed, my mind had conjured up images of exotic food that I wanted for breakfast.

As I rummaged through the contents of the kitchen cabinet, I winced. Everything in there seemed to cry out "Take me and make a South indian breakfast." I shut the door without wanting to hear another voice and went to the refrigerator. I found fruits (plenty of it too) and 2 eggs. Omlettes.. Egg muffins.. Scrambled eggs.. Smoothie.. As I was thinking this, my eyes fell on the maple syrup lying unused and its when I decided breakfast would be hot fruity pancakes with maple syrup!!! Hmm .. Hot apply pancakes actually..

I love pancakes and yes, in all its variations! American, Banana (my favorite), Lemon, Apple, Orange, the list could go on. The first time I tasted the Westerner's version of  pancakes was when Mug and I were in Andaman. The breakfast menu at the resort had banana pancakes and I clearly remember, there was not a day in the entire week that we stayed there, that we didn't have these goodies for breakfast. To date, its been the best we've had!! Since we can't go to the Andaman every time he/I want to eat a good pancake, I decided to learn to make these goodies and have experimented different varieties pancakes at home (once with oats too which I shall not talk about in public :D)

So without further blah blah's, here are the details of another experiment. The recipe wasn't taken off any published source. Based on how I had made pancakes a few months ago, I just eyeballed measurements to get the batter ready. 

Ingredients

1 apple peeled, cored and sliced into small 1/2 inch pieces

1 tbsp sugar (check the sweetness of the apple before you add )

1 tbsp water

1/2 tsp all spice powder

3/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

2 pinches baking powder

1 pinch salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

Method
In a heavy saucepan, cook the apple, sugar and water till the apple pieces are translucent. This should take about 4-5 minutes. Keep stirring to ensure you don't land up with burnt apples! Add the all spice powder just before removing from fire. Let it cool for a few minutes.
At this juncture, you may choose to puree the apples for the pancake batter which will give it a more uniform taste OR just mash the apples slightly so you can get crunchy bits as you eat. 
In a bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Add milk and whisk. Keep aside.
In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Make a well in the center and pour in the milk & egg mixture. 
Add the apple puree / pieces.  Mix it all together.
Heat a lightly buttered griddle/ pan. Pour the batter onto the griddle in the center, using approximately 1 ladle for each pancake. Spread around. Cook on both sides. 
Serve hot topped with pancake / maple syrup.

Apple Pops

Have you ever thought of someone / missed someone and then were reminded of some kind of food ? It happens to me. Its funny how food and people are interwoven in my life. When I think of my mom, its invariably pudina pulao on my mind and vice versa ! When I think of caramel custard, I am always reminded of a buddy, who very sweetly had made it and brought it over for Mug & I one evening. Even the people I don't ever want to be reminded of come to my mind, like for instance, when I think of moong dal sabji, I think of the cook I once had (yes, the one who stole my jewellery & ran away!!). 

So, sometime last week when I spoke to my apple pie, my little 4 year old niece, I wanted to make an apple pie!! On second thoughts, making an 8 / 9 inch pie would mean eating it too and then feeling guilty about all the calories. Its when I hit upon the idea of baking a few apple cookies. Small light cookies I could munch on when my sweet tooth asks for something. Just a bite or two..  Surely, if apple pies exist, there could be apple cookies too!! So as I started the hunt for a few recipes, I hit upon Bakerella's lovely blog with bite size bakes. So cute, so tempting, and oh so guiltless and satisfying!! I didn't really find a recipe for apple cookies, but I was inspired to try baking some apple pops.

I had the basic know how of making a pastry shell, cookie dough and the apple pie topping. It was just a matter of tweaking & combining all together to get bite size pops :D So here goes the experiment... 

  

For the pastry shells:

35 gms Plain flour

35 gms whole wheat flour (atta)

35 gms butter
15 gms icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp beaten egg yolk

2 tbsp cold milk

a pinch of salt

For the filling :

1/2 apple, peeled and cut into small pieces

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp water

3 biscuits crumbed (I used Marie)

a pinch all spice powder

Method for the pastry shells :

Cream butter in a bowl. 

In a separate small bowl, sift the flours, sugar and salt. 

Add the sieved mixture to the butter and rub the butter into the flour so it resembles bread crumbs

Add in the other ingredients and gently knead so it all comes together into a pliable dough.
Leave to rest for 30 mins.


Method for the filling :
In a heavy saucepan, cook the peeled apple, sugar and water till the apple pieces are translucent, this should take about 7-8 minutes. Keep stirring to ensure that you don't have burnt apples!
Add the all spice powder just before removing from fire.
Let it cool for a few minutes and add the biscuit crumbs.
Mix gently till it combines.


To make the pops:
Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and grease the baking tray.
Roll out the pastry dough, like you would for cookies, however a little thinner than cookies would be. Cut the dough with cookie cutters.
Top 1/2 the pop/cookies pieces with about a tsp of filling (vary it as per the size of the pops) and use the remaining dough pieces to cover.
Using a straw, gently press down the ends so that the circumference is sealed.
Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes till golden brown.
Set to cool on a rack.


These apple pops taste great hot or cold, served as is or topped with maple syrup. Try them and let me know how it goes!