Spiced Apple and Rye Hand Pies

I woke to the sound of a kookaburra’s call a few mornings ago. The sentinel of his flock perhaps, a call to arms to indicate the first slivers of light appearing through the trees on the horizon. It always goes quiet after his call. It’s a long string of distinctive caws increasing in volume and energy to a final crescendo before silence falls. I imagine his fellow flock members stirring in their eucalypt branches sandy eyes blinking open winged feathers ruffling as they stretch and meet the day as he nods off from the night shift keeping watch. Is it the same Kookaburra doing this job every morning or do they take turns? Are they even so organised a species? Who knows, it’s these cerebral meanderings that float around my mind while I procrastinate from the inevitability the breaking light heralds. Probably time to ruffle my own feathers and rub the sand from my eyes.

The calls of the morning are quieter at the moment. It’s autumn and we’ve freshly switched off day light saving time. The damp cold stillness that the turn of the season towards winter brings settles over all of us. Nature its own beacon to the shift. Leaves turn all the colours of their own red, orange and gold rainbow, plants slow their growth and animals start their pre hibernation routine fattening up for the coming cold. We humans are similar in a fashion. We become drawn to foods that warm and nourish our bodies and minds. Porridge for breakfast a promise that helps draw the covers back, hot tea at morning teatime to warm from the inside out and stews and soups to comfort and nurture at the end of the day to fill bellies and fuel our bodies to keep us warm.

Not only do we look to warm hearty fair to warm us from the inside out and stoke out internal furnaces we’re also are drawn to particular flavours and their memories evoked by the season. Spices often compliment such meals the warming notes of specific extracts doing the heavy lifting. Be they in that porridge, tea, a stew or slow cook but most particularly in a bake, spices can add complexity and sensation to a dish that adds another dimension and layer to the experience. If you look through my recipe collection you’ll note it’s no secret that I adore cooking with spices. The shift in seasons and my proclivity to lean on them got me to pondering this, procrasitpondering if you will. And it occurs to me that this is not just rooted (see what I did there? Rooted? Ginger, coriander, wasabi) in my love of flavour but also the extra elements their characteristics offer to enhance a meal. Characteristics like sweet, savoury, earthiness, warmth, brightness, freshness amongst others all create a dance between themselves and other ingredients in your cooking. Much in the way music does to a song spices can create a cohesion to all the components of your culinary creations.

And so to the season. As we let go of the warmer weather and flavours like makrut lime, lemongrass, basil and mint amongst other summer flavours we turn to autumnal ones. Interestingly not only do they lend the colours of the season but flavours that settle over us with recollections and experiences whose memories come to life as the flavours erupt on our palettes. Pumpkin, maple, chestnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, apples pears and all those beautiful warming spices like ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and the like form the foundations of many of our favourite recipes that bridge our journey from hot weather to cold.

Laying in bed listening to the silence around that Kookaburra’s call, the breeze tumbling overnight rainfall droplets from the leaves on which they’d settled knowing it was cold outside I didn’t crave fruit or salad, I craved something baked. I yearned for my home to be filled with aromas of sugar, butter and spice, the cosiness that evokes and the delicious morning tea I would pull from my oven at the end of that fragrant alchemy.

Notes:

I use a blender (vitamix) to make my pastry in this instance. You can follow the same instructions in a food processor. If you have neither or prefer to use your hands employ a traditional method of rubbing butter into the dry ingredients doing the job of the blades, make a well in the centre and add the wet ingredients and bring together with your hands again doing the work the blades would do and give a short simple knead to bring together.

Makes 12 Hands Pies

Ingredients:

125 gm cold butter in small cubes

150 gm plain flour

70 gm rye flour (you can substitute wholemeal wheat flour here if you prefer or even use plain white flour. If using plain white you may find you only need one Tb of the water).

1 scant tsp cardamon ground

20 g/1 Tb caster sugar

1 egg yolk

60 gm sour cream

1-2 Tb ice water

2 large green apples, peeled and cut into thinly sliced chunks

2 Tb brown sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt extra

An extra egg for brushing pastry beaten with a splash of milk

Demerara sugar to sprinkle

Method:

In a blender or food processor (see above if you have neither) add cubed butter, flours, caster sugar, cardamon and a pinch of salt. Doing this step in this order, butter first then dry ingredients, is important as it integrates the butter and flour more efficiently and therefore reduces the time under mix and the chance of the dough becoming overworked. Pulse the machine a few times until the butter and dry ingredients are integrated in the way they would be if you’d rubbed them together with your fingers. A few lumps of butter is fine and in fact preferable. In a small bowl, beat together the egg yolk and sour cream. Add the wet mixture to the mixture in your blender/processor and pulse a few times again until the mixture has come together mostly. Tip the mixture out onto a bench and use your hands to finish bringing everything together gently. Pat down into a disc, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Prepare apples and tip into a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle over brown sugar, cinnamon and salt and stir well until sugar is completely coated. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 180c and line a large baking tray with baking paper.

Remove pastry from fridge and roll out to a thickness of 3mm. Cut rolled pastry into rounds. I’ve used a tin lid of 11.5 cms across. To assemble pies, take a round in your hand, holding like a taco shell and brush the edges with the egg wash. Spoon a heaped desert spoonful of apple into the centre and pinch the edges together to seal. It will look like an overgrown dumpling. Continue this until all rounds are stuffed. Line up on tray and brush with egg wash and sprinkle over demerara sugar. Bake for 25-30 mins.

Eat warm or cold, with cream or custard or whatever your autumnal heart desires.

Whiskey and Orange Cake

My Dad, always loved a little nip of whiskey after dinner. Not a big glug or many glasses of such just a little splash, neat, to relax him and warm him up he’d say. He had his own bottle on the bar at his local footy club and a bottle at his local freemason’s lodge. It was part of his persona and one of the things his friends and I remember fondly about him. He also loved cake, until the day he passed away he fondly enjoyed a ‘sliver’ of cake. The nostalgic flavours of his favourites remained one of the things his dementia addled brain never was unable to ravage as I reflected on here.

Waddling around these last couple of days with a stiff sore back needing heat packs and a little something to offer some comfort I was reminded of my dad’s small daily rituals of a dash of warming scotch whiskey and cake, usually enjoyed separately. Well I’ve rolled them together. Warming rich malty whiskey and fresh squeezed orange juice warmed with honey and poured over dark squishy sultanas and currants. Combined with brown sugar and butter and the usual cake suspects I’ve created a light fluffy cake that feels like a warm hug.

Both warming the whiskey and cooking it again in the oven cooks out any alcohol content so if for any reason you need to avoid that this is will still work for you. The whiskey creates a richness to the flavour rounding out the almost caramel like notes of the dried fruit and honey rather than that usual harsh burn of a strait drink of the spirit. This cake is also dairy free for anyone needing to avoid that too.

Ingredients:

80 gm sultanas

80 gm currants

Juice and zest of an orange

100 whiskey

1tb honey

½ tsp bicarb soda

2 eggs

120 gm brown sugar

1 tsp vaniaa

75 gm butter melted and cooled

180gm self raising flour

¼ tsp salt flakes

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c. Line and grease a 19 cm springform pac.

Combine dried fruit, orange zest, nutmeg and bicarb soda in a medium bowl set aside. In a small saucepan combine whiskey, juice and honey and warm over medium heat until small bubbles begin on the edges of the surface. Immediately pour over fruit mixture and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Using a stand mixer with whisk attachment mix eggs, sugar and vanilla on medium high until lighter in colour and frothy. Drizzle the melted butter in while still whisking and mix briefly until its combined but before it splits, mere seconds.

Gently tip flour and salt in and using a hand balloon whisk fold into egg mixture until almost combine. Pour in fruit mixture and all the liquid and continue folding together briefly.

Pour into prepared tin and bake 40 minutes.

Cool in tin five minutes then remove from spring form. Served dusted with icing sugar and if you’re really feeling fancy a drizzle of caramel like this one.

Many hours sitting in waiting rooms this week means many hours scrolling, I don’t want to think what my iphone screen time report will look like this week. A few beauties stopped me in my tracks and are on the to cook list. This spicy easy dinner will be a hit with my lot. Not sure if this veg number will be but I’ll love it and will come back to it for Christmas entertaining. Likewise this dip which is my husband’s idea of food hell, and my idea of food heaven, venus and mars right there. Reading is the other great way to keep busy in those busy waiting rooms. I finished this much anticipated stellar sequel this week and LOVED it. I also whizzed through this light aussie read this week. I’ve enjoyed all of the authors book previously and this was no exception.