It was by far our favourite dessert during our end-of-spring detox.

What do you need for the ...?

DOUGH

3 tbsp of water

1 tbsp of flax seeds

125g gluten-free oatmeal

25g tapioca flour

60g (melted and cooled) butter

a dash of vanilla bean

1 tbsp of apple vinegar

a pinch of salt

FILLING

3 big apples (chopped or grated)

some nutmeg

some (grounded) cinnamon

4 teaspoons of date sugar

15g butter

How to bake it?

First, let the flax seeds sit in water for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, clean the apples, cut them, and chop them in a blender or grate them.

Add the apples to a pan and let them simmer with the nutmeg, cinnamon, date sugar, and butter. Mix when the butter melts and remove from heat. You’ll know when they’re ready because they’ll smell divinely.

In a medium bowl, mix the gluten-free oatmeal, the tapioca flour, the melted and cooled butter, the dash of vanilla bean, the apple vinegar, and the salt. Mix in the flax seeds and the water, too. Knead until the dough is no longer sticky.

Shape the crust in a buttered and floured tart mould. Add the filling.

Bake for 25 minutes at 160°C in the preheated oven.

I served it alongside a cooling sour cherry sorbetto made by Marcel on a torrid day.

Well, many things happened, but I let them go!

Honouring the past years (what a contradiction!), I choose to live in the present, the only one that exists.

And here are two more of my favourite ingredients.

Today: apples

What terrifies me the most when working with apples? The apple seeds! I don’t want them ending up in my desserts!

Where do I get apples from? I love Romanian apples the most, and the Jonathan variety is my favourite.

Why do I love them? I grew up with them. My grandmothers and my Mom used them in many desserts – from pies to soufflés.

How do I use them? Variety has never left my recipe collection as far as apples are concerned. I’ve recently developed a thing for apples and oats and gluten-free apple pies. 

As I wrote in the previous recipe, our detox allowed us to eat a single non-vegan ingredient – butter, as long as it was high-quality butter. We had very few desserts to bring joy into those difficult days; this was one of them.

For a 20x20 cm baking pan, you’ll need—

2 tbsp of butter +40g melted butter

2 apples

125g gluten-free oats

a dash of cinnamon

a dash of nutmeg

a pinch of sea salt

4 tbsp of date sugar

How to prepare?

Melt 2 tbsp of butter. Slice 2 apples.

Pour over them a mix of gluten-free oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, sea salt, date sugar, and the 40g of melted butter.

Bake at 180°C for 20 minutes.

Munch from a bowl while still warm.

I know, I know, I’ve promised 2 recipes since last week. Something occurred, though. Two days ago, I was searching for a solution dealing with some soured whipping cream... and I ended up clicking the recipes on my blog.

So, I told myself ’Why not make a list of recipes to bake/cook when we’ve got ingredients about to spoil?’

I’d like to keep it updated, by categories!

Basic ingredients

cottage cheese: papanaşi, baked papanaşi, Dobrujan pie

egg whites: Pavlova, pricomigdale, walnut cookies

milk: supangle, muhallabieh, galatopita, trileqe, condensed milk

sour cream: ashta

whipping cream: savarine, molehill cake

yoghurt: Romanian donuts, lemon pound cake

1 yolk: tart crust

several yolks: crema catalana

Fruits

apples: apple pie, apple strudel

bananas: Banoffee Pie, vegan coconut and strawberry dessert, vegan banana cookies, vegan banana and peanut butter cookies, vegan banana pound cake, banana and oatmeal cake, banana muffins

blackberries: syrup

grapes: grape pizza, grape cake

quinces: upside-down quince cake

raspberries: smoothie

rhubarb: rhubarb and strawberry cake, rhubarb sauce

Vegetables and herbs

basil: pesto

eggplant: mirza ghasemi

spinach: spanakopita

Already-processed foods

condensed milk: colchão de noiva, Deliciu

preserves: negresă (Romanian brownie)

rice cakes: chocolate cake bars

♥

THE CRUST

150g flour

70g (melted and cooled) butter

1 yolk

1 sachet vanilla sugar

1 tbsp of vinegar

2 tbsp of water

a pinch of salt

+2 tbsp of semolina

+butter and flour -> your baking pan

THE FILLING

3 quinces

1 apple

100ml water

50g sugar

30g butter

cinnamon

Here’s a very quick and tasty pie for the end of fall/beginning of winter and for all those who still have quinces. J

Make the crust based on this recipe. Sprinkle the semolina onto the crust, to absorb the juice of the fruit pieces.

To make the filling, clean the quinces and the apple and cut them into cubes. Pour them into a pan, together with the water, sugar, and cinnamon, and place it on low-medium heat. Let the butter melt slowly on top of all the ingredients.

After the mix boils, the water level drops, and the fruit pieces are caramelised, you can transfer them to the crust.

Bake in the preheated oven, at 170ºC, for 15 minutes.  

One slice won’t be enough.

300g flour

1/2 sachet baking powder

125g sugar

2 tbsp water

3 eggs

60g butter (at room temperature)

4 apples

+butter, flour -> baking pan 

I had many apples. Some very nice people gave them to me. There were 4 apples left. Marcel helped to clean them and then I chopped them in the blender, but you can also shred them.

It was very easy to make the cake. Mix the flour, the baking powder, the sugar, the water, the eggs, and the butter - at room temperature. Then, add the apples.

Bake the cake in a round baking pan - its removable bottom lined with baking parchment and its ring buttered and floured - for 35 minutes, in the preheated oven, at 180°C.

It is an old recipe, with some new flavour.