Toffee, Apple & Pecan Steamed Pudding

After being very quick off the mark making my Caramel Stroopwafels following last week's Bake Off, I've slipped back into 'just making it in the nick of time' for pudding week. Once I'd clapped eyes on those mouthwatering steamed puddings I knew exactly what I was going to make at the weekend.

We have a small apple tree in the garden, and it's always produced a bumper crop of eating apples. We have no idea what variety they are but they're a really crisp and tart red skinned apple that are great for eating. They're not so great in a pie as they hold their shape a little too well, unlike a Bramley, but are really good in cinnamon apple cakes, toffee apple cinnamon buns or apple custard tarts. Saturday morning I picked a couple of apples from the tree & added them to these extremely simple to make steamed pudding. My family don't usually have the patience for a proper steamed pudding, so I often end up 'steaming' them in the microwave instead (like my 'mum's emergency chocolate cake'), but this time I gave myself plenty of time for steaming, and left it simmering away for an hour and a half. The pudding smelt amazing when I turned it out, and the apples had dispersed themselves nicely throughout the cake, and softened nicely, but not turned to mush. The toffee sauce was also really simple to make, and was adapted slightly from the caramel that I used in my Stroopwafels.

This recipe was a total win, and the family loved it, although they weren't all keen on having pecans on the top so I ate most of those!

Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings

After watching Bake Off last night I knew exactly what I was going to bake this week, and it wasn't going to be 36 doughnuts or Povitica. I love making cinnamon buns, but as they don't have fruit in, and I have a load of windfall apples to use, I decided to pimp up my regular cinnamon buns with an apple & raisin filling and a toffee drizzle.

Toffee Apple Cinnamon Bun Rings - makes 2 rings / 12 buns

500g white bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g caster sugar
50g butter, softened
7g yeast
225-250ml milk
1 egg

filling
4 apples
Juice of half lemon
75g raisins
25g butter
25g soft brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
extra butter for greasing

Toffee sauce - recipe here

• Add the flour, salt, sugar, butter & yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a flat beater
• Add the egg and 225ml of the milk with the motor running, until it all starts to come together, adding more milk if necessary
• You want the dough to be slightly sticky, but not wet
• Turn out onto a floured surface & knead for 5-10 minutes, until soft, stretchy and smooth
• Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover with clingfilm
• Leave to double in size for approx 2 hours
• In the meantime peel, core & slice the apples
• Add the apples to a pan with the lemon juice, raisins, butter, sugar and cinnamon
• Heat until the butter has melted, and mix well
• Place a lid on & cook gently for 10 minutes, until the apple has softened but holds its shape
• Leave to cool & then drain any excess juice
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out into a large rectangle
• Cover evenly with the apple mixture
• Roll up tightly into a long sausage
• Slice the ends off and then slice into 12 equal pieces
• Grease two 8" sandwich tins with butter
• Lay 6 slices into each tin
• Cover with clingfilm and leave to prove for an hour
• Brush the tops of the dough with melted butter
• Bake in a preheated 200C oven for approx 15 minutes
• Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out & drizzling with toffee sauce

Toffee Apple Cobbler

The nights are starting to draw in, the evenings are becoming cooler and the apples are beginning to fall from our tree. Jack collected a couple of boxes full of windfall apples whilst helping his Dad tidy up the garden at the weekend, and after a bit of a clean up and chopping out the bugs and bruises, I had enough for a pie. I didn't have any cream cheese in to make cream cheese pastry, I wasn't going to risk a rubbish shortcrust, and I've exhausted crumble recently, so a cobbler it was to be - kind of a cross between pastry, cake and scones.

It was to be a caramel apple cobbler, but the caramel sauce didn't go exactly to plan, although it did have a very happy ending and the result was a lovely smooth and dark toffee sauce. You only really need around 5-6 tbsp of toffee sauce in this cobbler but the recipe below makes a full jar full, leaving plenty to pour over ice cream or use in other recipes (if it lasts that long!)

Toffee Apple Cobbler

100g butter
200g self raising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
75g caster sugar + 1tbsp for sprinkling on top
1 egg, beaten
enough peeled, cored & sliced apples to fill your pie dish
5-6 tbsp toffee sauce

toffee sauce - makes enough for this recipe + 1 jar extra
400g caster sugar
40g butter
200ml double cream
pinch of sea salt (optional)

• Rub the butter into the flour, until it resembles breadcrumbs
• Stir in the cinnamon & caster sugar
• Mix in the egg until everything starts to come together - if it's too dry, add a dash of milk
• Fill the pie dish up with apples and pour over the toffee sauce
• Roll some of the dough into a ball and flatten between your palms, and lay on top of the apples
• Repeat with the remaining cobbler dough
• Bake in a preheated 170C oven for approx 45 minutes, until cobbler topping is cooked all the way through and the apples are soft, and the toffee sauce is bubbling.

To make the toffee sauce

• Add the sugar to a large frying pan or wide saucepan
• Heat over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved and turned a rich silky brown liquid (if you want a lighter caramel sauce then don't leave it as long - my toffee sauce was completely unintentional but completely delicious!)
• DO NOT STIR THE SUGAR - instead, keep shaking the pan
• Once you have reached your desire brown-ness then remove the pan from heat
• Whisk in the butter and then the cream, and salt (if using)

Toffee Vodka

This is the second of my home-made alcoholic drinks for Christmas, my first being Cherry Vodka. Whereas that one is best left for a few months, this is good to drink within a couple of days. I have my sister in law to thank for putting this idea into my head and just had to try it for myself.

Toffee Vodka

500ml bottle with secure stopper
vodka
135g Werthers Original butter candies

• If the neck on the bottle is wide enough you can put the Werthers straight into the bottle, otherwise you may have to cut them in half.
• Once all of the sweets are in the bottle then just top up with vodka and pop a lid on.
• Over the next couple of days shake the bottle to dissolve the sweets
• Once they are fully dissolved it's ready to drink

Coming soon ..... Malteser Vodka!

I was sent the above bottle as part of a package from Pattesons Glass. This is a corked 500ml Stephanie bottle.

Toffee Apple Pie

The nights are drawing in and a good stodgy pudding is what we all need, good old comfort food. This pie is perfect for those moments when you don't really feel like making much, or if you have little time, but still want a home-made pudding. The recipe is so simple, in fact I feel a bit of a fraud even calling it a recipe at all as there are only four ingredients! If you serve this up to your family they will think that you've been slaving away for hours.

Toffee Apple Pie

8 medium eating apples (I used gala)
1 200g bag of wrapped toffees
250g puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

• Core & slice the apples into 8 (I don't bother to peel them)
• Place the apples in a large microwavable bowl and cover with clingfilm
• Microwave for 8 minutes
• Drain the apples & place them in the pie dish
• Place the toffees amongst the apples, spreading them around
• Roll the pastry out until it's slightly larger than the pie dish
• Brush around the edge of the dish with beaten egg
• Place the pastry on and press down at the edge
• Brush with beaten egg and bake in a 200C oven for approx 15-20 minutes, until golden brown

Serve hot

perfect with a scoop of Kelly's Clotted Cream & Honeycomb ice cream.

I was sent a voucher to enable me to buy a tub of Kelly's Ice Cream

Toffee Popcorn Ice Cream

Ice cream is a perfect way to cool down during this heatwave that the UK is currently experiencing. If the freezer shelves in the supermarket are looking a little sparse due to high demand then home-made is definitely the best option. Here I again use the very simple condensed milk method which needs no ice cream machine, and just like my salted caramel ice cream I used the Carnation Caramel to add that yummy caramel flavour.

Some of the popcorn pieces go a little softer in the ice cream but the toffee coating on them helps them to stay reasonably crisp, although the longer you leave it the softer they go - it's so good it won't stick around for long though!

Toffee Popcorn Ice Cream

600ml Double Cream

397g Carnation Caramel

100g Butterkist Toffee Popcorn

• Whisk together the cream and 300g of the caramel until it forms peaks
• Pour the mixture into a freezable container
• Reserve a small handful of popcorn and stir the rest through the ice cream mixture, along with the remaining caramel, leaving swirls
• Add the remaining popcorn to the top of the ice cream mixture
• Freeze for around 4 hours
• remove from the freezer approx 10 minutes before serving (or less if it's a really warm day)

I was sent an OXO Good Grips Beak Ice cream scoop which, due to the pointed tip and non stick coating glides through the firmest of ice cream and delivers large rounded scoops with the aid of the release button.