Once baked they are coated with melted butter. They are then rolled in a spiced sugar to give them a lovely crunchy coating.
Again the spices are nutmeg and cinnamon. Very nice I have to say.
I chose to fill them with a cream cheese frosting. You don't need a filling that is overly sweet when you have all that sugar on the outsides.
You want something which is rich and luxurious, but not too sugary. This fits the bill perfectly.
I used my whoopie pie pan to bake these. I have to say I am not always very happy with the way they come out using this pan.
I always end up having to trim the edges. They look alright, but not quite as they would just baked on parchment paper on a baking sheet.
I ended up having to bake these twice. I was much happier with my first set of photos. I thought I had taken them off the camera onto my photo editing program.
I am pretty sure I had, because I then deleted them from off my camera card. So today when I went to edit them, uh oh . . . no photos.
And so I had to bake them all over again today! Not a hardship really. These are so good. In fact they are amazingly delicious!
And so today I now have more to give them away. I don't think my next door neighbour will mind. She is usually the recipient of my baked things.
I can tell you nobody has ever complained! They are always very happy when I bring them a treat.
They say joy shared is doubled. I have to say that baking shared is joy shared. Its a simple thing and means a lot to people to know you care enough to share with them little treats like these.
Anyways, I do hope that you will bake these and then enjoy them. They really are very good. Scrumdiddlyumptious I have to say.
Scrumpdiddlyumptious and incredibly moreish! Trust me. Have I ever lied before? 👍👍👍
Apple Cider Donut Whoopie Pies
Ingredients
- 2 cups (480ml) sweet apple cider or cloudy apple juice
- 2 cups (280g) all purpose (plain) flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- pinch each powdered cloves and ginger
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup (120g) butter
- 1 cup (200g) soft light brown sugar packed
- 1 large free range egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk
- 2 1/2 TBS butter, at room temperature
- 4 TBS full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- few drops vanilla
- 1 cup (130g) sifted icing sugar to give you the right consistency
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 TBS ground cinnamon
- 1 TBS ground nutmeg
- 4 TBS melted butter
Instructions
- You will need to reduce the apple juice before beginning. Put it into a very large beaker and cook it on high in the microwave for 15 minutes until it reduces to 1/2 cup (120ml). (Alternately you can do this in a saucepan on the stove, boiling it for abou 10 minutes.) Set aside to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/gas mark 4. Line two baking sheets with baking paper, or spray two non-stick whoopie pie pans really well with baking spray. Set aside.
- Sift the flour, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and salt together in a bowl.
- Cream the butter and brown sugar together in another bowl until light and well combined. Beat in the egg ad vanilla. Mix on low speed with an eletric mixer while alternately adding the buttermilk, flour and reduced apple juice. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Spoon heaping dessert-spoonfuls (about 1/4 cup) of the batter into the holes of your whoopie pie tins or roughly 3 inches apart on your lined baking sheets.
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. A toothpick inserted in the centre of one should come out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Mix the granulated sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a bowl. Brush the top of each whoopie pie cake with some melted butter and then roll it in the sugar mixture to coat. Set aside until all are done.
- Beat all of the icing ingredients together until smooth and creamy. Sandwich two sugar coated cakes together with some of the icing, spreading it on the flat side of one and topping with the flat side of the other.
- Store in an airtight container until ready to serve. You can wrap each one individually in plastic cling film if you wish.
I can only guess some really brave housewife happened upon the idea of using tomato soup to help cut back on butter and eggs which were really scarce at the time, along with wages. There is some, but not a lot.
What a wonderful way to think outside of the box! How very innovative. Whoever it was, I thank them very much!
You can leave it plain if you wish, or just make a vanilla butter cream. Plain it is lovely toasted lightly and spread with butter.
Yes, I do know how to add extra calories to just about everything. What can I say? Guilty as charged.I guess I just know how to put the good in taste. And my hips don't lie. They are the proof of the pudding.
This spicy moist cake is studded with sweet sticky raisins. You can leave them out if you want, but if you are a raisin lover, I highly recommend you leave them in. You could use chopped dates in their place if you wanted to, or even both.
Same with the walnuts. Leave them in and do toast them first if you can. It does make a difference. You could probably use pecans in their place, but I have just always used walnuts. Where I come from if a recipe calls for nuts, its usually walnuts.
Tomato Soup Cake
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (60g) butter
- 1 cup (195g) sugar
- 1 large free range egg
- 1 (10 3/4 oz)(295g) tin of condensed tomato soup, undiluted
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 1/2 cups (210 g) sifted all purpose (plain)flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/3 cup (50g) raisins
- 1/3 cup (40g) toasted walnuts (coarsely broken)
- 2 1/2 TBS butter, at room temperature
- 4 TBS cream cheese, at room temperature
- few drops of vanilla extract
- 1 cup (130g) icing sugar sifted (or enough to give you the consistency needed) (In the UK it may take considerably more)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter an 8 by 4 inch loaf tin and line with baking paper. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Beat in the tomato soup.
- Sift together the flour, soda, baking powder and spices. Add to the creamed mixture and mix together just to combine. Fold in the raisins and nuts.
- Spread in the loaf tin and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. (Here in the UK, mine took an additional 10 minutes.)
- Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then tip out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- When the cake has cooled make the frosting. Beat everything together until smooth, adding enough icing sugar to give you a smooth, thickish yet spreadable frosting. Spread over the top of the cake.
- Cut into thick slices to serve.
How are you coping with all of the changes in Blogger? I am having a heck of a time myself. I have never been one much for writing code etc. Like a car, I just want to get behind the wheel and turn the key. This sure is different! I suppose in time it will become old hat! Things are not quite looking the same on my home page, but I am hopeful that they will sort themselves out in due time.
What intrigued me about this recipe was that it was mixed and baked in the tin. I have made a cake like that since I was a teen, called Wacky Cake. It was a recipe given to me by my best friend Linda's mother. I have been baking that one for nigh on 50 years now.
This, too was a chocolate cake, very similar to Wacky Cake, but at the same time quite different. This one was in the cookies and bars section of the book, amongst the brownies and other squares.
It also used an egg, which the Wacky Cake did not. In the Wacky cake recipe you made three hollows in the dry ingredients mixed in the pan. Into one went oil. Into the other went vinegar, into the last went water. This recipe has no vinegar either.
It also used melted chocolate instead of cocoa powder. I was intrigued. You lay a layer of walnut halves and chocolate chips on top of it prior to baking. Again, intrigued.
Not intrigued enough however to actually mix the cake in the pan. I wanted to be able to cut it into squares and so I mixed it in a bowl and the poured it into a baking tin I had buttered and lined with baking paper so I could lift it out.
I didn't want to take any chances on it sticking to the pan. I also wanted to be able to cut it into perfect squares. Yes, I can be a bit pedantic when it comes to things like that.
The end result is a lovely and moist chocolate bar/cake. Not too sweet, but with just the right amount of chocolate flavour.
It is more like a cake than a bar. I don't think you could call it a brownie, unless you are wanting a very cake-like brownie.
This is the kind of cake/bar my grandmother would have baked. I would love to know the history of it and how it came to have the name of Flash in a Pan.
I suspect it has something to do with it being mixed all together in the pan. Not to mention the ease at which it goes together and the short time it takes to bake. Indeed it is baked in a flash!
There are a few things in life which make me incredibly happy. One of those things is trying out a new recipe. Another is chocolate cake. I also love walnuts and chocolate chips.
Combine all of those things and I am very happy. In fact I am truly ecstatic if you want to get right down to it!
I don't know about you, but just reading that made my heart happy. Those are my values. Home. Family. Traditions and good food.
The message is repeated again in French just beneath. Did you know that New Brunswick is the ONLY truly officially bilingual province in Canada? Its true. Both Engish and French are its official languages. As are all of the street/traffic/highway signs, etc.
You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe it is the law. I also think most children are able to be educated in both languages. My grandsons are being educated in both French and English. Its a good thing.
Half of this cookbook is in English and half of it is in French. Different recipes in each half. A great impetus to learn the language. Thankfully my highschool French is good enough that I can easily sort it out.
I was really pleased with how this "Flash in a Pan" turned out! It is nice and moist and quite chocolaty considering it only has two ounces of melted chocolate in it. Make sure you use a good dark chocolate.
I love the walnuts on the top. I did not bother to toast them this time as I knew they would be baking in the oven on top of the batter and would get nice and toasty anyways. I didn't want to risk them burning.
Flash in a Pan
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup (120ml) canola oil
- 2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate
- 1 large free range egg
- 1 1/4 cups (175g) plain flour
- 1 cup (190g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup (180ml) water
- 12 to 16 walnuts halved
- 1/2 package of chocolate chips (I used 1 cup/180g)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. You will need a 9-inch square cake tin.
- Mix the first 9 ingredients in the cake tin. Beat with a fork until light and creamy, for about 2 minutes. Scrape the bottom and sides of the tin with a spatula and then spread the batter out evenly in the tin.
- Arrange walnut halves evenly over top and scatter with the chocolate chips. Do not mix them in.
- Bake for about 30 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Cut into squares to serve.
notes:
Clearly I do not have a heck of a lot of willpower when it comes to either chocolate or cake, or walnuts for that matter. Life is far too short not to be happy. A little treat now and then does a body and a mind good. Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
This apple crisp recipe differs somewhat from most apple crisp desserts. Most will have an incredibly sweet brown sugar, flour, butter, and oat topping. The topping for this one is much more like a biscuit topping.
It is almost more like a cobbler than it is a crisp. But just like a crisp, it is a beautifully autumnal dessert that your family is sure to love.
It is perfect made with the fresh autumn apples which are available at present. But don't let that limit you! It is also delicious made with other Autumn or even Summer fruits!
Why not try it with Peaches or Plums. Nectarines would also work well, as would Pears, Raspberries, Blueberries, or Cherries.
You could even do a combination of fruits. Some delectable ones would be Peaches and Raspberries. Or Peaches and Blueberries. Pear and Apple go very well together, as do a mix of berries. We like it best with apples however.
I like to use a mix of apples if I can. I combine some tart cooking apples with some sweet eating apples. Bramley are the cooking apple of choice over here in the UK. They break down to a nice and fluffy, allmost applesauce texture.
Granny Smiths are tart, (not quite as tart as the Bramley), but tend to hold their shape better when cooked. Sweet crisp eating apples add a special sweetness to the mix. I like Pink Ladies.
Combining more than one kind of apple will give you a mix of tender apples suspended in a thicker sauce. If you use more cooking apples than sweet apples you may want to add a few tablespoons of sugar to the mix so as to prevent it from being too tart.
You can even use canned apples, which makes it that much easier. My first husband came from a farm family. They had dairy cows, sheep, chickens and orchards. They also grew vegetables for the local cannery. That would vary year to year.
One year their fields would be filled with peas, and another it might be beans or even carrots. They also grew their own feed for their livestock.
They grew a variety of apples. A delicious mix of eating and cooking apples. Autumn was always a hive of activity as everyone worked hard to get it all in before the really cold weather arrived.
Nothing was wasted. Even the drops were used. They were sent to the Scotian Gold factory to be made into apple juice or pressed into cider.
My MIL was very good at putting things up of course. Shelves in her cold cellar would be lined with jars of produce she had put up, including apples. There were also bins of fresh apples that, surprisingly, lasted all Winter almost into the spring.
I learnt a lot from Lois about cooking. She was a fabulous cook. Most farm wives are great cooks. They need to be. There were always extra mouths at the dinner table and during harvest season this could add up to quite a few extra mouths.
Quite often labourers would pick and choose where they wanted to work according to the kinds of meals the Farm wife would prepare.
Being a good cook made a huge difference to the quality and quantity of labourers you could and would get!
Lois passed away several years ago at the age of 100, having outlived her husband by a good many years. I have always been very grateful to Lois for all that she taught me about being a good wife and a good cook.
She was no shirker of hard work, that's for sure. She was cooking and crafting right on up into her old age, and with care managed to live in her own home right up to the end.
This dessert reminded me of the kind of dessert she would have baked. It has her name written all over it. Old fashioned. Simple. Delicious.
Because I use a mix of apples, the filling has plenty of texture. There is soft saucy bits of apple and firmer bits of apple, all mixed togther. Quite nice really.
You could make short work of cutting the apples by using an apple corer/slicer. I think, however the wedges it makes would be a bit too thick, so if you use one, cut them in half yet again.
This went down a real treat served warm from the oven with ice cold Vanilla ice cream. I do have ice cream scoops somewhere in two sizes, but do you think I can ever find them when I need them? Nada. Not at all.
That's what happens when you have a chef's kitchen crammed into a kitchen that was not meant to be used by anyone who actually likes to cook. Too much stuff, not enough space, equals a degree of frustration that varies from day to day. I really need to get rid of some stuff.
Things would run a lot smoother if I had less stuff. I keep telling myself that, but then I look at things and can't quite bring myself to part with them, because . . . you guessed it, they might come in handy one day.
Anyways, do make this Apple crisp for yourself. I think you will be pleasantly pleased with the results. Moreishly delicious especially with something cold and sweet spooned over top.
Some other apple desserts you might enjoy are:
QUICK AND EASY APPLE TARTS - Perfect for when you are short on time and yet still want to serve a delicious and impressive dessert!
DUTCH APPLE TURNOVERS - Flaky pastry filled with plenty of apples, sweetened with white and brown sugar, and lightly spiced with cinnamon, freshy grated nutmeg, cardamom and a tiny bit of cloves.
Apple Crisp with Sweet Biscuit Topping
Ingredients:
- 5 large apples, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick wedges
- 1 cup (140g) plain flour (all purpose)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (95g) granulated sugar
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 4 TBS butter, melted and cooled
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 7 by 9 inch baking dish, or an 8 inch square baking dish. Arrange the apple slices in the baking dish in an even layer.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and salt. Add the egg and stir/cut it into the flour mixture with a fork or a pastry blender until crumbly. It should have a mix of wet and dry bits. This is how it should look. Sprinkle this evenly over top of the apples.
- Drizzle the melted butter over top evenly. Sprinkle with the cinnamon.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes until the topping is golden brown and the apples are tender with juices bubbling around the edges of the dish.
- Let rest for 20 minutes before serving warm. Spoon out from the dish and accompany with a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream or some pouring cream.
notes:
So the virus is rising again. They say we are into the Second Wave now. I don't know what to think about that. Its a tiny bit frightening to say the least. Stay safe and stay happy! And while you are at it, enjoy some apple crisp! This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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