1 x 400g Today Puff Pastry 2 large apples egg-wash: egg yolk + 15ml water whisked together
Preheat your oven to 200℃ and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Unroll your pastry and divide and cut it into 8 equal squares. Place 4 squares on the prepared baking tray and set aside. Make 0,5cm incisions in a vertical line on the other pastry squares. Fill the squares with these incisions following a “brick-laying” pattern. Peel, halve and core the apples. Place half an apple on a square on the baking sheet and cover with a square with incisions. Press down to seal and trim off the excess pastry. Brush with egg-wash and repeat with the rest of the squares and apple. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes and serve with custard.
I love to bake snacks that can be kept in a glass jar for a few weeks (very optimistic!) and biscotti has a place of honour amongst them. The recipe yields about 36 slices and can be kept for 3-4 weeks when stored in a sealed glass container.
Preheat your oven to 160℃ and line two large baking sheets with baking paper. Add the oil and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on high speed until well blended. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat for another 2 minutes. Set aside. Add the flour, salt and baking powder to a large mixing bowl and give it a stir to mix. Run the mixer on the lowest speed and gradually add the flour mixture, allowing time to incorporate between additions. Remove the bowl from the mixer, add the cranberries and pistachios and mix through with a spatula. Divide the dough in half. Wet your hands (the dough is extremely sticky) and shape each half portion of the dough into a log shape about 25cm in length. The logs won’t look wide enough to “become” biscotti, but the mixture will spread during baking and end up being wider than the shaped log. Place the logs onto the prepared baking sheets and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the biscotti logs from the oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes. Turn the oven setting down to 130℃. Slice the logs diagonally into 1cm thick slices. Lay the slices flat onto the same baking sheets and dry in the oven for about 50 minutes. Feel the biscotti – it should be hard and shouldn’t give when you press it between your fingers. Cool the biscotti on a cooling rack before packing them into a glass jar.
My Whisk and I 