Mermaid Kitchen: Toffee Apple... Something?

Welcome back to my kitchen! Or should I say, to my new kitchen. It's exciting stuff, moving house. Being in a new kitchen and needing to test its baking capabilities, it seemed like the perfect time to do 2021's first Mermaid Kitchen. Complete with video!

Oh yeaaahhh, awkward angles and a t-shirt with a giant face on it. Great combo, don't you think! This is a whole new thing and I need a better set up. Largely, a phone with enough space on it so I can record videos. I'm working on it.

But technical stuff aside, hopefully this process will get more streamlined/better as we go along.

In my kitchen, we are making Toffee Apple... Something? There is pastry involved but it's more like a pizza than a pie? In truth, this is largely down to my laziness but also the fact my pastry kept breaking because I forgot to defrost it over night.

The idea of it all was to use up some of the frozen apples and drown it in the caramel sauce from my birthday cupcakes. This recipe was mostly improvved, just using a bunch of cooking methods I already knew. It had the potential to go horribly wrong or horribly right! I'm hoping the end result is more the latter than the former.

Every kitchen is different and I am presently learning about all the little quirks this one has. Like the hob which heats up incredibly fast and way faster than any of the others, too! It's better than the one which doesn't work at all, so that's something. 9 times out of 10 when we cook on that hob, things get burned. Even when only on a fraction. It is really weird.

I decided the apples probably should not be just chucked on frozen. When formulating this dessert in my head, I was picturing gooey, sticky apples. From frozen would probably just go mushy. While that works in a crumble, I figured these needed a little more TLC. So I cooked them with a couple spoonfuls of sugar and some lemon juice. It was smelling pretty great while they simmered away.

In all honesty, this was pretty easy to do. Despite my misgivings in the footage! It all come together nicely, even the last minute pastry rolling and decorations. I am looking forward to sinking my fork into a slice later. It will definitely need a fork, it is veeerrrryyyyy sticky.

I forgot to check my pastry beforehand but this could be made vegan. I added no dairy or animal products to the caramel or apple (bugs not included, these apples did come from someone's garden after all!). So long as your pastry was vegan, then the rest of this is too!

I have officially run out of things to ramble about, so Imma leave it there! I'll do a quick method for you, should you find yourself with leftover frozen apple and pastry.

Caramel Sauce	Apple Topping	Pastry	Assembly & Bake
250g golden caster sugar and 125ml of water. Heat the sugar and 5 tablespoons of water until dissolved, then leave on a high heat until amber in colour - usually 10 mins. Take off the heat, allow to cool slightly before adding the remaining water. Stir it all up and leave to cool completely before storing or using.	Add frozen apples, a bit of lemon juice, and two tablespoons of sugar to a pan. Cook over a low heat and stir occasionally. It's done when it's mushy enough for you.	Preferably, your ready roll pastry will behave and all you need to do is unroll the packaging. Otherwise, unroll, huff at the breaks, and then reroll. Any cut offs can be used for decorations.	Drizzle a little of the caramel on the pastry and then put on the apple, leaving a 1-2cm gap from the edge. (Need a crust to hold, right?!) Drizzle more sauce because why not. If you have any decorations, decorate! You can egg wash or toffee wash them to minimise burning. Cook at 200C/180C+fan for 25 minutes. Leave to cool before slicing an omnomnoming.

What is your favourite leftovers bake? How did you like the video format? Any suggestions for future bakes/video tips? Lemme know, below!

Listening to: FF9 Feels