[Recipe] The yummiest, juciest apple pie!

Hey guys!

Autumn is in full swing and I couldn't be happier. Finally it's sweater weather again ♥ I'm full of love and I've been listening to autumn playlists for days on end. Good times.

So a couple of days ago I really felt like having apple pie, but it was a Saturday night, the shops were about to close and there was nowhere I could get any. :(
But my brother had the best idea to just bake one. (Why didn't that cross my mind?)
Checking the pantry and fridge revealed that we indeed did have all the ingredients at hand. Rejoice!
So we whipped up this super yummy pie, and it was amazing. Also I just remembered that I saved up two slices in my fridge :D

You really need to try this. It's sooo yummy and not hard at all! Though I did realize that I need to work on my pie crusts (they're very thin on the bottom and thick at the sides, not really the way I like it.)
The orange juice and soft cooked apples in the filling is probably what makes this so juicy and delicious. Unfortunately it's not a pie you can eat warm (because I live for eating baked goods straight from the oven. Soooo good!), it does have to cool off overnight so the filling will go firm, but the waiting is SO worth it.

Without further ado, the recipe!

Fruity Apple Pie

Prep time: 1 hr
Baking time: 1 hr

Prepare a day a head

Ingredients:

For the crust:

170g flour

70g ground almonds

1 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

70g sugar

a packet of vanilla sugar

120g butter

1 small egg

For the filling:

1kg apples

1 tbsp lemon juice

200ml water

500ml orange juice, no added sugar

2 packets custard/pudding powder, vanilla flavor

130g sugar

1 tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

shaved almonds (for the topping)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Mix flour, ground almonds, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, vanilla sugar, butter and the egg and knead it into a smooth, not too firm dough. Wrap in cling film and let it rest in the fridge.

3. Peel and core the apples. Put about 350g away. Cut the rest into very thin slices and add them to a large pot. Add water and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Strain the pot, catching both the liquid and the apple slices. Fill the liquid back into the pot along with the orange juice.

4. Mix pudding powder, cinnamon and sugar in a smaller bowl, add some tablespoons of liquid from the pot and stir until there are no lumps left.

5. Bring the liquid in the pot to a boil again, remove it from the heat and stir in the prepared pudding. Put it back on low heat and cook it to a thick consistency, stirring continously. Remove it from the heat and add the cooked apple slices.

6. Grease and flour a springform pan (26cm diameter). Lay out the dough, making a 2cm high crust on the sides. Pour in the filling.

7. Cut the rest of the apples into slices and cover the pie. Sprinkle or cover with shaved almonds.

8. Bake for 20 minutes at 200°C. After that, reduce the heat to 180°C and bake for another 45 minutes. If the top is getting too brown, you can cover it with tin foil for the last 15 minutes of baking.

9. Take it out and let it cool overnight in the pan.

10. Serve with whipped cream and enjoy!

Happy baking!

Love, Besa

[Recipe] Nutella Chocolate Muffins

Heeeey everyone!

I should be SO stressed right now.
My first exam is on Tuesday and I stayed up studying until the A.M. yesterday and I feel like I'm not making any progress. Screw you, Statistics.
So naturally, instead of freaking out and get my nose up in my books and study more more more, I've whipped up a batch of chocolate muffins.

And instead of doing that now while munching down on them muffins, I'm blogging about it.

How I managed to pass any exams at all last semester is beyond me.

Anyway!

I made these and they are really good. The recipe is freestyled again, just used my go-to "pound muffn" base recipe (though lately I'm feeling that I should use a lot less butter since they always turn out super greasy lol).
I didn't want to leave them plain though so I checked the pantry for whatever I could use and wound up with chocolate muffins with a surprise Nutella core~!

I should've used less sugar and more cocoa powder, the chocolate taste is really subtle. But that should be okay if you use more Nutella. I didn't have a lot, so I didn't do either, but they are pretty yummy nonetheless.

And so fluffy!

Nutella Chocolate Muffins
Makes: 20-24 muffins
Prep time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:
200g flour
200g sugar and cocoa powder (adjust the ratio to your taste - I used 150g sugar and 50g cocoa powder)
200g butter
4 small or 3 large eggs
1 packet baking soda
Nutella for the filling

Instructions:
1. Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the soft butter and eggs and mix well until you get a soft dough. It should slide off your spoon easily but also shouldn't be runny.
3. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F.
4. Line a muffin tray with paper liners or grease it thoroughly.
5. Fill a spoonful of dough into every muffin liner, add a spoonful of Nutella on top and cover it with yet another spoonful dough.
6. Put in the oven and let bake 15-20 minutes. They should rise up and get nice and fluffy.

That's it! Eat while warm, that's when the Nutella heart is extra runny and delicious.

Happy baking!

Lots of love,
Besa

[Recipe] Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

Hey guys!

Yesterday I was in Aachen for the first time after my registration, to take a look at the campus and the different buildings of my university. It's crazy huge - I'm really not sure how I'm going to find my lecture halls, let's hope I don't get lost because I'm certain that will happen at least a few times in the first weeks... And after that. Oh well.

I've been looking for people to travel with at least during freshman orientation week. I have to take two trains every morning to get there which rounds up to about 1 1/2 hours, and while that's probably the perfect time to read or play Pokémon, it's also the first time in my life commuting like that and as long as I'm getting used to it I'd like to be with other people... I'm still scared of the world, don't laugh at me. :(

Anyway, we now have a group of eight people (I think) for the first day of uni - they're all really cool and I can't wait to actually meet them - and because I'm nice I've baked a batch of muffins and we're gonna have a tea party on the train! :D

I don't know what I did wrong because for some reason my third set turned out much better than the other two, maybe it's because the batter had to rest a bit. Hm. I'll try and remember that for the next time. So maybe you should do that, too. Anyway, here's the recipe:

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins
Makes: 30 muffins
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 20-30 minutes

Nutrition facts (per muffin):
Calories: 153
Fat: 4.2g
Cholesterol: 51mg
Sugar: 15.1g

Ingredients:
400g white flour
400g sugar
300g yogurt (unsweetened and unflavoured)
100g butter
8 eggs
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen ones, but fresh probably also works)
1 packet baking soda

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Melt the butter. For this, grab two different-sized metal bowls (or similar containers), put the butter in the smaller one, fill the larger one with water (though not too much) and place the smaller one in it so it floats on the water. Put it on a low heat, it should be just hot enough to make the butter melt.

3. Mix the flour, sugar and baking soda and stir in the eggs, yogurt and melted butter.

4. Stir until you get a smooth batter. You can just use a large spoon for this.

5. Mix in the blueberries. (Though in retrospect I've learned that mixing any kinds of soft berries into the dough makes it go dark and should be avoided - you should rather just drop them in when you fill up the paper liners right before they go into the oven!)

6. Line your muffin tray with paper cups or grease it thoroughly, and pour the batter into it so it covers 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the cups. They will rise quite nicely when they bake.

7. Bake them for 20 to 30 minutes, always check back with a toothpick - when no more crumbs stick to it after you poke a muffin, they're done!

And that's it! I think next time I'm going to use more blueberries and less sugar, but they turned out quite nice and my family liked them - let's see what my new friends in college think :)

Happy baking!

Besa

P.S.: I've changed my theme around a little :) What do you guys think?

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