Cinnamon Swirls

From one of my previous posts I had left over frozen pastry dough. I wanted to try a swirl cookie and I think it came out really delicous. My family ate the whole batch!
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Pastry Dough:
1/2 cup butter; room temperature
2 & 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
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First combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Then take the room temperature butter and cut it into the flour mixture until it looks like big bread crumbs. Then make a well and add the beaten egg and the milk. Fold the milk and egg into the flour and butter until a dough forms. Chill the dough for 30 minutes. Pre-heart the oven at 375 degrees.


When the dough is chilled, make sure you have a floured surface to roll the dough out on. Take a rolling pin to the dough until it is 1/8th of an inch thick. It's very thin! But it's worth the work...
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For the filling I mixed together sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts that I chopped very finely. ( I didn't measure out these ingredients because its basically all sugar but I put about a half a cup of chopped walnuts). When your dough is all rolled out, sprinkle your sugar filling evenly all over the dough. Then, very carefully, start rolling the dough back up. This may be difficult at first but take your time. After the dough is rolled up in a long roll, put it back in the fridge to chill again for 15 minutes.
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After the roll is chilled you can cut cookies off of the end of the roll. I made the cookies about 1/2 inch thick but you could make them smaller or larger. After the cookies are cut, put them on a greased baking sheet in the oven until the dough is golden brown(about 15-20 minutes).
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These cookies turned out really yummy. And you can evn interchange the ingredients in the filling too! Next time I will probably add chocolate. Yum!

Kitten Patissierie

The other day I found this great cookware store near my apartment. It has everything that any cook/chef/baker could ever dream of! I was in heaven...
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Seeing all the baking materials really inspired me to bake something classic and delicious with something seasonal. Apple are perfect for fall, especially warm apple tart! So that is exactly what I decided to make.
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Flaky Pie Dough:
5 & 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 & 1/2 sticks of butter
1 & 3/4 cups solid vegetable shortening, chilled
1 cup ice water
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First, mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Then with your hands or a mixer, cut the butter first into the flour until it looks like course corn meal. Then cut in the shortening until it has clumps. This may take a while if your using your hands but be patient. Make sure the butter and shortening are really cold too.
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Then after the butter and shortening are mixed in, pour in the water and mix together until a dough forms. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

Filling:
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled
1/2 cup of fresh bread crumbs
pinch of cinnamon
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice
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Slice the apples thinly and mix with the lemon juice. Then, in a bowl, mix the other ingredients together with the apples. Bake in the oven in a jelly roll pan until the apples give up some of their juices and they are tender.
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When the dough is done chilling, roll it out on a floured suface till about 1/4 inch thick. Fold and place very gently into tart pan. Make the sides real pretty making slices into the dough. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Dont forget to poke holes on the bottom with a fork!
When the pie crust is cooked, take it out and let it cool. Prepare the topping.
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Topping:
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 & 1/2 teaspoons sugar
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When the pie crust is cooled, fill the crust almost to the top with filling. The assemble the topping. Slice the apples thinly and toss in lemon juice to prevent browning. Then cover the top, anyway your heart desires. I decided to do it classically by fanning them. Brush melted butter over top of the whole tart and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 degrees until the top apples are browned.
This French Apple Tart turned out so well! I worked so hard to make the crust flaky and it really was delicious. The filling was sweet and soft while the top was crusted with sugar.
:) I'm so glad I tried this recipe because it has opened me up to many other classics in baking!