bavarian apple torte.

I was at my parents' house in Thornhill the other week for my dad's 60th birthday. I was given the job of making dessert, and I opted for one of my all time faves: a Bavarian apple torte. I'd never made it myself before, but my mum would often make it on request for my birthday. It's so delicious, and turns out it's also totally easy to make!

Erick and I went apple picking on Wednesday. It was a beautiful day and I pet some adorable ponies and a goat. It was great. With an abundance of apples now in the house I decided to make the torte again.

Here's the recipe:

Crust
1/2 cup of butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour

Filling
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Apples
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 cups of sliced apples (3-4 apples)

You can use a 9-10'' tart pan, or a 9-10'' spring form pan.

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Make the crust. Mix together all the required ingredients in a stand mixer until you have an even crumbly mixture. Dump it in your tart pan, and press into place along the bottom and about 1'' up the side of the tin. Make sure the crust is relatively even in thickness.

Dust out your mixing bowl, then throw in the ingredients for the filling. Blend together until relatively smooth. Pour into the crust and spread it out so it's an even layer.

In another bowl, mix together the apples, sugar, and cinnamon. Now one slice at a time, lay the apples in a pleasing manner on top of the cream cheese mixture.

Pop in the oven and bake at 450F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 400F and bake an additional 25 minutes. Allow the torte to cool, then remove it from the pan and serve cold or at room temperature.

a peach galette. yum!

I LOVE peaches. They are so sweet and delicious right now. I've been buying at least 1 basket a week and eating them on my cereal, in smoothies, on ice cream, and just straight out of my hand.

Last week I decided to make some into a peach galette. Galettes are awesome. They're basically just like a pie, but even easier to make. I made a delicious savory zucchini and ricotta galette last year, and had yet to make a sweet version. I used this as the basis of my recipe.



Take a bunch of peaches (maybe 6-8), peel them, and cut them into slices. Mix in sugar, cinnamon, corn starch, salt, and vanilla.



Roll out some dough to about an 1/8th of an inch thick. I used some pâte brisée that I had in the freezer left over from when I made a rhubarb pie. It's a simple multi-functional pie dough.




Transfer your rolled out dough to a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Then dump your tasty peaches into the middle of it. Fold the crust over the fruit. Brush the dough with some buttermilk, and sprinkle with sugar. I had some buttermilk in the fridge leftover from wedding cake making, but it had gone bad. So I just skipped this part.



Bake in the oven at 350F for 30 minutes or so.



And peaches like cream, so if you want to you can whip up some whipping cream and plop a dollop of that on top. YUM.

Peach Galette

1 pie crust
6-8 large freestone peaches
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cornstarch
pinch salt
1 tablespoon buttermilk
granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment.