Hey!! Hey!!! Do you want to bake an easy snack?? Do you want something sweet and fruity, but not too sweet?? Boy have I got the thing for you
APPLEFLAPS
This is a treat that, as far as I know, is rather common in Belgium, The Netherlands, and some parts Germany. It’s one of the first baked goods that Dutch kids learn to make, shortly followed by peppernuts and apple pie and poundcake. It’s easy, only requires a couple of ingredients, and has quite a short baking time. You literally cannot go wrong with this I promise. Recipe under the cut
INGREDIENTS NEEDED:
Square puff pastry sheets, but round ones work as well. About 12cm by 12cm preferably (like 4 and half inches by 4 and a half inches). Each sheet will be one (1) pastry. If you get one massive sheet, cut it into smaller squares with like a pair of scissors. Idc I’m not your dad.
Apples, for the filling. Ones you use for apple pie work best but any apples will do. Make sure you’ve got at least 4 large ones (you can eat the leftover filling by the spoonful)
Lemon (or lime) juice, to prevent browning of the apples (and to prevent overwhelming sweetness, if the apples aren’t a bit sour themselves)
Sugar (to taste and for decoration)
Ground cinnamon
An egg for the eggwash (if vegan or allergic to eggs or without eggs, water works as well)
Some lukewarm water
Optional: Vanilla sugar
Optional: (rum-)soaked raisins
UTENSILS NEEDED
Baking sheet
Baking paper
Bowl (large enough for at least 4 cut-up apples)
Knife
Cutting board (covering my bases here)
Spoon
Fork
Lil brush for the eggwash
Your fingers
A fucking oven.
To start
Preheat the oven to 175 Celcius, or about 350 Fahrenheit. If you got the kind of puff pastry that’s frozen, take that out to thaw a little bit. Line your baking sheet with baking paper.
The filling:
Peel the apples. Cut them in half, then in quarters. Core them. Cut the quarters in half lengthwise, then gather a few together and cut these width wise: you want to end up with little triangles. The thickness of these triangles depends wholly on how chunky you want the filling to be. I usually go for about 5 millimetres, which means there’s still some chunk after baking.
Throw the pieces in a bowl. Add a dash of lemon juice, maybe a bit more if the apples are really sweet and you don’t really like that. Throw in the (totally optional) raisins, add some sugar, and pound the bottom of the ground cinnamon jar. Mix with a spoon and give it a little taste. Not sweet enough? Add more sugar. Not cinnamon-y enough? Add more cinnamon. Is it too sweet, or too cinnamon-y? Don’t worry, if you’ve got another apple cut that one up and throw it in. Give it a taste. Still too sweet? Lemon juice. It’ll help. Not more apples? Just roll with it. It’ll taste great either way.
You can heat the filling a little bit if you want, but it’s not necessary and will only result in extra dishes.
Folding and stuff
Filling’s done, and puff pastry’s thawed? Great. Let’s get to filling and folding.
The common shape of the appleflap is a triangle because we tend to use square puff pastry sheets. It doesn’t really matter what the shape ends up being, as long as it’s folded in half and forms a little pocket (you don’t want the filling to spill out a whole lot).
What you do is grab one of the pastry sheets, put it down flat, and put a spoonful (a little less, a little more. It’s a bit of fiddling) in the middle of it. Avoid the edges. Then you use that jar of lukewarm water: using the brush or your fingers, wet one half of the edge of the pastry sheet. Then pinch the dry half and pull it a bit, folding it over. The filling shouldn’t burst out of the pocket or tear the dough: if it does only a little bit, it’s fine, but if it’s far too much simply peel the pocket back open and take some of the filling out.
You’ll notice that when you press the wet edge to the dry edge, it’ll stick shut. Decorate/further secure the edge by crimping it with a fork. There. You’ve done it. That’s a fucking pastry. Carefully place it on the baking sheet, and just continue on until you’re out of pastry dough.
(There will usually be some filling left. This is for you to eat, or for the kiddos you’re making it with)
Finishing touches
Stand before the overfull baking sheet and determine whether or not the pastries will touch as they bake. If they do, take some out. Two rounds of baking is also doable. It’s kind of like cookies.
Brush the top of the pastries with the eggwash or water, then sprinkle some sugar on top. At this point you throw them into the preheated oven for about 25 minutes and just wait. Keep bit of an eye on them though, you don’t want them to burn.
…and that’s it. That’s all there’s to it. They’re fantastic to eat when still warm, and they’re still fantastic when cold. The sugar melts and comes a bit caramel-y so the pastry is a bit tacky, yet the puff pastry itself is still fluffy and dry. The apple pie filling is just fruity goodness. Easy, fun. You can replace the apple filling with different fruits if you want (cherry and apricot is also brilliant). Enjoy!
