Autumn in a pastry? Cinnamon apple turnovers

Here in the lovely part of Scotland we have chosen to call home, it's most definitely Autumn.  Not only are the leaves changing colours and starting to fall (very pretty and fun for the kids, but a mess in the garden), but the temperature has dropped noticeably and we are barely getting into double figures these days (well, perhaps up to 11c/52f). 

I have some American friends, and am in an American cake group, and love how much they love their Holidays.  Starting with Halloween, then Thanksgiving then Christmas, it's just one big party for the next few months for them.  And all the blogs and Facebook pages are talking about baking and cooking with seasonal ingredients, most noticeably pumpkin and spices. 

I read about a really easy, tasty-sounding idea on one of the pages/blogs and didn't have all the ingredients to hand but wanted to make it.  So I (thought I bookmarked it, or emailed the recipe to myself) bought the ingredients the next weekend and got excited.  Then couldn't find the recipe for love nor money.  I mean anywhere!  I tried The Girl Who Ate Everything, not her.  I tried Created by Diane, not her.  It wasn't even Betty Crocker, for goodness' sake.   I was fast running out of patience, but more importantly I felt, desire to bake, eek.  So from my vague memory and without knowing correct proportions I went ahead with these Cinnamon Apple pastries...

 That's a sheet of store-bought puff pastry cut into eight rectangles  (ooh, could it have been on their site??), topped with apple pie filling and a mix of cream cheese (or their site?), icing sugar (confectioners/powdered sugar) and ground cinnamon.  I had to guess at the amounts, and just kept adding until it tasted good.

But I ended up with too much filling, and not enough space within each pastry rectangle, so did the best I could to pinch the edges together.  Then to bake...

Uh, they kind of exploded a little.  But mmm mmm, they tasted great!!  They were best warm, but The Team still managed to gobble them up at afternoon tea that day.  If you happen to see the recipe anywhere, please get in touch!

 

Mini pumpkin pies, better late than never

Before I got around to the actual baking and cooking, I had had great plans for things to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.  These mini pumpkin pies were one of the items I planned to make, but after reading (incorrectly, as it turned out) through the recipe, I felt that the dozen it would supply wouldn't be enough so didn't do them.

I had the time a few days later, and started by cooking the pumpkin and so forth.  I rolled out my sheet of room-temperature shortcrust pastry (you didn't think I was going to attempt making my own pastry, did you?  Thanks for the vote of confidence, but not yet) and stamped out as many circles as I could.  After filling them with mix, I couldn't figure out why they were so full and I still had loads of mix left?!

So I read and re-read the recipe, and then discovered that I had bought a 375g packet of pastry, and the recipe required 500g.  Aha, problem solved.  But what to do with the extra mix?  Nah, we couldn't figure that one out either... The pies baked up really well, and tasted very American.  Which is to say, sweet and gently spiced and not at all like we expected - good but different.  So I won't be making these for us again in a hurry, ha ha.

We do savoury too...

For a fun dinner, we made our own sausage rolls using chicken hotdogs (so I could eat them too).  Here's our lovely littlest Becca Team member brushing the finished items with milk before we put them in the oven.  I was really pleased to discover that they all got eaten (with my help too).  It rarely happens that they love something new so much, yey.  Here's the finished product, before the empty plates...