Tutti-Frutti Flapover Pie

Sam refers to this as a "Tutti-Frutti Flapover Pie", I think this is a cute name! So I'm gonna keep it.

His pie is filled with nectarines, blueberries, blackberries, banana and apple. Mine had apples and blackberries - take away from this that any old fruit/ combination there of will do!

I make my pastry with wholemeal flour and brown sugar, both of which contribute to a more nutty tasting, brown effect. The brown sugar helps to counter the slightly drying effect of the bran in the flour.

I chuck a little ground almonds in through my fruit, partially because I like the taste, but mostly to soak up any extraneous fruit juices!

This is a deceptively simple, but impressive dessert - I encourage you to give it a go!

Apple Streusel Inside-Out Cake

This is an amalgamation of two recipes and two ideas... I was asked, by my mother, to make a dessert for a dinner we were having that would use up some apples we had lingering in the fridge. There were only three - so not enough for baked apples... and I didn't feel like making Apple Pie en miniature either... So apple cake? Yeah - I like apple cake. I love the streusel topping! But... I want something more - I want to make it interesting! I know- what about cheesecake/frosting on the inside?!

I combined and played with two recipes to make this one, inside-out cake the first was Catherine Bell's 'Apple Spiced Streusel Coffee Cake' and the second came from a cookbook written by a family friend the recipe was called 'Chocolate Surprise Muffins'. The muffins have a surprise, cheesecakey centre that I recreated for this cake. Which is not, by the way, a diet food. By any stretch of the imagination!

The result was a tasty cake with a delicious, crunchy topping and a surprising, creamy centre - well worth recreating! Though I do say so myself...

Apple Pie

First, a word of warning: Don't expect your boyfriend who believes that "fruit has no place in dessert" to eat this. He won't. And then you will be cross. And then he will wonder why you are cross because you know he doesn't like fruit based pudding... and then you'll get crosser-er. Which is silly. Just serve this to your appreciative, fruit eating flat mates who will tell you wonderful things about life, the universe and your pie and then you will feel that all is right with the world. The end.

Now, on to the pie in question...

I made this because we had, all of a sudden apples coming out of our ears at our flat! It's a sort of amalgamation of two recipes, both from student cookbooks - so, I guess if you have a glut of apples - this counts as a "student" recipe...? Yay me!

I made the pastry from scratch - because I find pastry making an easy, and soothing thing to do. But if pastry making is not your thing - buy some sweet, short crust pasrty (although flaky puff would be good too!) from the supermarket, I won't judge! Promise. :)

Here it is, in all its glory!

A close up of my heart shaped steam holes... I was really proud
of these... I cut them out before putting the lid on the pie, but
wonder if, in future it'd be easier to cut the holes out after the lid
is on the pie...? Any thoughts?

The pastry recipe (and inspiration to make apple pie in the first place) comes from Sam but the filling I took from the Edmonds Food for Flatters cookbook... just because I wanted a slightly thicker filling than Sam offered.

The pie (with the exception of the Boyfriend) was a success! And I'll totally make it again when the need to cook some apples arises again...