Ep 26: Mini hotcakes with caramel apples & blue cheese, or berries & cream
Makes: 24-30
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 55 minutes
Hot cakes
2 cups self-raising flour
2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons caster sugar
pinch salt
50g butter
Caramel apples
2 cups caster sugar
2 cups water
100g butter, chopped
Pinch salt
500ml thickened cream
50g butter
1kg red delicious apples, peeled, cored and thickly sliced
Soft blue cheese, to serve
Poached berries
1 cup caster sugar
2 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
4 cloves
2 vanilla beans, split
500g mixed fresh berries
Vanilla cream
300ml thickened cream
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1 For hot cakes, sift the flour into a large bowl. Whisk the milk, eggs, sugar and salt together then pour into flour. Whisk to form a smooth batter. Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add a little butter and swirl to coat the base. When foamy ladle batter into pan, about 2 tablespoons per hot cake. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface, turn and cook another 30 seconds or until golden and cooked through. Remove to a plate and cover with a clean tea towel to keep warm while cooking remaining hotcakes.
2 For the caramel apples, place sugar and water in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally until sugar has dissolved. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to the boil, without stirring. Cook until it turns golden, swirling the pan to disperse colour. Remove from the heat and add butter and salt and stir until melted. Add cream, return to the heat and stir until smooth. Reduce heat and cook for about 10 minutes until caramel has reduced and thickened.
3 Heat butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, add apples, cover and cook for 3-5 minutes or until just tender. Add apples to caramel and keep warm over low heat until ready to serve.
4 For poached berries, place sugar and water in a medium saucepan, stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cinnamon, cloves and vanilla, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes while you prepare the berries. Remove the strawberry tops and cut strawberries in half. Place all berries in a heat proof bowl and strain over warm syrup. Let steep for 10 minutes. Drain, reserving liquid.
5 For vanilla cream, whisk cream, sugar and vanilla seeds until firm peaks form.
6 To serve, place berries on top of half hot cakes, top with a spoon of vanilla cream and spoon over a little of the reserved syrup. Top the remaining hot cakes with caramel apples and crumble over blue cheese.
