Giant Apple and Burnt Miso Turnovers plus a GIVEAWAY!

Win a copy of Niki Segnit’s Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours!

Nov 18, 2024

Hello, and welcome to Newsletter No 50(!) here on Substack! Thank you for stopping by. If you are already subscribed - THANK YOU! Seeing thousands of you read my newsletters each month means the world to me! And if you are not yet a subscriber, hit the link below if you are interested in recipes as well as tips and tricks to make the most of our modern pantries and a good dose of my at times random musings about all things food!

❤️ Also, did you know that if you hit the HEART at the top or bottom of this post, it makes it easier for people to find this newsletter? (And also puts huge smile on my face!)

If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, why not head over there to follow my baking and cooking experiments and culinary adventures in Brussels and elsewhere in real time?

This week’s post marks newsletter number 50 (!) on Substack for me. Incredible considering it feels like it was only yesterday I nervously and somewhat hesitantly hit publish on my first post - sharing the recipe for this delicious Toasted White Sesame and Kumquat Loaf Cake. After falling out of love with foodblogging and its increasing SEO-fication in recent years, and becoming quite disillusioned with Social Media more generally, discovering Substack felt like a godsend. It allowed me to focus on the writing without having to become an expert at SEO or html protocols. And at the same time I found a wonderfully friendly community of fellow food writers and food lovers with whom to chat about all things food, recipe development and food writing.

To celebrate this week’s 50th post I decided to do a give-away for my subscribers of a follow-up edition to one of my favourite books and go-to resources when it comes to developing recipes: Niki Segnit’s Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours.

GIVEAWAY - How to enter

All you need to do to participate in the giveaway to win a copy of Niki Segnit’s Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours is (i) to be based in the UK & Ireland or the EU, (ii) to subscribe or be already subscribed to my newsletter, and (iii) to leave a comment below this post anytime before Wednesday, 20 November at midnight CET. I will then pick a winner from the comments at random.

Now let’s get back to the subject matter of this week’s newsletter. A giant apple and burnt miso turnover. This week’s recipe probably falls into the category of what some might call ‘silly bakes’. Because really, there is no need for a giant apple and burnt miso turnover. But it is admittedly fun to make, perfect for sharing with a crowd at your next brunch for example and certainly a lot less fiddly to prepare than making lots of individual apple turnovers.

This giant apple turnover borrows an idea from Christina Tosi of Milk Bar fame by using burnt miso (which Tosi uses both to create a sort of butterscotch sauce to be paired with apple pies and also as the flavour basis for pound cake and which I can confirm also works wonders in banana bread). Burnt miso is exactly what it says on the tin - it is miso that has been cooked in the oven until fairly dark, concentrating its flavour and bringing out almost malty notes in the miso. Here, it makes the apple compote used in the filling taste extra rich and complex and just very delicious. And the mirin? A type of rice wine, the mirin gives the apple compote some extra acidity, bringing out the fruity notes of the apples and making them taste, well, more apple-y.

Giant Apple and Burnt Miso Turnover

Feel free to use homemade puff pastry for this - if so, you will need a large sheet weighing about ½ pound. However, I have a 2 year old running around at home and am 7 months pregnant so smart shortcuts are the name of the game for me right now. Just make sure that any storebought puff pastry is only made with butter (pur beurre) and not other types of fat for the best results and flavour.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the burnt miso

50g Shiro / white miso (makes 40g burnt miso - enough for this recipe)

For the Apple Turnovers

40g burnt miso
50g sugar
25g butter
3 apples, peeled, cored and diced
2 tsp Mirin or apple cider vinegar
250g Puff Pastry

1 egg for an egg wash

Directions

Start by making the burnt miso. Pre-heat the oven to 200C / 180C fan. Spread the miso in an even layer, about ½ cm thick, in a small ovenproof dish and bake until the miso is browned and quite burnt along the edges, ca. 10-15 minutes but keep an eye on it throughout. Note that the edges should be quite burnt and there should be patches of burnt spots all over the top. Set aside to cool down.

Next, prepare the apple compote. Start by adding the burnt miso and sugar to a food processor and pulse to combine (this helps the burnt miso to distribute more evenly in the apple compote).

Add the burnt miso sugar, butter, apples and mirin to a pan. Cook on low to medium heat for around 25-30 minutes or until the apples are soft and falling apart and you have a fairly dry compote. Mash half the apples with a potato rice or similar. Set aside to cool down.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C / 160C fan and line a sheetpan with parchment paper.

If your puff pastry came in a block of pastry, roll it out on a lightly floured surface until you have an oval max. ca. 1/3cm in thickness.

Spread the apple compote on one half of your oval, leaving a generous 1cm rim along the edge. Brush the edge of the pastry with egg wash. Fold one half of the puff pastry on top of the other half and press on the edges to seal. Brush the whole pastry generously with egg wash. Wait 5 minutes and apply a second coat. Using the tip of a sharp knife, carefully pierce the pastry a couple of times (to help steam escape). If you wish, using a small knife carefully score a decorative pattern in the pastry being careful not to cut into the pastry itself.

Bake the turnover for ca. 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown in colour.

For extra sheen, you can brush a thin layer of a simple sugar syrup (equal amounts of sugar and water by weight cooked just long enough for the sugar to dissolve) over the turnover once baked and return to the oven for a couple of minutes.

Serve on its own or with some unsweetened whipped creme fraiche, custard or vanilla ice cream.