Apple, Cinnamon, Raisin & Almond Swirls with Honey Glaze

'Playing' with puff pastry is always an exciting moment for me. Not only baking, but I do enjoy eating all the food that using the puff pastry as one of the ingredients. The combination characters; crisp, buttery, flaky and light make me really love it.

Honestly, I didn't prepare the puff pastry from the scratch, as I always have a stock of ready-to-use puff pastry in my freezer. Regularly, at least once a week, the puff pastry is served from our kitchen. So far there is no fancy one I have baked. I just fill it with cheedar cheese, or chocolate, or chicken/tuna ragout and let them working together with the puff pastry for about 20 minutes in the oven. It's always good either for breakfast or afternoon snack.

Finding another puff recipe in a magazine, make me want to explore more about this kind of pastry. In Delicious Magazine March 2012, Katie Quinn Davies shared one of her pastry recipes for brunch dessert.

On my first trial, I just carefully followed the recipe, step by step, including to roll the 3 layers puff pastry with the filling to form a Swiss roll shape. When it came out of the oven; the outer part of the rolls were baked perfectly; ...golden and cooked, but unfortunately the pastry on the inner part of the rolls were still wet. If I had to bake it a bit longer, it would be overbaked. Eventhough not 100% successful with the first trial, we do love the perfect combination of the filling; almond, apple, cinnamon, and honey. The flavor is like cinnamon rolls. It finished in 2 days only :)

I was thinking by minimizing the size of the rolls I could have fixed this failure. So then I started to bake the second batch last Thursday. I decided to follow the recipe and put additional raisin on the topping. Since I had no enough flaked almond, I subsituted some of the almond with chopped peanut. And instead of the form of Swiss rolls, I changed it became a shape of palmier, where I rolled both edges of the pastry to create butterfly shape/elephant ears shape.

This time... it was a big victory for me! It turned out excellent! I got the perfect texture of puff pastry; buttery, crisps, flaky and the harmony of the filling is amazingly good!
Hhmmm, now I'm thinking to use only 2 layers of puff pastry; to create smaller shape that probably is more comfortable for our tummy size. ha..ha..ha..

Apple, Cinnamon, Raisin & Almond Swirls with Honey Glaze
Adapted from Delicious Magazine, March 2012. Recipe by Katie Quinn Davies.
The recipe below was edited by me, not the original recipe.
Makes 9
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp milk
3 sheets butter puff-pastry (I used 22x22cm)
50 gr unsalted butter, melted
1 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored
1 cup (80 gr) flake almonds
1/3 cup raisins

Honey Glaze
2 tbsp runny honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp caster sugar

Preheat the oven 170 C and line a large baking tray with baking paper.
In small bowl, stir the cinnamon into the brown sugar until well combined. Reserve 1 tbsp cinnamon sugar and set aside.

Combine egg yolk and milk in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Lay 1 pastry sheet on a clean board, brush liberally with melted butter and scatter with one-third on the cinnamon sugar. Lay the second pastry sheet on ttop and repeat process to vreate 3 layers, finishing with a layer of melted butter and cinnamon sugar. Cut the apple into very small cubes and scatter over the sugared pastry along with most of the flaked almonds (or chopped peanuts).

Tightly roll up the pastry to form a 'palmier' roll shape. Brush with the egg yolk mixture, reserving some of the mixture.

Using a sharp knive, cut the roll into about 2.5 cm thick slices and carefully transfer to the lined baking tray. Brush with any remaining egg yolk mixture and scatter with the reserved 1 tbsp cinnamon sugar and remaining flake almonds. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the pastry is golden and cooked.

Meanwhile, for the glaze, gently warm the honey and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium-low heat for 1 minutes. take care as honey can boil very quickly and easily if you have the heat too high.

Remove the cinnamon swirls from the oven and liberally brush the tops with the warm vanilla and honey mixture. Sprinkle the tops of the swirls with caster sugar, then return to the oven for a further 5-10 minutes until pastry is golden, sticky and crisp.

Serve pastries warm or at room temperature.

Tips :
*Start with a baking paper/wax paper and sprinkle it with some flour under the first layer of puff pastry. It'll help you to roll the pastry easier.