Apple Spring Rolls

March 11, 2008 /

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Maya and I were watching Take Home Chef the other afternoon, when he came up with a truly yummy looking dessert…Apple spring rolls…wow, does that sound good. She was all for making them right that minute, but we don’t keep filo dough in our freezer at all times, so it had to wait.  Sunday seemed like a good day to give it a shot, though, so we tried the recipe. Here it is, copied and pasted from the Take Home Chef site:

Apple and Vanilla Spring Rolls with Natural Yogurt

Serves 4

Ingredients:

3 Gala apples, cored, each cut into 8 wedges
3/4 cup/150 g sugar
3 whole cloves
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
(9) 13 ½ x 8 1/2-inch filo pastry sheets, thawed if frozen
5 ounces/150 g unsalted butter, melted
2 cups/450 g yogurt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F/190°C. Place the apples, sugar, and cloves in a medium sized saucepan over medium high heat. Using a small sharp knife, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean. Add the vanilla seeds and bean to the apple mixture. Stir the apples for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the apples begin to lose quite a bit of moisture. Continue cooking about 5 minutes longer, or until the apples are soft.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Remove the vanilla bean and cloves and discard. Cover the stack of filo sheets with 2 overlapping sheets of plastic wrap and a dampened kitchen towel to keep the filo from drying out. Lay 1 filo sheet on a clean dry work surface and lightly brush with some melted butter.

Lay a second sheet of filo on top of the buttered sheet. Brush with melted butter. Place a third sheet on top of the first 2 buttered sheets. Cut the buttered filo sheets crosswise to form 2 equal squares.

Place 4 pieces of apple on the lower right corner of each buttered filo square. Roll each diagonally to the center of the pastry. Fold the edges in, brush the remainder of the filo with melted butter and continue rolling until the filo rolls resemble spring rolls. Place the spring rolls, seam side down, on a lightly buttered baking sheet.

Repeat with remaining filo, butter and apple mixture. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Transfer the spring rolls to plates. Spoon the yogurt alongside the spring rolls and serve.

My verdict? B.  It was good, but the flavor of the cloves was a bit overpowering.  I might try it with cinnamon next time, and nutmeg…to give it a bit more of an apple pie flavor. Hey, maybe even apple pie spice!  Is there such a thing?  How’s that for lazy? I substituted vanilla extract for a real vanilla bean. I know it would have been better with the bean, but one vanilla bean was almost $12!  And Curtis wasn’t there to pay for it. So I cheaped out. Also, I liked the idea of ice cream more than yogurt, so we broke out the Häagen-Dazs. 😉

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