The main elements for success are buying fresh fillo pastry rather than frozen (which has a tendency to crack), ensuring that the fillo is kept covered, and working quickly when assembling the coil.
Spiced apple filo coil
Layers of light pastry encase fragrant poached apple and coiled to create a pie with a twist. Our fruity filo coil is a lovely light way to end a meal.
- 1 hr 10 mins cooking plus cooling and standing
- Serves 8
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Ingredients
- 3 medium green apples (450g), peeled, cut into 1cm cubes
- 1½ teaspoons mixed spice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- ⅓ cup (55g) dried currants
- ½ cup (125ml) water
- ½ cup (110g) caster sugar
- 1 cup (100g) walnuts
- ¼ cup (55g) firmly packed brown sugar
- 12 sheets filo pastry
- 125 g unsalted butter, melted, cooled slightly
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 teaspoons icing sugar
Method
- 1Combine apple, mixed spice, vanilla, currants and the water in a medium saucepan; bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer, stirring, for 5 minutes or until apple is softened. Add caster sugar; cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until mixture is syrupy. Cool.
- 2Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease a 23cm springform pan.
- 3Spread walnuts on an oven tray; roast for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Cool. Finely chop ½ cup of the walnuts; coarsely chop remaining walnuts.
- 4Combine the finely chopped walnuts with cinnamon and the brown sugar in a small bowl.
- 5Layer two sheets of fillo pastry. Cover remaining sheets with baking paper, then a damp tea towel to prevent them from drying out. Lightly brush top sheet with a little of the butter; sprinkle with a quarter of the walnut mixture. Top with another sheet of pastry and brush with a little more butter. Spread a quarter of the apple mixture along long edge. Roll up from long edge; brush with butter.
- 6Coil the roll in centre of pan to form a spiral; if roll cracks, patch with extra pastry brushed with butter. Repeat with remaining pastry sheets, butter, walnut mixture and apple mixture to create three more rolls. Wrap each roll around previous one in pan to create a spiral.
- 7Bake coil for 15 minutes. Drizzle with honey and scatter with the coarsely chopped walnuts. Bake for a further 10 minutes or until golden. Leave coil in pan for 10 minutes.
- 8Dust with sifted icing sugar. Serve warm or cooled with vanilla ice-cream, cream or custard for dessert if desired.