I have big love relation with apple because it is such a foundational fruit in my life. Here in Seattle, I think many times apple is like a bread and cheese for me. I don’t know how much apple we consume until the weather gets warmer, and options for the local fruits get better. So, I have to be creative on apple. In the mean while, my Turkish culture becomes beneficial when it comes to apple. Here is one example. I grow up eating apple blanket at mom’s gatherings at least once a month. These gatherings remind me now that how much burden, work and pressure those women have in their lives, but also they made their lives more meaningful in a small town like I grew up with being creative. Let me give some insights about these gatherings since it is a big part of my childhood.

My mom was a working mother. She was a teacher at elementary school and then a housewife. She was a real perfectionist and she would expect that things around her should be perfect as well. Her house was her empire in terms of cleanness and tidiness, she was also thought that would make her a better women without knowing for a very long time that she was already a great women.. She would cook everyday. Her weekday routine would be coming from school, tiding up the house, daily cleaning; vacuuming, wiping the flour, some days she would add to wipe all surfaces of the furnitures to get rid of the dusts. Then she would start cooking. After she is done, we would eat and she would start washing dishes. By the time she is done with washing the dishes it would almost time for the bed. You might ask why no one was helping her. Well, it was ,mostly because she was such a perfectionist and I think unconsciously, she was thinking that was her job to do. The role that is giving by the society. I think a lot of times she never wanted to teach me how to cook or how to do certain things because of all the experiences she had. She didn’t want me to go trough the same burdens she went trough.

Imagine a woman works so hard every freaking day like that (I guess it is not so hard to imagine), weekend gatherings would be big escape for her. Well, are these gatherings not only mentally releasing and fun there was another aspect of them; financial aspect. If I do direct translations, those gatherings would be called “golden days” in English. And hey, this really includes gold in it too! 🙂 Let me explain little bit more; gold is such a traditional way of showing wealth and a tool for saving in Turkey. Saving money in stronger currency -usd or euro- would be likewise. Golden days would start in specific time and only same women would attend. In the beginning, they would decide how much money or the quantity of the golden, everybody would input as an individual, then they would decide which weekend, who would be the host, depending on if they decide to meet weekly or monthly. After all that planning, they would start gathering in one house. The host would receive all the money or the gold for that time. For instance, we are 12 women to do these gatherings, let’s say we decide to start golden days with investing usd dollar and $100 each person. If I am the host, then I receive $1200 from all the women for that gathering. In return for that would be making delicious food and pastries for those women, while having a Turkish a tea a side.

This was a system build for women to have some savings a side, especially if it was a housewife. Since they didn’t have a paid job outside of their daily job in the house, they would have some savings while having fun and therapeutic gatherings. Some housewives would have 4,5 gatherings like that since gatherings are fun, they would make those women’s life more cheerful. Beside, they would also have some savings for their family and themselves. Even tough my mom didn’t have that many of those special gatherings-golden days, she would at least have one or two, and I would go with her to those gatherings. Why not?! At least four, six different pastries, and salads, appetizers, cup cakes, cakes with icing, ohh..it was a feast and heaven for me! And here where apple blankets come. Apple blankets were one of the classics of these gatherings and my favorite. Now, when I eat apple blankets, I think of those days. I feel like it is kind a smart way for those women to have some savings. Fun, tasty days from my childhood..

Apple Blanket Recipe

In this recipe, I use einkorn flour, which is slightly different than regular all purpose flour, way less gluten and working with this flour might be little different. That’s why I used 4 cups. If you are going to use regular flour the amount of flour would be around 3 cups. The main trick for this pastry is not using exact measurements. Instead, making sure you have a soft but not sticky dough to work with. Lastly, I highly recommend starting to use einkorn flour, I will make another post about it and explain why it is such a special flour in detail but in short einrkorn wheat is wild species of wheats and is on the brink of extinction kind. Still has gluten and wouldn’t recommend to anyone who has gluten intolerance but if you want to start choosing better options for your kitchen, einkorn flour would be one of them.

Ingredients;

• 4 cups of einkorn flour (click here to see the brand I use)
• 2 stick of butter (approximately 225 gr of butter) – room temperature
• 1 tablespoon yogurt
• 5-6 tablespoon maple syrup
• 2 big apple peeled and grated
• 1,5 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4-5 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 cup walnuts crushed in to small pieces
• ½ tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• powder sugar (for decoration-optional )

First thing first; you will need medium pan to heat up apples.

Heat the oven for 350.

In a medium pan, put apples, cinnamon, and maple syrup, heat them when you slowly mix them.

Cook the apples until all the water from apples evaporates. Right before this process ends, add lemon juice to the mix, turn off the heat and put aside.

Put 4 cups of einkorn flour in a big mixing bowl, add 1 tea spoon baking powder and stir it to flour well.

Then, add butter, yogurt and maple syrup in to the flour and start mixing it with your hand until all ingredients mixed up.

This process will continue with kneading the dough. In final, dough should be soft but should not be sticky. You might add little bit more flour in this process. If you do don’t worry, just add the extra flour very slowly.

Once you think the dough is ready, start taking pieces from dough and shape them like little balls. The size of these treats is totally up to you. Sometimes I make them super big sometimes, they are pretty small. So depending on how big or small make the balls according to that.

After you are done with all dough, take them piece-by-piece, slowly smash them to small round wraps like half inch thick.

After they are open round wraps, put half tablespoon of apple mix to the round pieces, then close one side to the top of another, while leaving two edges open.

Bake them like 20 minutes and after 20 minutes check in on them. Make sure they are getting the golden color on top and golden brown on the bottom. With my oven it takes 25 minutes for these beauties to cook. Depending on your oven this time would be little less or more.

Ta dam! If you like you can spread some powder sugar on top of them which makes them sweeter. Or you can leave them like that all white sugar free!

You can keep them up to 1 week in your fridge!