Stuffed Fruit Wrapped In Flaky Pastry: Cookie-Filled Apples And Nutella-Filled Bananas

With these two easy recipes, eating fruit will never be a chore! We start off by hollowing out an apple, cooking it in spiced wine, stuffing it with cookies and pecans, and finish by wrapping it with homemade flaky pastry. The other recipe is an absolute must for all the chocoholics out there, as we use a creative hack to fill a banana with Nutella and then, of course, also wrap it in our yummy pastry dough. If you have a sweet tooth, then you have to give these a try!

You'll Need:

For the flaky pastry:

• 2½ cups flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp sugar
• 3 sticks cold butter
• ⅓ cup cold water

For the spiced wine:

• 1 cup white wine
• ⅓ cup water
• 1¼ cups powdered sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tbsp lemon juice or juice from ½ lemon

For the apple filling:

• 1-2 chocolate chip cookies
• ½ oz pecans, chopped

For the banana:

• 1 banana
• Nutella
• 2 straws

Extra:

• 1 whisked egg for the egg wash

Here's How:

1. Let's start by making the flaky pastry. Mix together the flour, salt, sugar, and cold butter with a fork. Add two-thirds of the cold water and mix together with your hands. The mixture should form a dough, but at the same time you should also be able to see individual pieces of butter dotted throughout. In case the dough hasn't formed completely, add a little more water as needed. Using your hands, form the dough into a rectangle and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Once chilled, remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out into a large rectangle using a rolling pin, making sure that its thickness is uniform. Cut out a small circle from the dough (for the base of the apple) and cut the rest into ½-inch strips.

2. Preheat the oven to 400°F so it can heat up while you make the spiced wine. Pour the wine, water, powdered sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon juice into a pot, bring to a simmer, and let cook 3 minutes. In the meantime, peel the apple, making sure to leave the stem intact. Lay the apple in the wine, cover the pot, and let it cook for 5 minutes. Remove the apple from the pot, cut off the top, and hollow it out with a spoon. Remove the core and seeds, leaving the flesh of the apple to one side. Crumble in the chocolate chip cookie, followed by the hollowed-out apple flesh and chopped pecans. 

3. Put the top of the apple back on and place the apple on top of the pastry circle you cut out. Wrap the apple with the pastry strips until completely covered. Then cut out another piece from the remaining dough and place it on top of the apple. Brush the apple with egg wash and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

4. Remove the peel from a banana, push a straw into it, and pull it out so that the inside of the fruit is removed with the straw. 

5. Push another straw into a jar of Nutella and lay your finger over the top opening of the straw. Pull the Nutella-filled straw out of the jar and push it into the hole in the banana. To keep the Nutella in the banana when you pull out the straw, pinch the part of the straw closest to the fruit with your fingers and slowly pull it out while pinching.   

6. Completely wrap the banana with the strips of pastry, brush with the egg wash, then cook for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. 

Maybe these new techniques have given you ideas for different fruits — try it out with pears or strawberries! Pears are perfect with pecans and cookies, and of course nothing goes better with strawberries than chocolate. Go nuts!