For September’s Monthly Bake, Vaughn shows us how to make his apple-y twist on bear claws. Resembling something glorious between an almond croissant and a handheld fruit pie, these flaky pastries are shaped to resemble a bear’s paw. Vaughn’s version pays homage to the traditional, with frangipane in the center and apples that are cooked first so that they can start to soften, resulting in a firmer filling that’s easier to wrap. Store-bought puff pastry provides a ready-made stand-in for Danish pastry.

Apple Bear Claws

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[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, everybody. Vaughn here from The New York Times cooking kitchen studio. And today, for September’s monthly bake, I’m going to be making apple and almond bear claws. A bear claw is this really lovely almondy pastry that’s technically a danish. This is a bit more of a shortcut, because I use store bought puff pastry, which I think is honestly just as good. What makes it really special is the apple that’s kind of layered in the filling with the almond. It just gives it this kind of ultimate fall vibe. I just think that this is the perfect breakfast or brunch or teatime recipe. It’s right at peak apple picking season. We’re looking for things to make with apples that aren’t apple pie, because apple pie is boring as hell. You have probably one of the best monthly bakes I’ve made so far. [MUSIC PLAYING] These are best eaten warm. You can form them the night before and then just bake them off in the morning. We’re going to start with a thing that requires a little bit of cooling, because really, once this step is done, it’s kind of just assembly. This is the apple compote. This is a Pink Lady. Honestly, you could use a Granny Smith apple, which is me. I’m going to just do a half inch dice on these. Now, one apple probably seems like, what’s the point? Like, if you overfill, really, any pastry, especially when you’re working with puff pastry, it’s just not going to react well. And then you have your nice little half inch dice. [MUSIC PLAYING] So now that I got my apple prepped, the rest of this just happens super easily. I am going to start by melting my butter, brown sugar. And then I’m going to go ahead and add my spices. I have just some freshly grated nutmeg and some cinnamon. So I’m just going to add the apples, now that everything’s nice and melty. It’s not really, at first, going to look like that much sauce. You’re going to be like, oh, I wish I had some more brown sugar in here. But once the apples start to release their juices and start to mix with that, it is going to be kind of a loose looking filling, and then that’s when we go in with the cornstarch to tighten it back up. So basically, right here, you’re just looking for the apples to start to soften a little bit. We’re going to fill these in a pastry that then gets baked. So we don’t want it to all be super mush at this stage. You can see here, the apples have released a lot of their juices. The juice is actually starting to thicken, too, naturally, which is really good. And I can just tell that my apples are starting to get a lot more tender. The last thing to do is just to thicken this up a little bit. So this is a corn starch slurry. What I’m doing here is I’m just mixing the lemon juice, which, again, adds flavor, with cornstarch. And it just needs, truly, another minute. Once you start to see it slowly bubble -- I can see some bubbles on the surface of the pan -- I’m going to kill the heat to help the cooling process along a little bit. If you spread something out like this into an even layer, it’s going to cool a lot faster. [MUSIC PLAYING] That’s the Tar Heel State. And those are the Outer Banks. Anyway, my apple filling is just hanging out for 15, 20 in the fridge while I make the frangipane. This is the almond filling. It’s something that’s known as a frangipane, which is basically a mixture of almond flour and sugar with a beaten egg. You can use this for tarts and all sorts of good stuff. So I’m just going to melt my butter really quickly. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is mostly melted. I called for the butter to be melted and cooled. So basically, whenever I do that, I’ll just melt it until it’s mostly liquid. And then I’ll mix in that last little bit of butter. It simultaneously melts the last little bit of butter, but it also cools it down. Basically, the rest of this is just mixing it all together. My brown sugar, my almond flour. I’m going to add a little pinch of salt. Almond extract is just a very interesting flavor. It’s a little floral, it’s a little sweet. But it can, for sure, overpower things, which is why we’re only using a little bit here. So I’m just mixing this up, and then I’m going to beat my eggs separately. And that is going to lighten up the filling and hold everything together and give it structure. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is also going to hang out in the fridge for maybe 20 minutes while we work with the pastry, and that’ll make it a lot easier for it to scoop and assemble. Usually, premade puff pastry is a couple different brands, and they’re all different sizes. And sometimes, it comes in two sheets, sometimes it comes in one sheet. I like to just lay it flat, as flat as possible, and then defrost it like that. I’m going to cut this into two. You can use a very sharp knife or a pizza cutter. [MUSIC PLAYING] Anytime you work with puff pastry, it is a little tacky. So you want to make sure that you have a generously floured work surface. And honestly, what I’m going to do while I do this, just because I’m talking on camera and going to be instructing, I’m going to stick this back in the fridge, because you never want it to be body temperature. What I’m going to do is I’m going to roll this into a 10 by 12 rectangle. So I’m going to go this way. And then basically what you do is -- I just want to make sure that neither side gets too floury. And a big thing too is just honestly making sure it’s all an even thickness. Whenever you’re working with pastry, you really just want to make sure that you’re picking it up, making sure that it’s even thickness all the way around. Sometimes you flip it, and that’s going to make sure that it doesn’t stick, and then you’re rolling everything out super evenly. You’ll see here, it’s starting to spring back slightly, which means that I’m working the gluten. Now that I’ve got my 10 by 12 inch rectangle, I’m just making some score marks where I have the middle. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right. So I’m going to take these and then put them on my baking sheet. And I’m going to go ahead and pop this back in the fridge, or even the freezer, honestly, just to get it really cold. Now I’m going to just repeat everything that I just did with the other sheet of pastry. [MUSIC PLAYING] Now I’m going to stick this one back in the fridge, just because this got a little warm too. As we fill and shape the bear claws, before we bake them, we’re still going to work four at a time, just so that everything stays cold. O.K., so now it’s time to assemble. As my glue for everything is an egg white. So the egg white is going to help seal the pastry. And it’s also going to be what we brush the tops with so that the flaked almonds can stick to it. We’re also going to brush it with that. What we need to do, though, is we need to whisk it with a little bit of water. This just makes it a bit easier to work with. And if we’re whisking it and getting it all nice and foamy, we’re breaking up that thicker part and mixing it with the thinner part. So I’m going to work one at a time here. I’m going to put the small edge closest to me, and then I’m going to layer about 2 tablespoons. If you have one of those scoops, it makes really easy work of it. So I have my almond filling. So now I’ve got my apple filling. And this is probably going to be about a tablespoon and a half. Just enough apples to really cover everything. So then, sometimes I just take my finger for this honestly, and I do a little bit of this down here, fold this over, seal it. And then I’m going to take a little bit of a floured fork, and I’m going to crimp the sides. Crimping is pretty, but it also seals everything in. It’s not just for aesthetics. And then what we do to actually make the bear claw, we use a little paring knife, you make incisions there and there, and that’s your center claw, because a bear, I guess, has the five paws. And these are your five paws. And then you pinch there, but this is your formed bear claw. And I’ll just put those there. I’m going to finish with the rest of this tray. Get the other tray out. [MUSIC PLAYING] The nice thing about puff pastry, it gets puffy and golden and gorgeous no matter what it looks like at this stage. They will all turn out really nice. So what I got to do now is I’m just going to brush these lightly with my egg wash that has been reserved. If you do assemble these a day ahead of time, I would refrigerate them just like this, without the egg wash on them, because it will get sticky. They’ll stick to your plastic wrap, whatever. You can reserve this, just in a little bowl, so that you don’t have to waste it. It won’t turn on you or anything like that. And again, just a nice, even, thin layer of everything on here. Too much is going to get gloopy and weird and kind of burn. So you just want a thin layer, which is enough to adhere everything and give it a little bit of a shine. These look shiny and gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Everything looks nice and evenly washed. And now I’m going to just top them with some of these slivered almonds. [MUSIC PLAYING] I like seeing pastry pre-bake. And then on my Instagram story, it’ll be like, "tap to bake." These are going to bake in a 375 degree oven. I give a range of 25 to 35 minutes. It’s more of a color thing that you’re going for, rather than the actual inside being properly baked. Depending on the type of brand of puff pastry you get, that could vary. After probably 10 to 15-ish minutes, you do want to switch them. [MUSIC PLAYING] These look gorg. They are perfectly baked on the bottom, nice and golden brown on top. You can see that in the oven that we just baked it in, it got a nice little blast of heat right away, which I think is why the filling leaked as much as it did. Your filling can leak. That is O.K. A big part of that is having to do with how deep you actually cut in to make your claws. So make sure that when you’re actually cutting in, you’re just cutting the pastry where it meets, and not cutting into the actual pocket where the filling is. I’m not super worried about the stickage. It’s a little snack. I’m going to transfer these to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, and we definitely want to let that filling hang out and re-mingle before we put the glaze on. And then once they’re glazed, we can eat them. In order to make the glaze, it’s really, really easy. Just a couple teaspoons of milk into some powdered sugar. And basically, what you’re looking for is the consistency of honey. It’s going to start off and you’re going to be like, that’s too thick. But as you keep mixing it, it should get there. I might need one more splash. It’s good to start off with just a little less than you need, because you can always add more. It’s almost more the frosting that you get in a toaster strudel. [MUSIC PLAYING] O.K., enough talking about these. I have to eat them while they’re still warm. The glaze has set pretty quickly. It’s like a very grown up toaster strudel, which I adore. I used to live off of toaster strudels. It is the exact mix of an almond croissant with a McDonald’s apple pie. To achieve something that is so flaky and buttery and delicious with a little bit of a cheat -- like we have the store bought puff pastry -- hey, if you want to make your own, do it. But it really is such well-rounded pastry. It just feels very homey and very fall to me. And that’s why I think it’s just the perfect thing for the September monthly bake. Very nesting vibes. You know what I mean? You’re ready for hibernation. Thank you to everybody who made the tomato cheddar pie. I know that that one is our first savory bake, so it was fun to see how many of you were excited that we finally had a savory bake. Keep making that. Make that for dinner, and make this for breakfast. Why not? From here on out, for the rest of the year, I gotta tell you, we’re going straight sweet. If you make these apple and almond bear claws, definitely send them to me via Instagram @Vaughn, or baketime@nytimes.com. I will share some of my favorites. Happy fall, early fall. Happy baking. Check out this recipe and many more in the Big Time newsletter and on nytcooking.com. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Apple Bear Claws

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Apple Bear Claws