Apple cake

As I mentioned in my post for the apple pie, I wound up with extra peeled, cored, and sliced apples. While I knew I was going to do something with them, I just wasn’t sure what that would be. Today I read through a few of my cookbooks and found a recipe for apple cake and decided that was what I’d make today. 

The recipe itself is a variation off of carrot cake, but here it is:

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
3 cups peeled and chopped apples
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (an option I did not include)

apple cider
brown sugar
honey
cinnamon
cloves
allspice
nutmeg

Heat oven to 350*F, grease bottom and sides of a 9x13 pan and lightly flour.

In a large bowl, beat sugar, oil, and eggs with an electric mixer on low speed for about 30 seconds, or until blended. Add flour, cinnamon, baking soda, vanilla, and salt; beat on low speed 1 minute. Stir in the apples and pour into prepared pan.

Bake 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cake, still in the pan, on a wire rack, for at least an hour.

While the cake was cooling, I combined about 1 ½ cups of apple cider with 1 - 1 ¼ cups brown sugar in a small sauce pan. I added in honey and spices (I’m sorry, I didn’t measure any of this) and set it to boil, then reduced it to a simmer. I let this reduce for a while, about 15-20 minutes, keeping an eye on it and stirring occasionally. Once it had reduced down to where it coats the back of a spoon, I removed it from the heat. To the cooled cake, I poked holes in the top with a fork and then poured the apple cider glaze on top.

This cake is very sweet but perfect for the holidays. Instead of the glaze, you can make a cream cheese frosting using the following recipe.

1 package (8oz) cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
2 - 3 tsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups confectioners sugar

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, milk, and vanilla with electric mixer on low until smooth. Gradually beat in sugar, 1 cup at a time, on low speed until smooth and spreadable.

Apple Pie

I love apple pie. It’s my all-time favorite pie (although the caramel pecan pie I made for today is a very close second). When I got together with my cousins a few weeks ago to decide who was bringing what, it was decided I would bring pie, either a pecan or an apple. I knew I was going to bring pecan because I’d never made it before, and I wanted to try it out. However, I was afraid to make the apple pie. The last time I attempted to make one, it was a spectacular disaster. Following the directions, the crust burned, the filling never set and it had no flavor. So, like I said, I was afraid to make one again. But then, I got over it. People have been making apple pies for years, there had to be a recipe out there that would be successful.

I found said successful recipe. It’s this one. Out of the possible 5 stars it could have, it had a full 5 star rating, with 4,000+ reviews. I did change up the recipe a bit, but I’ll tell you how I did it.

Ingredients:

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
½ cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ cup water (I used apple cider here instead)
½ cup white sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced (I peeled, cored and sliced 9 regular sized apples and I had a ton of apple that would not have fit into the pie. I’m guessing 6 normal apples would be enough, but you can do what I’ll do and use the leftovers for muffins and/or other things. It’s up to you if you want to get all the work done at once or just prep enough for only the pie.

A very large bowl of prepped apples.

My additions:
several dashes each of: cinnamon, allspice, apple pie spice, cloves, nutmeg - use your nose, whatever smells good will most likely taste good.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste (mine never formed a paste; more butter than flour does not a paste make. However, I did *not* add more flour). Add water (or apple cider, or hard cider or any other apple alcohol you wish to use instead), white sugar, brown sugar, and spices (if you’re adding them) and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer. (At this point I had a thick goopy substance that did not look very pourable. I took the mixture off the heat and, ¼ cup at a time, I added in more apple cider. I stopped at a ½ cup, as then it was smooth enough to pour.)

Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. 

Yeah, so I decided to be a bit OCD with my pie and carefully arranged all the apple pieces. Nobody could really tell with the lattice crust, but I'm still glad I did it.

Cover with a lattice work crust. (Pro-tip, a ruler and a pizza cutter are your best friends when making lattice pie crust. Use them, they will make your life so much easier.) Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off. (Okay, here I changed it up even more. I did not pour the liquid over the lattice topping, I poured it over the apples, then built the lattice crust. {When assembling a lattice crust, I found it best to start at the center, with the longest pieces there, rotating the pie after each piece, until it’s complete. Starting at the edges will just cause you more work.} Once I had that assembled, I brushed melted butter on the lattice and outside rim of the crust, then sprinkled granulated sugar on top.)

Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F. (More alterations: when you reduce the temperature after 15 minutes, pull out the pie, pour 3-4 tbs of melted butter over everything, and cover the edges with foil, or a pie shield if you’re lucky enough to own one.) Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Here I am, with my pies.

So, small secret, for this pie and for the caramel pecan pie, I did not make the crust. I purchased the pre-made, already sized out pie crusts from Pilsbury. If you make all of your crusts from scratch, more power to you. I chose the easy way on this and they were still delicious.

The pie didn't exactly hold it's shape when sliced, but it still tasted of apple pie, so that's all that matters.

Caramel Pecan Pie

Pecan pie. For many, it’s a Thanksgiving holiday staple. Personally, I’ve always preferred apple pie, but this year I have developed a fondness for desserts with pecans and/or walnuts in them, so I’m giving the pecan pie a chance this year. I’m even going so far to actually make the pecan pie for this year’s Stuff Your Face Day.

While the mega container of clear/white corn syrup sitting in my pantry has a recipe for pecan pie conveniently printed on the side of the label, I decided to check around to see what other recipes were out there.

The recipe I went with is for a caramel pecan pie that I found here. This pie came with rave reviews and even a suggestion or two on improving it.

Ingredients:

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
36 individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecan halves (I used closer to 1 1/2 - 2 cups of chopped pecan pieces)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a saucepan over low heat, combine caramels, butter and milk. Cook, stirring frequently, until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt.

Gradually mix in the melted caramel mixture. 

Stir in pecans.

Pour filling into unbaked pie crust.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown. Allow to cool until filling is firm.

This pie was wonderful. With the caramel, it was sweet, which the pecans offset quite well, and while the top developed a nice crust, the inside was nice and gooey. It was almost like eating candy.

Here are both the pies I made this for today. I'll tell you all about the apple pie in another post.

Challah bread

Challah bread. I made a bread I’m not quite sure how to pronounce. Is it cha-hallah or chal-la? Three syllables or two? Either way, I made it. This bread was fun. It involved braiding. I felt like I was in grade school again, braiding those friendship braids everyone had to have and share. Otherwise, you didn’t have friends. That’s how it worked, right?

Ok, maybe not, but again, I got to braid my food, so that has to count for something. I found this recipe, and adapted it per some helpful comments at the bottom of the page, here.

Here’s how I made it.


Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:
1 ¼ cup warm water (110*F)
1 packet active dry yeast
½ cup honey + 1 tbs for egg wash
2 tbs vegetable oil
2 eggs, whole
3 egg yolks
1 ½ tsp salt
4 cups all purpose flour

Like most yeast breads, in a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water; then beat in the honey, oil, 1 egg and the 3 egg yolks, and salt. 

Then, 1 cup at a time, flour was mixed in, beating after each addition. 

{The dough after mixing in only 1 cup of flour.}

At about the 4th cup of flour, you will need to start kneading the flour into the dough, while it’s still in the bowl. Knead it until the dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky, adding flour as needed. 

{The dough after kneading in the 4th cup of flour.}

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise for 45-60 minutes, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Punch the risen dough down and turn onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, adding flour to the surface as needed to prevent it from sticking. Divide the dough into 3 parts and roll each piece into a long rope, about 1 ½” in diameter. Pinch the ends together and braid from the middle. 

Grease a baking sheet and place the braided dough on it. Cover it with the towel and let rise for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375*F and beat the remaining egg and the 1 tbs of honey into an egg wash and brush it over the dough, making sure to get into all the crevices of the braid. You can also sprinkle the bread with a bit of granulated sugar, over the eggs wash, to give it a slightly sweet flavor. 

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped. After the bread has baked for 20 minutes, loosely cover it with foil to prevent it from over-browning. Let the bread cool on a rack for at least an hour before slicing.

This bread was fun to make and it produced a very dense spongy bread. I’ll call this a successful kitchen experiment.

Rosemary White Cheddar Bread and Basil Butter

So, crazy as it may seem, now that my classes have kicked into high gear, I don’t have quite the amount of free time I did before, so I’m not baking, and thus blogging, as much as I used to. This is sad. Very sad. I like making stuff. It’s why I’m going to culinary school in the first place (that, and the dream to eventually own/run a bakery). Anyhow, I had a bit of free time this weekend and decided to make this bread again. I made it back in September and blogged about it here. However, this time I actually remembered to take pictures while making the dough. Crazy, I know.

The dough in the first stage, after mixing some of the flour, sugar, yeast, and warm water.

You then mix in the oil and rosemary.

Once those are mixed in, you add in more flour to form a springy dough. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and kneed a few times. Then kneed in, a bit at a time, the shredded cheese.

Set the dough in a bowl lightly coated with shortening, turning to coat the dough on all sides. Cover the bowl tightly with cling wrap.

Once the dough has had a chance to rise, transfer it back onto a floured surface and gently stretch the sides to form a football like shape. Cover loosely and allow it to rise.

Once it's had a chance to rise, about doubling in size, cut into the dough about a 1/2 inch deep, and place more of the cheese in the crevice.

Bake until it's golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it.

Completely optional (although I don't know why you wouldn't do this) is to melt some basil butter and coat the slices with it before toasting it in the oven.

{Please note, that while these are fairly accurate steps to make the bread, I'd advise reading the recipe to get the full instructions.}

I followed the same recipe with the same ingredient selection (white cheddar instead of asiago and rosemary as the herb) but I used more cheese (how could I resist?) and had better luck shaping the dough into the suggested football shape without killing the hard work performed by the yeast.

I loved the bread last time I made it. I loved it this time as well, which I demonstrated by eating half of it while it was still steaming hot, standing there in my kitchen. I did manage to save some for later, so I decided to toast some of it in the oven after applying a basil butter spread on top. I toasted it until the outside edges were nice and crispy and cruchy and proceeded to gobble it up (forgive the turkey reference, it is November after all).

If you would like the recipe for the basil butter, you can find it here.

I hope you get the chance to make these recipes. They are well worth it.

Have a great week everyone!