Good Old American Apple Pie

With Veteran’s Day on Wednesday, celebrate those who served our nation with something very American — apple pie. Using both sweet and tart apples in the pie filling creates a perfect balance between sweet and tart. I used Fuji and Granny Smith apples and couldn’t imagine a tastier filling. I also added a couple handfuls of fresh cranberries to the filling, which added a pop of color and tartness.

Make the Pie Dough

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4-6 tablespoons ice water

Blend together flour, butter, shortening, and salt in a bowl with your fingertips or a pastry blender (or pulse in a food processor) just until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-sized) lumps of butter. Drizzle 4 tablespoons ice water evening over mixture and gently stir with a fork (or pulse) until incorporated.

Squeeze a small handful of dough: if it doesn’t hold together, add more ice water 1/2 tablespoon at a time, stirring (or pulsing) until incorporated. Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough.

Turn dough out onto a work surface. Divide dough into 8 portions. With the heel of your hand, smear each portion once or twice in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather all dough together, with a pastry scraper if you have one. Divide dough in half, form each half into a ball, and then flatten each into a 5-inch disk. If dough is sticky, dust lightly with additional flour.

Make the Pie Filling

• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
• 2 1/2 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and each cut into 10 wedges
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• Basic Pastry Dough for a double-crust pie
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten, for egg wash

Put a large baking sheet on middle oven rack and preheat oven to 425*F.

Whisk together flour, zest, cinnamon, allspice, salt and 2/3 cup sugar in a large bowl. Gently toss with apples and lemon juice.

Roll out 1 piece of dough (keep remaining piece chilled) on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into a 13-inch round. Fit it into a 9-inch pie plate. Trim edge, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang. Refrigerate shell while you roll out dough for top crust.

Roll out remaining piece of dough on a lightly floured surface into an 11-inch round.

Spoon filling into shell. Cover pie with pastry round and trim with kitchen shears, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang. Press edges together, then crimp decoratively. Lightly brush top of pie with egg and sprinkle all over with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. With a small sharp knife, cut 3 steam vents in top crust.

Bake pie on hot baking sheet for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375*F and continue to bake until crust is golden and filling is bubbling, about 40 minutes more. Cool pie on a rack to warm or room temperature, 2 to 3 hours.

Recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook.

Very Sticky Caramel Corn

From 7th – 9th grade I wanted to be a chef. We were receiving subscriptions to cooking magazines for the first time (Cooks Illustrated and Cooking Light) and I spent my weekends making cinnamon rolls and lemon blueberry pound cake. Erica was my parnter-in-crime: we went to different schools, but every time we were together we baked or cooked some sweet treat.

Sometime during those years my late grandmother Charlotte, who was an excellent seamstress, made me a white chef’s jacket and chef’s hat. I outgrew the small chef’s jacket, but luckily she had made a second chef’s outfit, which eventually found its way to me. For Halloween this year Sam and I decided to indulge our love of cooking and dress up as chefs. Sam is wearing one of the chef’s jackets my grandmother made and we are both wearing hats she made. You can’t see so well in this picture, but I am wearing official chef’s pants with pictures of kitchen utensils that I got from the Culinary Institute of America in New York.

We figured it would be a shame to wear such stylin’ chef’s outfits and not cook in them, so we made a batch of very sticky caramel corn from Marthastewart.com. The caramel corn wasn’t supposed to be as sticky as it was, but we didn’t have enough time to wait for the caramel mixture to reach the hard crack stage (290*f), so we stopped at the hard ball stage (250*f). That said, the recipe below has excellent flavor, though I’m not sure if waiting till the caramel reaches 290*f is realistic; we cooked our caramel for at least 40 minutes. Alternative recipes that I’ve seen simply have you bring the caramel mixture to a boil, pour it over the popcorn and bake in the oven for an hour, stirring every 10 minutes. I’m planning to try another batch of caramel corn this month using this method, so check back for updates!

Caramel and Fleur de Sel Popcorn

Ingredients

Makes 16 cups

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup popcorn kernels
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Vegetable-oil cooking spray
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fleur de sel

Directions

1. Coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add popcorn, and cover. Cook, shaking pot frequently, until corn has finished popping. Transfer to a large bowl.
2. Heat butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved and butter has melted. Clip a candy thermometer to side of pan, and cook until mixture reaches 290. Remove from heat, and stir in vanilla and baking soda.
3. Drizzle syrup evenly over popcorn, and toss to coat. Spread popcorn on prepared baking sheet, and sprinkle with fleur de sel. Let cool completely, then separate popcorn into pieces. Popcorn can be stored in airtight containers for up to 3 days.

Recipe from Marth Stewart Weddings.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Bread pudding has to be the ultimate comfort food dessert . Add pumpkin and this dessert will melt your worries away (not that I am encouraging emotional eating;).

So instead of saving that loaf of day-old bread to feed to the ducks (which you know you’ll never actually do), put that bread to good use and make pumpkin bread pudding.

The method is simple: toss bread cubes with some melted butter; pour over a mixture of milk, eggs, pumpkin and spices; and bake.

The recipe I used is from the blog Smitten Kitchen. I even followed Deb’s modifications for an even simpler recipe because, you know, comfort food should be simple.

The recipe.

I think this recipe would also make excellent pumpkin French toast — any takers?

Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake

This weekend I made lemon poppy seed pound cake. The recipe calls for a kugelhopf pan, which is similar to a bundt pan. The mini bundt  pan we have makes six mini bundt cakes — perfecting for creating little cakes to gives as gifts.  Since I wanted to cook all the batter at once and the mini bundt pan only used half the batter, I also used a medium-sized bundt pan and a tart pan, yielding little cakes of all shapes and sizes. The hardest part of the recipe was greasing and flouring the pans, but don’t skimp on this step because the success of the final cake depends on being able to come out of its pan. I also added 1/4 cup poppy seeds to the batter.

For Cake
2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup finely grated lemon zest
2 sticks (½pound) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ cup whole milk
¼ cup fresh lemon juice

For Glaze
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Special Equipment
a 2-quart kugelhopf pan

Make the Cake
Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 325*F. Butter and flour kugelhopf pan, knocking out excess flour.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and zest in a bowl. Beat together butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low and add flour mixture, then milk and lemon juice, alternately in 3 batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating until just combined.

Spoon batter into pan and smooth top. Bake until cake is golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 15 minutes, then invert onto rack to cool completely.

Make the Glaze while the Cake Cools
Gradually whisk confectioners’ sugar into lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth and thick.

When cake is cool, set rack over a baking sheet. Drizzle glaze over cake, letting ti drip down sides.

Serve cake with strawberries, if desired.

A Springtime Pavlova from Tartelette

Last month I was reading the beautiful food blog,  Tartelette, and was captivated by the pavlova guest blogger Sass & Veracity had contributed to the blog that day. That afternoon my mom came home from the market with fresh berries, kiwi and a charge to make a dessert for the evening, the first of our Easter-weekend feasts. No problem — the pavlova would be the perfect dessert.

I’ve made pavlovas before but was intrigued by this recipe because it called for vinegar, which I had never seen in a meringue recipe. I’m not sure what the vinegar does, but the meringue whipped up and baked very well. We also did not have any superfine sugar on hand, so I blended regular granulated sugar until it was superfine and used that instead. All in all, the recipe was quite simple and tasted very good.

From the crisp, white meringue to the tangy lemon cream filling to the berries and fruit bejeweling the top of this treasure, the pavlova was a delicious kick-off to our Easter weekend.

Visit Tartelette for the recipe.

Meyer Lemon Soufflé with Cointreau Crème Anglaise

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog for Diablo magazine about Meyer lemons, which included a recipe from Chris Fernandez of Piatti restaurants for Meyer Lemon Soufflé with Cointreau Crème Anglaise. Writing about Meyer lemons convinced me that I must integrate this citrus with its subtle floral fragrance into my cooking repertoire.

Today while all of the U.S. was watching the Superbowl (though I am convinced fewer people watch it than we think), I made this Meyer Lemon Soufflé with Cointreau Crème Anglaise. For the recipe, see Diablo magazine’s blog. I also highly recommend the link on the Diablo blog to Tom Hudgens’ article about Meyer lemons.

Burnt Orange Panna Cotta

My mom made this panna cotta a couple weeks ago as a conclusion to our Sunday noon meal. The complex caramel flavor from the cream and the bright citrus flavor from the fresh oranges complemented each other well — and made this the perfect dessert for a sunny but brisk winter afternoon.   

 

Serves: 6
Active Time: 30 minutes
Start to Finish: 9½ hours (includes chilling)

 Ingredients
1½ teaspoons unflavored gelatin (from one ¼-ounce envelope)
2 tablespoons whole milk
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
⅛ teaspoon salt
1½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup granulated sugar
2½ teaspoons finely grated orange zest
¼ cup fresh orange juice
¾ cup sour cream
2 navel oranges

Special equipment: six 4-ounce metal molds or ramekins

Method
Lightly oil molds or ramekins. Sprinkle gelatin over milk in a small bowl and let stand for about 1 minute to soften. Whisk together confectioners’ sugar, salt and 1 cup cream in another small bowl.

Heat granulated sugar in a dry small heavy saucepan over moderate heat, without stirring, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until melted into a golden caramel. Stir in 1½  teaspoons zest and cook, stirring, until zest in fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir cream mixture and carefully add to caramel (it will bubble and harden). Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is dissolved. Add gelatin mixture and remaining 1 teaspoon zest and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Stir in orange juice, remove from heat, and let stand just until cooled to room temperature.

Pour caramel mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl.

Beat remaining ½ cup heavy cream in a small bowl with an electric mixture until it just holds soft peaks. Whisk sour cream in another small bowl until smooth. Fold whipped cream into sour cream, then fold into caramel mixture until well combined. 

Spoon into molds and refrigerate, covered, until firm, at least 8 hours.

One at a time, dip molds into a bowl of hot water for 3 seconds, then run a thin flexible knife around edge of mold, tilting mold so panna cotta pulls away from sides. Invert mold onto center of dessert plate, holding mold and plate at a 45-degree angle so panna cotta slips out. Let panna cotta stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove peel and white pith from oranges with a sharp paring knife. Holding oranges over a bowl to catch juices, cut segments free from membranes and transfer segments to cutting board. Squeeze juice from membranes into bowl. Coarsely chop orange segments and add them to juice.

Just before serving, spoon oranges and juice over panna cotta.

From The Gourmet Cookbook (2004, 836-7)

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This flourless chocolate cake has become a staple in my baking repertoire. A snap to throw together and always sure to please, this cake packs intense chocolate flavor. The cake is not as cloyingly sweet as fudge nor as cakey as brownies, but it possesses a sophistication of its own. Strips or circles of wax paper serve as stencils for the cocoa powder dusting. A dollop of whipped cream and cup of coffee complete a splendid dessert.       

Ingredients

 4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus additional for sprinkling

Whipped cream to serve

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°F and butter an 8-inch round baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper and butter paper.

Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture. Add eggs and whisk well. Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes and invert onto a serving plate.

Dust cake with additional cocoa powder and serve with sorbet if desired. (Cake keeps, after being cooled completely, in an airtight container, 1 week.)

from Gourmet November 1997

Plum Tart

This rustic tart recipe came highly recommended by my sister Caroline, who found the recipe in a favorite cookbook, The Gourmet Cookbook. Italian prune plums have been abundant in our local market lately, so my mom decided to test out this lauded dessert. The crust can be whirled together in the food processor and simply pressed in the tart pan, requiring relatively little expertise in pastry making. Not at all jammy, this tart showcases the bright, clean flavor of the plums, and will have your guests asking for more.

For Pastry Dough:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 stick (8 tablespoons) plus 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 large egg yolks

For Filling:
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1¾ pounds small plums, preferably prune plums, halved and pitted
1½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Accompaniment:
crème fraiche, lightly sweetened sour cream or Greek yogurt

Special Equipment:
A 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom

Make the dough:
Combine flour, butter, sugar, salt and zest in a food processor and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-sized) lumps of butter. Add yolks and process just until incorporated and dough begins to clump.

Turn dough out onto a work surface and divide into 4 portions. Smear each portion once with hell of your hand in a forward motion to help distribute fat. Gather dough together, using a pastry scraper if you have one, form into a ball, and flatten into a disk.

Put dough in tart pan and pat out with floured fingertips into an even layer on bottom and up sides so it extends about ¼ inch above rim. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling:
Stir together sugar and cornstarch in a large bowl. Add plums and lemon juice and toss to coat. Let plums macerate at room temperature, stirring occasionally, until juicy, about 30 minutes.

Assemble and bake the tart:
Put a rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 425°F. Arrange plum halves skin sides down in tart shell in an overlapping decorative pattern. Halve any remaining plums lengthwise and randomly tuck in among plum halves. Pour all juices from bowl over plums.

Bake tart for 25 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F, cover tart loosely with foil, and bake until plums are tender and juices are bubbling and slightly thickened, about 40 minutes or more. Brush warm juices over plums.

Cool tart completely on a rack, about 2 hours. (Juices will continue to thicken as tart cools.)

Remove rim of pan and serve tart with crème fraiche, sour cream, or Greek yogurt.

Cook’s Notes:

• The unbaked tart shell can be refrigerated, covered for up to 1 day.
• The plums can macerate for up to 1 day, covered and refrigerated. Stir well before arranging in the tart shell.

From The Gourmet Cookbook, p. 783 (Houghton Mifflin 2004).

Aunt Barbara’s Oatmeal Cookies

The last couple months my mom has patiently borne my wistful sighs of “Oh, I wish it were autumn!” and reminded me that I would miss summer’s home-grown tomatoes and late dinners on the deck. Yet as autumn draws nearer, my anticipation grows and I’m eager to pull out my sweaters and start making stews.

These oatmeal cookies are my first autumn-inspired cooking venture this year. The recipe is from my Aunt Barbara and makes the best oatmeal cookie I’ve ever tried–surely a result of the pecans, dates and generous amount of cinnamon.

1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons honey
2 eggs
1 ½ cups flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 ½ cups chopped pecans
¾ cup raisins
¾ cup chopped dates (see note)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Cream the butter and brown sugar in a large mixer bowl. Beat in the honey and eggs until smooth.
3. Sift the flour, cinnamon and salt together. Stir into the butter mixture with a spatula or wooden spoon.
4. Add the oats, pecans, raisins and dates. Stir until well mixed.
5. Shape the dough into 1″ balls. Place about 12 balls on each cookie sheet and then flatten each one with the palm of your hand.
6. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Immediately move the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Note: To chop the dates more easily, whirl in a food processor with a cup of the flour.

Makes 4 dozen cookies.