One Designing Woman: Apples

Showing posts with label Apples. Show all posts

Friday, October 10, 2014

Let's Discuss Apples~It's Autumn After All

Let's talk about apples. With all the talk about pumpkins this time of year we can overlook the wonderful harvest of apples and all the delicious things they can be used for in baking. I always remember the one variety of apples that we always got in our lunches as little kids. The tiny, all red sometimes soggy ones, remember? They are called the Delicious ones but actually I never thought so. For us the best eating apples are Fuji most of the year and Honey Crisp apples right now. Oh my goodness, they are goodness if you like sweet and crispy!

One thing I have decided is that there are two clubs of apple eaters...the ones that eat them whole and the ones who prefer them sliced. I belong to the later club myself. Eating an apple whole is kind of bothersome. For one thing it gets lipstick on my chin sometimes...annoying. And then what to do with the core often presents a problem if you are out and about. Hmmm, just give me slices. Lately we have been eating the Honey Crisp apples by cutting them in wedges throwing them in a baggie and adding cinnamon. Very yummy, cinnamon is good for your blood sugar should you have a problem with it, so healthy! And if the apple oxidizes a little it is not noticeable with the cinnamon to camouflage it. And it is 0 WW points. So Fabulous.

Lately I have been adding some autumn recipes and you have seemed to like that so I have another one for you today. I have never made this recipe but I will be making it next week for a baby shower. I have eaten it a few times at Maureen's house and it is incredible. Try it, you'll love it and it looks so easy. The recipe photo below is not the actual recipe just one I found online. When I actually make it on Wednesday I'll take good photos to share.

Apple Carmel Cake

The Cake Ingredients

4 Cups of coarsely chopped Apples
2 cups of Sugar sprinkled over the Apples
2 Cups of Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of Baking Soda
2 teaspoons of Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Salt

Mix lighting all of the above.

Beat 2 Eggs
3/4 Cup Oil
2 teaspoons of Vanilla
3/4 Cup chopped Nuts (Optional)

Mix together by hand!
Batter will be thick, spoon into a greased 9x13 pan.
Bake @350* for 35 minutes...
Or until done.

Carmel Sauce

1/2 cup both White and firmly packed Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Flour
1/2 Cup real Butter
1/2 cup unwhipped Cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 Tablespoons of Flour

Boil for one minute!
Drizzle over sliced cake and serve.
And add some candles if it is your Birthday!

You can use any apples in the cake but I am planning on Pippins or Gravensteins. My Mom told me to always bake with these because they are not full of water and because they will retain their shape and do not just dissolve into the batter or get mushy. I don't bake that much but when I do I follow her expert advice.

My mom was right, the best baking apples are green! And she made the best apple pie on my planet. So there you have another one...Happy Baking! If you lived closer and it was your birthday today...I'd bake one for you! Ah heck, even it is not your birthday I'd make one for you! :-)B

Monday, May 5, 2014

My Mom and Apple Pie

With Mother's Day coming up I have been thinking a lot about my precious Mom. My Mom was the Queen of Apple Pie baking. She was well-known for her scrumptious apple pies. Seriously, nearly famous. I have never tasted an apple pie that even came close. I don't know what was so magical about her pies but they just seemed to say "I love you!" They were simply unforgettable.

She was a beauty inside and out!
Don't you think?

These were her beautician days when

Finger waves were all the rage...

I looked at a lot of images to find a pie that

looked like Mom's but none were exactly like hers.

Mom and Dad always made the pies together with the help of us kids. They bought a huge sub-zero freezer for the garage and many years we would get lugs of apples and over the weekend we'd make 52 pies. One for each week of the year. There were apple peelings all over the place and everything was sticky as we all peeled and generally made a giant mess in the process. I can still remember the apple juice running down my arms and trying to pare the peeling off in one long strip. I didn't mind the slicing but I didn't love the coring. But a good bath at the end of the long hot sticky days and the satisfaction of seeing those pies frozen one layer at a time, and stacked in the freezer was amazing.

Mama would always wear a pretty apron even when she was doing this kind of work, she was lovely and such a classy lady to the end. And the fact that Daddy helped her was a heart print for me and a really cool memory now. I can still see him in his white grampa t-shirt and his suspenders on those hot days in Sacramento working in the kitchen. It made me want to marry a man just like him. And I did.

Working together as a family was very strengthening to us. Mom gave away a lot of those pies so there really wasn't one for every week and that was fine. It was a great learning experience in so many ways. I am definitely going to try this again and get good at it. It is about so much more than the pie.

This week I have been scanning old papers, documents, photos and even a few recipes. I was pretty good at saving things like this when I was a young woman, never fully realizing what they would mean to me now.

Mom's recipe in her own handwriting~
priceless to me now!

I found another card written in my handwriting and
thought maybe someday our posterity might
like to see it in my writing.
Mom was not kidding on hers
when she said,
"All generous measurements!"

The Apples are Pippins

Or Gravensteins
Tart crispy green apples are the best for pies.

After assembling all the ingredients...

On top of the bottom crust, add a large, heaping,

round mound of apples and
sugar mixture and butter.

Add the top crust and pinch closed around the edges.
Poke the top with a fork for air vents.
Sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on the top crust.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn
down the oven to 350 for 55 minutes.
Cool and enjoy!

Thin slices promote even baking

For the Crust:

Flour, Crisco, Salt and Water

Although some people do,

Mom did not use any butter in her crust~

Just Crisco for a light and flaky texture.

The butter went into the pie filling.

For the Pie Filling:

Here's Everything you need!
Apples, Flour, Sugar, Cinnamon,
Salt, Nutmeg, Butter and of course
a little Water.

So as you can see there was nothing extraordinary about the ingredients or the way the pies were made. This is just a little slice of life with my Mom. I think the magic in the pies was simply my Mom's touch. Or maybe it was that old beat up 1/4 cup tin measurer that did it. I have it around here someplace I'll have to dig it up and see it if helps! But neither my Mom nor I were ever very good at exact measurements. You can tell that by the slight variation in her measurements between her original recipe and the one she dictated to me as she was making a pie years later. She varied the recipe until it was pure perfection. She just have a sense for how much to use, I guess. The most important ingredient is the love. And a lot of it. That I know for sure.