Apple Pie

One of the main cultural icons of America is apple pie. This hasn't always made sense to me; I tend to relate apple pie to the Dutch. My historian friend tells me it has something to do with the fact apples have been a main export for a long time and that it is the state fruit for a various states. I read online that the phrase originated during the WWII era and has to do with the phrase "easy as pie". I'll let someone else figure out how apple pie is American and I'll just bake the pies and write about my grandma's recipes.

My grandma always made pies. I don't think she ever needed a reason to make a pie. Family dinner? Pie. Holiday? Pie. Pot luck at church? Pie. Someone's birthday? Pie. If you were craving a pie, she'd make it for you. Apple pie was the most common pie that she made, so that is where I'm starting with the pie recipes.

I started making pies a few years ago, but never got the hang of it and ventured off into cake decorating. I have made a peach pie annually and the occasional chocolate pie, but nothing else. Now that I'm just left with a stack of recipes and no one to make pie for me, I've restarted my quest to make a perfect pie (or at least one amazingly edible!).

Apple pie can be time consuming to prepare, so I doubled the recipe and made two pies at once (the images will reflect this). The extra pie can be wrapped in freezer paper and frozen. Just remember to add 10 or so minutes to the bake time when baking the frozen pie!

Apple Pie (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
6 C thinly sliced baking apples (approximately 2 pounds)
1/3 C brown sugar (packed)
1/3 C granulated sugar
1/4 C flour
3/4 t cinnamon
dash of salt
2 T butter
2 crust pastry for a 9" pie

If you are using a pie crust recipe that needs to chill, make the pastry dough first. (I will have a post in the future on different types of pie crust.)

Wash, peel, and slice the apples. Place the apple slices in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the sugars, flour, and cinnamon (and salt). Add this sugar mixture to the apples and stir well. If the sugar mixture doesn't seem to combine with the apples, let it sit for 5 minutes and mix it again. The sugar will bring out the juices in the apples and make combining easier.

Roll out the pastry dough and line the pie plate with a layer of crust. Fill the pie plate with the sliced and sugared apples.

Slice up the butter and dot the top of the apples with the butter slices. Roll out another layer of pastry dough and place it on top, press the edges of the two dough layers together. Use a fork to poke holes in the top layer of dough.

Bake the assembled pie at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. The pie is done when the edge of the crust is brown and the apples are bubbling (if you can see them). Let the pie cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Note: You can also bake the pie at 425 for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for another 30 to 40 minutes. Both ways will result in a nicely baked pie. If you are worried about the pie bubbling over in some way, place it on a cookie sheet lined with foil.

2nd Note: Remember to put the butter on top of the apples before sealing the pastry dough and placing it in the oven. If you realize that you forgot to add the butter when the pie has been in the oven for 8 minutes, the pastry will be warm and sticky making it difficult to add the butter to the apples. It will also make your pie look not as pretty. Yes, this is from personal experience...

4th of July Cupcakes

I usually don't spend a lot of time making cupcakes look pretty. Cupcakes seem to have a special standing in the world of desserts; no matter how they look, people will eat them without hesitation. They are essentially just a lazy way to eat cake (no cutting, forks, or plates involved!). However, there are certain times when a cupcake just looks boring without decoration. The 4th of July is one of those times. Most desserts served on that day, at BBQs or family get-togethers, tend to have a red, white, and blue theme.

I've wanted to make more layered cupcakes like the ones I made for my sister-in-law's baby shower, but I haven't had a reason to. For anything related to cake decorating, I need motivation to stay focused on the task. With the 4th of July coming up, red, white, and blue layered cupcakes are perfect.

What you need:
Prepared white cake mix
Red and blue food coloring and toothpicks
Small mixing bowls
Spoons
Cupcake pan & liners
Batch of frosting
(Optional) Frosting bag and size 20 star tip

I found these amazingly cute cupcake liners at the grocery store. Reynolds now makes "party" cupcake liners that come in a variety of colors and patterns. I couldn't pass up buying these plaid ones. They cost the same as the standard colors, so I recommend using a fun design!

After admiring the awesome cupcake liners, place one into each spot in the cupcake pan.

After preparing your cake mix, evenly divide it into three mixing bowls. Using the food coloring, tint one bowl of batter red and another bowl of batter blue. The other bowl of batter will remain white, but stir the batter for 30 seconds with a spoon to give it the same consistency as the tinted batter.

Using spoons (I used soup spoons), layer the batter into the cupcake liners. The bottom layer will be red, the middle will be white, and the top layer will be blue. Each layer only requires a spoonful of batter which you will need to gently spread out. The cupcake liners will probably be filled more than the recommended amount, but they won't overflow while baking. This results in few cupcakes being made from one box mix (I ended up with 20 cupcakes).

Bake the cupcakes according to the box directions. With white cake, I use the lower number in the time range recommended. This prevents the white cake from drying out. Place the baked cupcakes on a cooling rack to cool.

While the cupcakes are cooling, make a batch of your favorite frosting. If using white frosting, it can be tinted red, white, and blue to match the cupcakes. To do this, evenly divide the frosting up into three small mixing bowls. Tint one bowl of frosting red and another bowl blue.

One method of frosting with tri-colored frosting is to use a decorating bag and a star tip. I used a 10 inch featherweight reusable bag and a size 20 star tip. Filling the bag is tricky and messy. There may be a better way to go about doing this, but I haven't figure one out yet.

Hold the bag open with one hand and use a frosting spatula or knife to scoop frosting into the bag one color at a time. Don't worry about the colors mixing while filling the bag; the colors will mix while coming out anyway.

Once the bag is filled, twist the top closed and frost your cupcakes. It is easiest to start at the outer edge and circle around to the middle.

When all the cupcakes are frosted, it is recommended that you cut a cupcake in half. This is mainly so you can see the layers more clearly and have an excuse to eat a cupcake before anyone else.

Sundae Cups

Melty ice cream, gooey fudge, and a warm cookie all in a nice little cup. What could be better? These cookie sundae cups are perfectly sized and easy to make. The hardest part is waiting for the cookie to cool off before adding the ice cream and fudge.

These sundae cups can be made with any type of cookie dough, ice cream, and topping combination. It would be best to use a cookie dough that doesn't melt while baking. Some good cookie types are sugar, ginger bread, molasses, and even oatmeal. I made the sundae cups with chocolate chip cookie dough and used a recipe scaled to half a batch.

Warning: Making these for your boyfriend after making him the dinner of his choosing may result in him telling everyone that you are trying to kill him. The reality is that he has no will power and will over eat.

(Chocolate chip) Cookie Sundae Cups

1 stick butter
6 T granulated sugar
6 T brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1 t vanilla (optional)
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 1/3 C flour
1 C chocolate chips

Cream together the butter and sugars until blended. If the butter is cold, you can either soften it in a microwave at a very low power level or leave it cold and cut it into small pieces. The cold butter will mix better when cut into small pieces, but you may have to mush some pieces between your fingers if they don't mix in.

Add the egg and the vanilla. Mix until blended. Mix in the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. If the dough seems too sticky, feel free to add more flour.

Add the chocolate chips and mix them in.

Clean as many oven safe cups as you need. Once baked, the cookie will be stuck in the cup until removed piece by piece with a spoon. If you need to remove the cookie, you can try coating the inside of the cup with shortening.

Line the inside of the cups with a thin layer of cookie dough. Place the lined cups on a baking sheet and form the remaining cookie dough into balls.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. The baking time will vary, so check on them every few minutes near the end of baking. Remove from oven and let cool. The cups will remain hot for a while, so be careful!

The cookie dough completely filled the cups that I used. After cooling for about 5 minutes, I used a spoon and lightly pressed the cookie to the side of the cup. If you have patience, the cookie will do this on its own as it cools.

Add ice cream and hot fudge. Enjoy!

Notes: I used the 1-cup glass prep bowls from Pampered Chef to make the sundae cups. These are oven safe to 350 degrees.

Cheesy Potatoes

Cheesy Potatoes: potato chunks covered by a creamy cheese sauce and baked until bubbly. This is another common food that was found at most family get-togethers. I can't honestly say that I've tried the potatoes before now; if I eat a potato, I prefer it be raw. I'm just a picky eater. These potatoes are cheesy, gooey, and delicious. Most people love these potatoes and often ask for the recipe (if they don't already have it!). The cheesy potatoes are a great addition to a cook-out or a wonderful side dish for meatloaf. They are simple to make and easy to serve.

This makes a large amount of food, so unless you are planning to feed many people, you should use two casserole dishes (8in x 8in or similar size). One dish will be enough for 4 people, maybe more if you have another side dish. The extra dish of cheesy potatoes can be frozen once they are securely covered with freezer paper. Just be sure to write the contents and date made on it!

Cheesy Potatoes (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
3 cans Cream of Potato Soup
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
32 oz Frozen "Home Fries" Potatoes
8 T butter (1 stick)
8 oz cheddar cheese (shredded)

Coat the inside of the casserole dishes with a a thin covering of olive oil (or cooking spray).

Place the cubed potatoes in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the cream of potato soup and the cream of chicken soup until well blended. Add the soup mixture to the potatoes and mix until well the soup evenly covers the potatoes.

Add half of the cheese to the potato mixture (approximately 1 cup of cheese). Mix until well blended.

Divide the potato mixture between the two casserole dishes.

Evenly cut the butter into thin slices. Evenly distribute the butter slices on top of the potato mixture in the casserole dishes.

Cover the potato mixture with the remaining cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350 for one hour. Allow the cheesy potatoes to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Facts: I'll figure these out when I decide on a decent size per serving!

When making the cheesy potatoes for this post, I only had 2 cans of cream of potato soup. The store didn't have any more and I didn't feel like driving around to find one can of soup. I substituted the missing can of cream of potato soup with a can of cream of chicken soup.
The frozen potatoes can easily be replaced with cubed potatoes if you want to take the time to cube them!
The cheddar cheese can be either mild or sharp, depending on your personal preference.

Doggie Cookies: Carrot & Garlic (Beta Test)

After I created the first recipe for doggie cookies (the peanut butter and banana kind), I researched dog safe foods and created several more recipes. I never got around to testing any of them. I did run through the entire process in my mind for each recipe, which I suppose I can call the alpha testing phase. Yesterday I did a beta test for one of the recipes and... I found out that things don't go so well if you fail to follow directions. Yes, I failed to follow the directions that I created. At some point in the future, this post will be rewritten to include more/better photos and the recipe will possibly be modified (or just updated to include a method to use baby food).

The recipe that I created works fine. It made cookies that my dogs love. Unfortunately, I added far too much water at one point which caused me to add lots and lots of flour and oatmeal. The result was more of a doggie cracker than a doggie cookie. So, if you ever want to make doggie crackers instead of doggie cookies, just do what I did: double the amount of water needed then mix in a flour and oatmeal mixture until you get a dough instead of a sticky blob.

This recipe is for a carrot and garlic flavored dog cookie. Raw carrots are a healthy snack for dogs; vets even recommend them. Lucky doesn't know what to do with a raw carrot if you give him one. He will bite it in half and then leave it in the middle of the floor. Fortunately, he loves these cookies so he can still get some of the health benefits of carrots! For some extra flavor I added garlic which, in moderation, is also good for dogs.

Carrot & Garlic Doggie Cookies
1 C baby carrots
1/2 C Oatmeal
1C flour
1 clove garlic (minced) or 1/4 t garlic powder
2 C Water

Place the water in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. While the water is heating up, shred approximately 5 baby carrots to make 1/4 cup of carrot shavings. Set the carrot shavings aside. Place remaining carrots into boiling water and boil for 20 minutes or until soft.

Once the carrots are fully cooked, pour the water into a glass measuring cup and place the carrots in a food processor. Mash the carrots. If you don't have a food processor, this can be done with a fork. Add the garlic to the mashed carrots and mix well.

(At this point I gave up on taking pictures! As you can see, my carrots didn't even mash very well.)

Mix the oatmeal and flour into the mashed carrots. This will create a crumbly mixture. Mix in the carrot shavings until combined. Add the warm carrot water by the tablespoon, mixing well between each addition. If you do this mixing by hand, you will be less likely to add too much water. Add water to the mixture until it reaches a dough-like consistency.

On a well floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Repeat until all the dough is used.

Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before serving to any doggies.


Notes: You can also steam the carrots (this will allow them to retain more nutrients). Alternatively, you can use baby food instead of going through the mashing process. Just be sure to include the carrot shavings.