Vermont Apple Pie

My new cook book mentioned this treat as a Thanksgiving dish so to honor that American holiday I made this exactly a week ago on Thanksgiving Thursday night. And yum! This is good! This has a little bit of the fall with the apples, a little bit of Christmas with the gingerbread, little bit of both with cinnamon. So the pie felt very fitting at this time of year, because Thanksgiving is a holiday that is somewhere halfway between fall and Christmas. My taste buds enjoyed this pie even better after it had cooled down and, apparently, so did my hubby's. This seemed to taste better by the day. My first experience with the new cook book was definitely a good one, and it wouldn't be impossible, if I made this a second time before baking anything else from the book!

I give the recipe in European measurements as that's how it was given in the book as well. I trust this recipe is a familiar one to American readers already. Also, the recipe uses a pie crust recipe from the same book. That recipe will follow the actual Vermont Apple Pie recipe. I cut down the amount of apples as it seemed to be so much (the apples were big and my mold wasn't huge). I give my changes in brackets. For this pie mold I'd also cut down the pie crust next time as well. I'm not sure, if cutting it to half would be too much. I intend to make this again and when I do, I'll try making it with less pie crust and afterwards can give my comments regarding this question. 

Vermont Apple Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (for that recipe scroll down)
8-10 apples (5)
1 dl sugar
1½ dl crushed gingerbread cookies
1 T flour
½ tsp cinnamon
a pinch of salt
1 dl crushed walnuts (I used a nut mix)
50 g melted butter
3/4 dl maple syrup

Turn on the oven to 175 C. Peel the apples and core them. Cut them into slices and place half of them on top of the pie crust. Mix sugar, crushed gingerbread cookies, flour, cinnamon, salt, walnuts and butter well together in a bowl. Spread half of the mix on top of the apples. Place the remaining apples on top and sprinkle the rest of the mix on top of them. Bake for 50 minutes. Heat the maple syrup until it almost boils. Pour over the apples. Bake for another 15 minutes.

Pie Crust

½ dl orange juice

1 egg

1 T sugar

1 tsp salt

5 dl flour

1 tsp vanilla sugar

200 g butter

Mix the orange juice, egg, sugar and salt in a small bowl. Mix the flour and vanilla sugar in a big bowl. Cut the butter into pieces and put in with the flour. Use a knife to cut the butter to smaller and smaller pieces until it has blended in with the flour. Add the orange juice mixture and mix until the whole thing is mouldable. Cover with a kitchen film and keep in cool for at least four hours.

I have to admit something. I noticed the "cool for 4 hours" when I was didn't have time to cool for 4 hours, so my pie crust stayed in the fridge for max 30 minutes. Then I just pressed it on to my pie mold. The rest of the recipe (which I'm not posting now, as this pie only needed unbaked pie crust) would have showed that this pie crust makes both the bottom and the top of a pie and that is one reason why I thought it might be good to have a little less of it in this pie, because it only needs the bottom and in my opinion it doesn't have to be as thick as it now was. 

Anyway, I loved this pie and I'm really glad that even with the occasional exhaustion my new job is giving me, I managed to bake something for Thanksgiving. The weekend is going to be a busy one with not a lot of time staying at home, but next week I'm hoping I'll manage to get some Christmas baking done too.l

Print this post

Apple oatmeal crumble

I love that I live in a country where all four seasons show. I know that the Finnish winter is long by some standards and more prominent than some of the other seasons, but we still get all four of them, no doubt about that. It seems to me that mostly when one season is drawing to an end, I am ready for the next one to roll in. Having four seasons gives the year, and life in general, more of a rhythm and pace. During these last 12 months, I've loved our seasons more than maybe ever before.

Last winter was at times very, very cold and snowier than I can remember for a very long time. When you're wearing enough, the coldness isn't a problem. Besides, you can always go inside, where it's warm, and in Finland it really is warm inside, because the houses are properly insulated and keep the cold out even when it's absolutely freezing outside. And I adored the luxury of having a lot of snow. The summer again war a lot warmer than a typical Finnish summer. I loved the warm weather, but by the end of August, I definitely was ready to welcome fall.

I love fall. True enough that I love all seasons, but I do love fall. I love it when the weather gets crisp and it's easy to breath. I love the bright wonderful colors that maple trees and aspens flaunt with. And when the leaves drop down to the ground and make a rustling sound when you walk through them. Later they might get a silver lining from the morning frost. I'm a visual person and can just stop on my way to look at something I think is beautiful. I love the colors of autumn. To me, apples seem to mirror  all those colors and things I love about fall. So that's why, fall is the perfect time to make apple oatmeal crumble.

I couldn't believe myself, when I realized I haven't posted this recipe! This, my absolute favorite fall dessert! A recipe that I have, in my opinion, pruned into perfection by making it all over again, with little tweaks and modifications. It certainly is time to share it now! This is the ultimate comfort food for me.

Apple oatmeal crumble

1 BIG apple or a couple of smaller ones

2 tbl brown sugar

about 100 g / 1 stick (½ cup) butter

1 dl /  ½ cup sugar

2 tsp powdered cinnamon

3 dl  / a full cup oatmeal

Butter the dish. Peel the apple(s) and slice them and then put them in the dish. Crumble the brown sugar on top of the apple slices. Prepare the tosca crumble by melting the butter and sugar on a saucepan. Mix in the cinnamon and then the oatmeal. Mix together and add on top of the apples. Bake in 200 C / 390 F for about 20 min. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy preferably wearing comfortable clothes and watching your favorite show on television. Best when warm, but works well warmed up in the microwave oven the next day, assuming there's some left.

Print this post

Apple tart with meringue

Autumn is a time for apples. As I a) had earlier made jam from apples, b) had only heard stories of apple pies made by other people and c) came across with a delicious looking recipe in the magazine I subscribe, the decision to bake something out of apples became reality on Saturday.


Base:
100 g of baking margarine
1 dl of sugar
2 egg yolks
200 g of Valio's apple-cinnamon flavored curd
3 dl of flour
2 tsp of baking powder

Filling: 850 g (4 big) of apples
1 tbl od lemon juice (I didn't have any, so I left it out)
1 dl of sugar
1 tbl of flour
2 tsp of cinnamon

Meringue:
2 eggwhites
2 tbl of sugar

Foam the margarine and sugar lightly. Whisk in the egg yolks. Add the curd and flour-baking powder mix. Mix the base smooth, fast. Use flour in your hand to spread the base onto the bottom and sides of a pie dish, diameter 27-28 cm. Place the pie dish in the fridge.

Peel the apples if necessary. Remove the cores and slice or dice the apples. Put the apple pieces and the other filling ingredients to a sauce pan. Let them simmer stirring occasionally for about 7 minutes on low heat. Let cool a little. Check the sweetness of the filling, use sugar according to the sourness of the apples. Pour the filling into the pie dish. Bake in 200 C for about 18 minutes.

Whisk the eggwhites into a hard foam. Add the sugar little by little. Whisk until the mix is shiny and stays in the bowl even when it's upside down. Spread the meringue on top of the filling. Put back into the over for about 6-7 minutes more.



It was yummy, I served the tart with caramel sauce, which complemented the flavors incredibly well.

Print this post

Apple jam

My hubby's mom gave us a bag full of red apples last weekend. Receiving them, I must admit, I didn't have a very clear picture about where was I going to use them in, but the world is full of ideas and who could resist these:



So I decided for the first time ever to make apple jam, or in fact any kind of jam, myself. Internet proved itself once again to be an useful and a joyful invention as I was looking for a simple but delicious and preferably a quick recipe for a apple jam. The Martha Organization helped me once more, this time the answer was to be found in the discussion forums.

400 g of sliced apples
1 dl of water
4 tbls of sugar
1/3 tsps of vanilla sugar
1/4 tsps of cinnamon



The recipe was indeed very simple. I used an apple slicer to remove the cores and to cut the apples into slices. As 400 g, that was in the original recipe, was quickly done I doubled the portion. I put the sliced apples into a saucepan and added the other ingredients and let them simmer in mid-warmth. I don't have a recollection how long it took for the apples to mash, but I did have time to do other things in between. Finally, I mashed them to a even finer texture with a handblender and filled three glass jars with the jam.



The result is so deliciously pink because I boiled the apples with the skin. I have heard many a story about the benefits of a skin in domestic apples and decided to include those beneficial ingredients into my jam as well.

Print this post