Autumn Comfort ~ Warm Apple-Buttermilk Custard Pie

Adapted from myrecipes.com

I'm on a roll with two new recipes in two days! Yesterday was one of those first wonderfully cool, rainy early fall days that always makes me want to heat up the oven and crank out baked goods. All I got done yesterday was the Enchilada Soup, so the baking had to wait until today. So far, this is all I have gotten done today, so I really need to kick it into gear because we need to replace our furnace, and if you saw our basement right now you would think I'm a hoarder. I have no aspirations to become a reality TV star, so cleaning the basement is a necessary evil that I must do, and soon. In the meantime, I've got a very interesting looking apple pie in the oven that I can't wait to try.

This recipe originated in Cooking Light magazine in March, 2003. I got it on myrecipes.com but first saw it on Pinterest. Pinterest really has opened up a whole new world of things to try! At first it sounded like apple crisp in a pie crust, but the buttermilk custard totally threw me. For the crust, I made the Pat-A-Pan crust from the Amish Cook's Baking Book that I told you about here: http://notcandlesagain.blogspot.com/2010/11/pumpkin-pie.html It's the one you make right in the pan. You can use the pre-made crust like it says in the recipe, but I personally think those are nasty and prefer to make my own. Your own favorite crust recipe will do just fine.

Instead of Granny Smith apples, which are an excellent baking apple. I chose to use Jonathans because, well, it's fall and Jonathans were in the store, and I love them.

Aren't these pretty?

Here's the recipe from myrecipes.com:

Crust:
1/2 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie crust dough
cooking spray

Streusel:

1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 Tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces

Filling

5 cups peeled and sliced Granny Smith apples (about 2 pounds)
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cups buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Heat your oven to 325 degrees F. Prepare your crust. For the pre-made crust, spray the pie pan with cooking spray and place dough in pan. Flute the edges and fold under. Keep refrigerated while prepping the rest of the pie.

For the streusel, lightly spoon 1/3 cup flour into dry measuring cup and level with a knife. Okay, isn't this how we always do this? Baking 101... Anyway, combine the flour, brown sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon into a medium bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or fork (The recipe says use 2 knives.. I've got pretty decent knife skills but lets not press our luck!)Work this until it resembles a coarse meal, then put it in the refrigerator until you're ready for it later. I had trouble with the butter sticking to my pastry cutter, but eventually it worked.

Next, peel, core and slice your apples. Heat a large nonstick skillet and melt a chunk of butter - about a tablespoon. Add the sliced apples, 1/4 cup of the sugar, and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Let this hang out and cook down for about 10 minutes or until the apples are tender, stirring occasionally.

While the apples are cooking, make the custard. Whisk the eggs, flour, salt and sugar together, then stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Spoon the cooked apple mixture into the pie crust, then pour the custard mixture over the apples.

I used a deep dish pie pan and measured the 5 cups of apple slices, and I still had quite a bit of the custard left over.

Bake the pie at 300 for 30 minutes, then sprinkle the streusel topping over the top and bake at 325 for 40 minutes more. When you pull the pie out to sprinkle the topping on, just pull the rack out but leave the pie there, don't pull it completely out of the oven. The custard did bake over a bit, so be sure and put your pan on a foil lined baking sheet to catch the drips. It smelled heavenly in the oven until the spilled custard started burning on the bottom of my oven. Yuck.

I forgot to take pictures until I pulled it out of the oven. Looks pretty good! Be sure and refrigerate the leftover pie.

Yep, pretty good! Not overly sweet, using a sweeter apple would help with that, and I think next time I will add more cinnamon. Let me know what you think!

Summer Blueberries & Rhubarb... Bluebarb Slab Pie

Adapted from Becca at Crumbs and Chaos (crumbsandchaos.blogspot.com)

Rhubarb and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it to death but I hate how much sugar it takes so it doesn't pucker my entire face off. The solution is often to mix it with other fruits, like strawberries. The recipe I adapted for this mixed raspberries with the rhubarb - but while I was thinking about how I really didn't want all those seeds, I remembered that I have bags and bags of blueberries in my freezer. Blueberries and rhubarb are super easy to freeze, you don't have to do anything to them except wash and dry them, throw them into freezer bags and you're done. My rhubarb plant is in it's second year of growing, so I'm super excited to finally be able to harvest a little of it.

I was a little bit intimidated when I first looked at this recipe, but then when I really read it I could see that it was actually quite easy. You make the crust - a yummy pie crust, then the fruit filling, and top it off with the brown sugar and butter crumble, then bake the whole thing all at once. Using a food processor to make the crust and crumb topping made the whole thing a lot easier. Just make sure you let the pie cool completely before you make the icing.

Let's get started!

Heat your oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 inch pan. If you are using a baking spray, open your dishwasher and hold the pan inside while you spray. It contains the mess and will get cleaned up next time you run it.

Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick cold butter, cut into cubes
1 Tbsp sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp cold water

The butter and water MUST be cold - if I'm channeling the Barefoot Contessa, I will even put my flour and the blade for my food processor in the freezer before I start.

Fruit Filling:

2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup sugar and 1 cup Stevia in the Raw)
1/3 cup corn starch
5 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed and drained
3 cups sliced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)

Crumb Topping

1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 stick cold butter, cut into cubes

Icing

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
5 tsp milk

Make the crust first by putting the flour, butter cubes, sugar and salt into your food processor.

Pulse until it looks like coarse crumbs, then add the vinegar and water until it looks doughy. Mine still looked crumbly, but you can see the little clump with my fingerprints on it - it holds together like a crust.

Pat it down evenly in the bottom of your prepared pan.

Set the pan aside mix up the filling. Mix the sugar and cornstarch together and toss it with blueberries and rhubarb in a large bowl. I put my blueberries in still frozen, and it worked fine.

Spread the fruit mixture evenly over the crust.

Now make the crumb topping. Put the flour, brown sugar and cold butter cubes in the food processor.

Don't worry about cleaning the little bits of crust out, it won't matter once it's baked. Pulse a few times until it's nice and crumbly, then sprinkle it evenly over the crust.

Bake until bubbly, 50-60 minutes.

Let it cool completely, then make the icing and drizzle it over the pie. Yum!

Tart and Sweet Summer Treat - Lemon Bars

Well, here I am, finally getting around to posting again. It's been a tough year with both of my parents taking turns being gravely ill, and then just when things seemed to finally be settling down and getting better, my father suddenly passed away in early June. It's been 5 weeks now, and I'm slowly getting back into some sense of normalcy. We were very close and there are no words for how much I miss him, and my job now is to do my best to carry on with my life in a way that honors his memory. I could write a book about everything I learned during that process of acting as Power of Attorney for them and dealing with multiple government agencies, and now that it's over it's been almost as hard adjusting to having my life back now that my mom is getting back on her feet. Every minute of frustration and almost daily meltdowns was worth it for the comfort and peace of mind it gave them knowing things were being taken care of. I owe my life to my parents, so I'm happy I was able to take care of things for them.

So, now it's time to move forward. I have still been cooking and baking, and taking pictures along the way, so now I will try to get it all organized and share what I've done with you.

This recipe is an old one, I got it from a co-worker (Mary D.) back in 1979. Some of my best recipes I got from nurses I've worked with over the years! If you live in the Omaha area and remember the Garden Cafe, this is a pretty close duplicate to the lemon bars they made. It's always been a favorite whenever I've made it, with it's tender crust and slightly tart but not too sweet custard-like lemon filling. Mmm...

Alright then, let's get down to business!

LEMON BARS

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust, here's what you'll need:

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt

For the Lemon Filling:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
4 heaping Tbsp flour
1 tsp baking powder
Juice of 2 large lemons (about 5 tablespoons of juice)

to make the crust, first gather your ingredients. I like to get everything measured and organized before I start:

Mix all the ingredients for the crust together and pat it down into a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. I used a pastry cutter, it should be crumbly somewhat like pie crust dough.

The recipe doesn't say to grease the pan, but I used a baking spray because the lemon filling tends to stick to the sides of the pan.

Bake the crust for 20 minutes, then set it aside to cool a bit while you make the filling. You don't want it too brown because it goes back into the oven later. Here's what it should look like:

Now, gather your ingredients for the filling:

My lemons weren't "large", so I only got 4 tablespoons of juice, but a neat trick I learned saved me. Earlier this year I found bags of Meyer lemons at Walmart for 5 bucks, so I bought a bunch of them, squeezed the juice out, and froze it in ice cube trays, so I just grabbed a cube of frozen juice and it was enough to make up the difference. You will also get more juice if you roll the lemons around on the counter, or pop them into the microwave for a few seconds, but I like to use one of those hand held juice squeezers. Also, to get more flavor out of the lemons I grated in the zest from one of the lemons.

So, mix all this together with an electric mixer until it's well mixed and starting to get a little bubbly.

Pour it onto the baked crust.

Pop this back into the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

Here's what it looks like when it's done:

Dust the whole thing with powdered sugar when it's cooled completely. Don't even try it if it's the least bit warm because the sugar will melt into a hot mess, and it won't be pretty. Even if you spray your pan you will probably still need to run a knife around the edges before cutting because it does tend to stick to the sides. You shouldn't need to refrigerate the leftovers, it doesn't usually last long enough to need refrigeration.

Pucker up people, you're going to love this!

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes - The Responsible Way to Party

Adapted from www.browneyedbaker.com

So, we're all Irish today, right? Maxine says why not, since we all pretend we're good at Christmas. I have been dying to try this Pinterest find for weeks, been waiting until this week so I could time it for St. Patrick's Day. It's funny we were discussing what we were doing for St. Patty's day the other day during rounds at work, and when I mentioned I was making Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes someone said they thought that name would be offensive to the Irish. Well, the med student sitting next to me really was Irish, and she thought it was great - so if you're offended by the name then fine, you just don't get one. I've heard all kinds of radio ads this week for the Irish Car Bomb drink, and for the combination of Guiness Stout, Jameson, and Bailey's Irish Cream I would say the name is probably appropriate. So far, the cupcakes have gotten rave reviews - one comment was "Y'all shut up now while I sing to this cupcake.", so I would say even though this was a bit more labor intensive with the delightfully creamy whiskey chocolate ganache filling and homemade Irish cream buttercream, the effort was more than worth it!

Here's what you'll need:

For the Cupcakes

1 cup Guiness Stout
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

For the Whiskey Ganache filling

8 ounce bar bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp Irish whiskey
2 Tbsp butter (at room temp)

For the Baileys Buttercream

2 cups unsalted butter (at room temp)
5 cups powdered sugar
6 Tbsp Baileys Irish Cream

Before I start I want to say that the frosting recipe didn't work for me at all. It tasted like flavored butter rather than frosting, so I ended up adding more powdered sugar (and consequently, more Baileys) until I got the consistency and taste I wanted.

To make the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350F and line 24 cupcake cups with liners. I found these cute St. Patrick's Day liners at Michaels.

Bring the Guiness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat.

Add the cocoa powder (I only used Hershey's because I ran out of Penzey's) and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Set aside and let it cool slightly.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined.

Add the Guiness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine. Let me just say that Guiness and chocolate is a match made in heaven. I would never want to drink the stuff, but the flavor in the chocolate cupcake is really good. Trust me. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly, then take a rubber spatula and fold the batter until completely combined.

Divide the batter among the cupcakes liners. I used a spring loaded ice cream scoop for the batter and it filled each cup perfectly.

Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean - about 17 minutes. Now, I baked mine for exactly 17 minutes and when I took them out the centers immediately started to sink in - like they were not totally done. I put them back in for a couple of minutes, but then in my opinion the cake was a little dry. Don't worry too much about the centers because you are going to scoop them out anyway. Let them cool while you make the ganache.

To make the Whiskey Ganache filling:

Finely chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. I just gave mine a rough chop because it tends to stick to everything if you chop it too fine. I broke the bar in half and stacked it, then chopped it on the diagonal - and then I turned it and chopped the other direction. The picture of the finished pile of chopped chocolate was too blurry to post, but you get the idea.

While you are chopping the chocolate, heat the cream just until simmering and then pour it over the chocolate. Now, if we were making truffles I would tell you to strain the cream through a fine mesh strainer to remove the film that forms when you heat the cream - but this is going inside the cupcake so it really doesn't matter.

After you pour it over the chocolate, let it sit for a minute, then take a rubber spatula and stir it from the center outward until it's smooth. Add the butter and whiskey and stir until combined.

I got that cute little one-shot size bottle of Jameson from the HyVee liquor department - they are kept behind the cash register. I don't know if they have Baileys in the tiny bottles, the Jameson was left over from last year when I made Pioneer Woman's Whiskey Maple Cream Sauce for the Thanksgiving pecan pie.

The ganache will be runny at first, so let it sit and cool until it thickens to the consistency of pudding - you need to be able to spoon it into a piping bag to fill the cupcakes so you don't want it too runny. Here's what mine looked like after I ran some errands and did a load of laundry:

To fill the cupcakes:

Using a 1 inch round cookie cutter or the bottom of a large decorating tip (that's what I did), cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes, going about 2/3 of the way down.

Transfer the ganache to a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes of each cupcake to the top. Mine sunk in a bit so I had to go back and top them off. If you don't have piping bags and tips, you can put the ganache in a Ziploc bag, then cut off one of the corners at the bottom and pipe it in that way.

To make the Baileys Frosting

Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually add the powdered sugar until all of it is incorporated. Add the Baileys, increase the speed to medium, and whip for another 2-3 minutes until it is light and fluffy.

Now for how I did it - and here's where I didn't follow the directions... I was apparently too lazy at 9:30 pm to drag out the stand mixer from my cluttered countertop, so I used the electric mixer and only beat the butter for maybe 3 minutes. When I had added everything, it still tasted and looked like a big bowl of sweetened butter. When I'm making frosting I want it to taste like frosting and have that consistency, so I added probably about 3 more cups of powdered sugar to get it there. This also meant drizzling in a bit more Baileys, but more liquor is not always a bad thing! I ended up with about 2 cups of leftover frosting (which isn't always a bad thing either), so next time I would try it using only 1 cup of butter. You can always add more and tweak it until you get what you want.

Using your favorite decorating tip or an offset spatula, frost the cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles if desired. Store in an airtight container.

My piping skills need work, but it was fun anyway!

I sacrificed a cupcake to show you the center:

It looks a bit messy, but once you get a mouthful of that ganache you won't care. Don't doubt me! So remember, drink eat responsibly. Enjoy!