The best apple pies I’ve made included a couple of different types of apples, not just one kind. I like to combine a tart apple, such as a Granny Smith or Pippin, with a sweeter apple, such as a Gravenstein or Fuji. Remember that Delicious apples don’t make good pie. Some good pie apples I have used are Jonathan, Arkansas Black, Jazz, and, my all-time favorite, the Honey Crisp.
Ingredients
7 average-sized apples peeled, cored, and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/3 c. honey
3 tbsp. lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
½ cup raisins (optional)
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. butter
1 double-crust pie shell (either make from scratch or purchase ready-made—see below)
Directions
Making a terrific apple pie depends a lot on the crust. You will need a double-crust pie shell. You can either purchase a couple of readymade pie shells (use one on the bottom and put one on the top) or you can make your crust from scratch. Refer to my discussion about pie crusts (both with and without gluten) if you decide to make your own. The rest of this recipe assumes that you have the pie crust in which to place the apples.
Preheat the oven to 350˚. Spread two sheets of aluminum foil in the bottom of the oven because there is a good chance the apple juice will overflow this pie and spill into the bottom of the oven.
Prepare your apples (peel, core, slice). In a large bowl combine the apples, honey, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Add the raisins if you decide to include them. (Note that many children don’t like raisins in an apple pie so better to leave them out if you are baking for children and you don’t know how they feel about raisins.) Blend the ingredients together. Keep an eye out for marauding children stealing those sweet cinnamoned apple slices. (You can tell I have made this pie for my children many times. I have often had to slice more apples up by the time I have the pie crust ready because my boys ate half the apple filling!)
Prepare your bottom pie crust and place it in the pie pan then roll out your top pie crust. Refer to my discussion of pie crusts to make the crust from scratch. Do not place the apples into the bottom crust until the oven is preheated and you have the top crust ready. When your crusts are ready, place the apple filling in the bottom crust. Place dots of butter on the top apples before covering them up with the top crust. Then cover the apples with the top crust and place the pie in the oven. Bake for 60-70 minutes at 350˚. Apple juice should begin to bubble over when the pie is done.
Eat well, be well, live deliciously!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Cherry Pie
Cherry pie is even more classic than apple as far as I’m concerned. There’s nothing better for dessert than hot cherry pie with vanilla ice cream. For the quintessential cherry pie, use fresh cherries when in season. I used to take my children up to the old Butler Cherry Ranch in June every year and we would pick cherries until our fingers were purple with juice. I’d take those cherries home and pit them and bake them into pie that tasted like a slice of heaven, as they say. We always had way more cherries than would fit in a pie or two, so I put them up in jars and used them all through the year. You don’t have to pick the cherries yourself to make a great cherry pie; even frozen, pitted cherries can be transformed into a heavenly dessert at any time of year. Here’s how.
Ingredients
5 c. pitted fresh cherries or two 1-lb. bags of frozen pitted cherries
1/3 c. honey (more if you prefer it sweeter)
3 tbsp. lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 double-crust pie shell (either make from scratch or purchase ready-made—see below)
Directions
Making cherry pie is as easy as, well, as easy as pie, once you have your pie crust. That’s the complicated part. You need a double-crust pie shell to fill with the cherries. You can either purchase a couple of readymade pie shells (use one on the bottom and put one on the top) or you can make your crust from scratch. Refer to my discussion about pie crusts (both with and without gluten) if you decide to make your own. The rest of this recipe assumes that you have the pie crust in which to place the cherry filling.
Preheat the oven to 350˚. (I spread two sheets of aluminum foil in the bottom of the oven when I bake pie, just in case the juice spills over.)
If you use frozen cherries, they will have some cherry juice in the bag when you open it. Drain all the juice off of one of the bags of cherries and keep the juice from the other bag. My favorite cherry pie cherries are the dark Bing cherries because I love their deep purple-maroon color and their meaty texture. In a large bowl combine the cherries (in juice) and honey. In a small bowl combine the cornstarch with the lemon juice and stir together until all the cornstarch is blended. Pour the cornstarch and lemon juice into the bowl of cherries and stir. Set the cherry filling aside.
Prepare your bottom pie crust and place it in the pie pan then roll out your top pie crust. Refer to my discussion of pie crusts to make the crust from scratch. Do not place the cherry mixture into the bottom crust until the oven is preheated and you have the top crust ready. When all systems are go, place the cherry filling in the bottom crust, cover it with the top crust, and place it in the oven. Bake for one hour at 350˚.
Eat well, be well, live deliciously!
Ingredients
5 c. pitted fresh cherries or two 1-lb. bags of frozen pitted cherries
1/3 c. honey (more if you prefer it sweeter)
3 tbsp. lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 double-crust pie shell (either make from scratch or purchase ready-made—see below)
Directions
Making cherry pie is as easy as, well, as easy as pie, once you have your pie crust. That’s the complicated part. You need a double-crust pie shell to fill with the cherries. You can either purchase a couple of readymade pie shells (use one on the bottom and put one on the top) or you can make your crust from scratch. Refer to my discussion about pie crusts (both with and without gluten) if you decide to make your own. The rest of this recipe assumes that you have the pie crust in which to place the cherry filling.
Preheat the oven to 350˚. (I spread two sheets of aluminum foil in the bottom of the oven when I bake pie, just in case the juice spills over.)
If you use frozen cherries, they will have some cherry juice in the bag when you open it. Drain all the juice off of one of the bags of cherries and keep the juice from the other bag. My favorite cherry pie cherries are the dark Bing cherries because I love their deep purple-maroon color and their meaty texture. In a large bowl combine the cherries (in juice) and honey. In a small bowl combine the cornstarch with the lemon juice and stir together until all the cornstarch is blended. Pour the cornstarch and lemon juice into the bowl of cherries and stir. Set the cherry filling aside.
Prepare your bottom pie crust and place it in the pie pan then roll out your top pie crust. Refer to my discussion of pie crusts to make the crust from scratch. Do not place the cherry mixture into the bottom crust until the oven is preheated and you have the top crust ready. When all systems are go, place the cherry filling in the bottom crust, cover it with the top crust, and place it in the oven. Bake for one hour at 350˚.
Eat well, be well, live deliciously!
About Pie Crusts (with and without gluten)
Pie crusts are tricky creatures. They need to be treated with care. When I was a teenager, I asked my Grandma W to teach me how to make a pie crust. She was a terrific cook. She told me to combine 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of butter, and some ice cold water. She said to cut the butter into the flour/salt until it was the size of peas, then add the water until it stuck together. That was my basic pie crust recipe for many years. Once I mentioned to my mother that I used Grandma W’s pie crust recipe. Mom said, “You should ask my mother for her recipe. Her pie crust is much better than your Grandma W’s.” So I took her advice and asked her mother, my Grandma G, for her pie crust recipe. Grandma G’s recipe was identical to Grandma W’s! I couldn’t resist teasing Mom about it. I said that it was the old “Mom cooks it the best” deal. Mom grew indignant and said that was not the case, that her mother’s pie crust was far superior to that of her mother-in-law, and that Grandma W always ruined her pie crust because she “potchkeed” with the dough too much. There you have it in a nutshell. There is no English equivalent for the Yiddish word “potchkee.” But the moral of the story is that the fastest way to ruin a pie crust is to work it too much because then it gets tough. So don’t potchkee too much with your dough and you’ll be just fine.
Standard Whole Wheat Pie Crust
Here is a more detailed explanation of how to use the standard pie crust recipe of my grandmothers. Read the entire instructional section before starting. This is a whole wheat crust that I used for years with great success. If you don’t eat gluten, skip down to the gluten-free pie crust recipes below. Whole wheat crusts are not as light and flaky as white flour crusts, but in my opinion they taste much better. They are nutty and full-bodied. White flour crusts have limited flavor and no nutritional value.
For a standard whole wheat crust, put 2 cups of whole wheat flour on a large cutting board or other flat, smooth surface (that is easy to take to the sink to wash up afterward). Add ¼ teaspoon of salt. Next you cut in 3 heaping tablespoons of your choice of “grease.” By grease, I refer to solid fats, such as butter, palm oil shortening, or coconut. Cut the grease into the crust mixture using a pastry cutter or you can just as easily use two butter knives (drawing them across the dough). Cut the grease into the dough until the bits of grease are mostly no bigger than the size of peas (as Grandma W said). Heap all the dough together in a mound in the middle of the cutting board and create a well in the middle like a little volcano crater. Pour a tablespoon of cold water into the well and work it into the dough. The water should be very cold. Either use water that was kept in the refrigerator or let ice melt into it before you add it to the dough. Continue to add water slowly, a little at a time, and work it into the dough until the dough just barely sticks together in a ball. Don’t add so much water that the dough gets gooey. Sprinkle flour on the cutting board and on top of the ball of dough. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin, continuing to sprinkle flour on it so the rolling pin doesn’t stick. When the dough is rolled out large enough to fill your pie pan, lift and place it in the pie pan. Not to worry if it breaks up, you can mold it into place.
For a double pie crust, repeat the above procedure all over again for the top crust. Don’t put the filling in the pie until you are ready to lift the top crust off the cutting board and cover the pie, otherwise, you risk making the bottom crust too soggy as the filling soaks in. To help keep the top crust together, I usually roll it out on a piece of parchment paper. I can then lift the parchment off the cutting board and flip the crust onto the pie in one piece. You can use parchment paper to roll out your bottom crust as well if you like. I find that it makes it easier to lift a crust. I learned this trick when working with gluten-free pie crusts, which are more crumbly than wheat crusts. Be sure to pinch the edges securely all around on a double crust and then pierce the top in a few places to let the steam out.
Here are some variations on a theme. For a crisscross top crust, follow the directions above. When you have rolled out your top crust, take a butter knife and cut it into strips about ½-inch wide. Lay the strips across the top of the pie and gently weave them in and out of one another. Start with the middle, and longest, strips first (in both directions) and work your way down to the shorter strips. Other ingredients that you might want to add to your pie crust might include a couple of tablespoons of flax seed meal or wheat germ.
Gluten-Free Pie Crust Variations
The gluten-free pie crust is tricky because it tends to fall apart easily. Follow the same directions as above for rolling out the crust, but definitely roll it out on a piece of parchment paper for easier manipulation. I prepare a gluten-free crust in the same way that I prepare a whole wheat crust, but the ingredients are different. Here are two combinations that I have found to work well.
Here is my current most favorite combination: 1½ cups brown rice flour, ½ cup almond meal (I make this myself by whirling the almonds into the food processor for a minute or two), ½ teaspoon xanthan gum, ¼ teaspoon salt, 2 heaping tablespoons palm oil shortening, 1 tablespoon butter, cold water as needed to form dough.
Here is another combination: ½ cup Teff flour, 1 cup brown rice flour, ½ cup chopped walnuts (or walnut meal if you whirl the walnuts in the food processor), 2 tablespoons flax seed meal, 2 tablespoons tapioca flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, 3 heaping tablespoons grease of your choice, cold water to form dough.
Hopefully, these two different versions will give you some ideas about how to mix and match different flours to make a delectable gluten-free crust. The xanthan gum is like glue and very powerful, so don’t use too much. The tapioca flour also helps keep the crust together. Just as with the whole wheat crust, remember Mom’s warning: don’t potchkee too much with the dough.
Eat well, be well, live deliciously!
Standard Whole Wheat Pie Crust
Here is a more detailed explanation of how to use the standard pie crust recipe of my grandmothers. Read the entire instructional section before starting. This is a whole wheat crust that I used for years with great success. If you don’t eat gluten, skip down to the gluten-free pie crust recipes below. Whole wheat crusts are not as light and flaky as white flour crusts, but in my opinion they taste much better. They are nutty and full-bodied. White flour crusts have limited flavor and no nutritional value.
For a standard whole wheat crust, put 2 cups of whole wheat flour on a large cutting board or other flat, smooth surface (that is easy to take to the sink to wash up afterward). Add ¼ teaspoon of salt. Next you cut in 3 heaping tablespoons of your choice of “grease.” By grease, I refer to solid fats, such as butter, palm oil shortening, or coconut. Cut the grease into the crust mixture using a pastry cutter or you can just as easily use two butter knives (drawing them across the dough). Cut the grease into the dough until the bits of grease are mostly no bigger than the size of peas (as Grandma W said). Heap all the dough together in a mound in the middle of the cutting board and create a well in the middle like a little volcano crater. Pour a tablespoon of cold water into the well and work it into the dough. The water should be very cold. Either use water that was kept in the refrigerator or let ice melt into it before you add it to the dough. Continue to add water slowly, a little at a time, and work it into the dough until the dough just barely sticks together in a ball. Don’t add so much water that the dough gets gooey. Sprinkle flour on the cutting board and on top of the ball of dough. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin, continuing to sprinkle flour on it so the rolling pin doesn’t stick. When the dough is rolled out large enough to fill your pie pan, lift and place it in the pie pan. Not to worry if it breaks up, you can mold it into place.
For a double pie crust, repeat the above procedure all over again for the top crust. Don’t put the filling in the pie until you are ready to lift the top crust off the cutting board and cover the pie, otherwise, you risk making the bottom crust too soggy as the filling soaks in. To help keep the top crust together, I usually roll it out on a piece of parchment paper. I can then lift the parchment off the cutting board and flip the crust onto the pie in one piece. You can use parchment paper to roll out your bottom crust as well if you like. I find that it makes it easier to lift a crust. I learned this trick when working with gluten-free pie crusts, which are more crumbly than wheat crusts. Be sure to pinch the edges securely all around on a double crust and then pierce the top in a few places to let the steam out.
Here are some variations on a theme. For a crisscross top crust, follow the directions above. When you have rolled out your top crust, take a butter knife and cut it into strips about ½-inch wide. Lay the strips across the top of the pie and gently weave them in and out of one another. Start with the middle, and longest, strips first (in both directions) and work your way down to the shorter strips. Other ingredients that you might want to add to your pie crust might include a couple of tablespoons of flax seed meal or wheat germ.
Gluten-Free Pie Crust Variations
The gluten-free pie crust is tricky because it tends to fall apart easily. Follow the same directions as above for rolling out the crust, but definitely roll it out on a piece of parchment paper for easier manipulation. I prepare a gluten-free crust in the same way that I prepare a whole wheat crust, but the ingredients are different. Here are two combinations that I have found to work well.
Here is my current most favorite combination: 1½ cups brown rice flour, ½ cup almond meal (I make this myself by whirling the almonds into the food processor for a minute or two), ½ teaspoon xanthan gum, ¼ teaspoon salt, 2 heaping tablespoons palm oil shortening, 1 tablespoon butter, cold water as needed to form dough.
Here is another combination: ½ cup Teff flour, 1 cup brown rice flour, ½ cup chopped walnuts (or walnut meal if you whirl the walnuts in the food processor), 2 tablespoons flax seed meal, 2 tablespoons tapioca flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, 3 heaping tablespoons grease of your choice, cold water to form dough.
Hopefully, these two different versions will give you some ideas about how to mix and match different flours to make a delectable gluten-free crust. The xanthan gum is like glue and very powerful, so don’t use too much. The tapioca flour also helps keep the crust together. Just as with the whole wheat crust, remember Mom’s warning: don’t potchkee too much with the dough.
Eat well, be well, live deliciously!
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