The Bread is in the Baking

Apple butter is one of my favorite spreads.

It’s actually one of my favorite foods. It’s thick and creamy and tastes like fall.

I’ve been wanting to make apple butter for a really long time now, but it’s hard to find a recipe that doesn’t call for a slow cooker or a food mill. Seeing as I don’t have either, I’d been putting it off. Finally I came to the conclusion that I would just have to come up with my own recipe because I couldn’t let these things hold me back.

I looked at a bunch of different recipes to come up with this one and realized that apple butter is just apple sauce that’s been cooked longer, so there is less liquid in it.

Words of warning, because I am not using a slow cooker you have to hang out in your kitchen the entire time, which is 5 hours. So I hope you have a good book to read while you wait! Or you could bake something else too! That’s what I did.

Apple Butter

(Makes about 5 pints)

4 pounds of apples, cored and chopped up (I left the skins on too)

1 cup of honey

2 cups of water

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbs vanilla

1 tsp of salt

Juice from one small lemon

Put everything in a pot and place on the stove on medium heat. Keep the pot covered with lid and stir the apples occasionally to make sure they don’t stick to the bottom of your pot. Once the apple pieces have begun to fall apart, uncover the pot and let it continue to cook, stirring occasionally. Keep the heat below medium and make sure the apple butter does not boil, so it’s less likely to burn. Once the mixture begins to look smooth, take off the heat and move a hand blender through the pot so that the whole mixture is smooth. Place the pot back on the stove and continue to cook until the apple butter is thick and your spoon leaves “waves” as it moves through it.

At this point you can can it, or just put it in jars in your fridge. I would tell you how to can it… but my canning was pretty unsuccessful. Only one of my jars sealed. So if you would like to can your apple butter check out this site. They look pretty knowledgeable about canning.

Or ask your grandmother?

Total Time: About 4 hours

Apples are really an underrated fruit.

I mean, people take apples for granted.

But damn.

A good apple?

You just can’t beat it.

And there’s so much you can do with apple that’s just so great.

I have the good fortune of living with someone who has an apple connection. Their parents have a bunch of apple trees in their backyard so we got a couple boxes of apples for free!

I decided to make an apple galette with a non-traditional spin. I didn’t use any recipes online (although, I’m sure this was inspired by many recipes I’ve flipped through). I was going to make some mini pies, but galette’s are just so fun (and so much easier)!

A galette is a rustic free-form pie. They are very simple and really wonderful if you don’t have a pie tin. They also look really sweet and they sound all fancy so everyone thinks you’ve put more work into them.

You will probably have some filling left over, eat it while you wait for the pies to bake!

Cracked Pepper and Cheddar Apple Galette
(Makes 1 large galette or 6 small)

Crust

1 1/4 cup white pastry flour

1 tbs sugar

1 stick of cold butter (8 tbs)

About 1/4 cup ice water

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and cut up your butter in small pieces and place them in the bowl with your dry ingredients. If there is space in your freezer, stick the bowl in the freezer for at least 10 minutes. The colder your ingredients are the better your crust will be.

Take the bowl out of the freezer and incorporate the butter into the dry ingredients until most of the pieces of butter are the size of a pebble. Leave some larger chunks of butter as well, but not too many. Slowly add the ice water to the mixture until a nice soft ball of dough forms. If you’ve made the dough too wet, add more flour. Still too dry? Add more water.

Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least one hour. Overnight is better.

Filling

4 large apples or 5-6 small ones, cored and then sliced thin with a mandolin

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar

1 1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar

Milk or a whisked egg for finishing

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl till the apples are all evenly coated and the cheese is evenly distributed throughout the bowl.

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

To assemble the galette(s), roll out the dough* on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8 inch thickness. Rotate and flip the dough as you go to make sure it stays round. Your dough still isn’t round? It’s rustic! Who cares?!

Place the round of dough on a pan covered in parchment paper. To fill the galette, carefully arrange the apple slices in a circle starting from the center moving towards the edges of the dough. Keep the apples at least 4 inches (1-2 1/2 inches for a small galette) from the edge of the dough, once the circle of apples has been created, pile more apples in the circle formation upwards till the center is about 2 inches tall. Fold the excess dough up and over the apple slices, pinching the dough together so the only opening is in the very center of the galette.

Place the galette(s) in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Brush the galette all over with the egg or milk.

Place in the oven for 30 minutes (for the large galette, 20 minutes for the small) or until golden brown.

Take out of the oven and let cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.

*if you are making small galettes use 2 1/2 ounces of dough for each galette

Total Time: About 2 hours

Mini pies, big pies, you can use the exact same crust recipe.

What’s great about the small pies is that if you let them sit for an hour or two they’ll pop right out of the tin. I’ve been fiddling with the crust, trying to get it a little flakier… I think I’m there! You will need small ramekins or creme brulee pots. These pies are the size of your palm.

Mini Apple Pies

(makes 6 pies)

Crust
2 1/2 cups (313 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/2tablespoons (19 grams) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon (4 grams) table salt

2 sticks (225 grams, 8 ounces, 16 tablespoons or 1 cup) unsalted butter, very cold (if you keep your butter in the fridge, put the 2 sticks in the freezer for about 10 minutes before you start the crust)

1/4 cup (118 ml) vodka

1/4 cup (118 ml) water

Filling

4 apples (you’ll probably have a little left over)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1/3 cup sugar

a squeeze of lemon juice

1 egg (for the wash)

Mix the dry ingredients for the pie dough together in a wide bowl. Cut up the butter into small pieces about the width of your finger and mix them into the dry ingredients until almost all the pieces of butter are the size of pebbles. Add the vodka and then add water until you can from a ball of dough. Roll it into a ball and than pat it into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for an hour or overnight (longer if you like, it can keep for about 2-3 days).

For the filling, if you feel like it you can skin the apples. I don’t, cause apple skins are good for you and I like them. Core the apples and slice them thinly (I use a mandolin) then cut the apple slices so that they will fit flat on the bottom of the ramekins. Mix the apples together with the rest of the ingredients so that all the apple slices are coated equally.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

You will need more dough for the bottom crusts than you will for the top. About 1/6 of the dough for each bottom and top, using a little more for the bottom. Divide the dough into 6 balls (3 balls larger than the other three).

Roll out the bottom crust till it is about 1/2 cm thick and some of the dough will fall over the edges of the ramekin. Carefully lay the dough into the ramekin making sure that it fits to all the corners and some of the dough falls over the edges. Place the apples in a circular patter inside the dough until it is a little high than the lip of the ramekin. Place the open faced pie in the fridge while you make the top, or you can just do this step first for all 6 of the pies and then do all the lids at the same time (but still put them in the fridge while you work on the other pies).

Roll out the lids until the fit the top of the pies with a little dough falling over the edges, place them on top of the pies and seal them. Cut the dough that is over the edges so that it only falls over about 1/4 of an inch. Roll the crust up and under until it is on the edge of the ramekin.

Whisk the egg in a small bowl and paint the lids of each of the pies with the egg. Sprinkle some sugar and a little salt over the pies and place in the oven for about 30 minutes (check on them 20 minutes in).

To take them out of the ramekins, carefully run a dull knife around the edge of the ramekin below the crust, make sure not to cut into the crust, you just want to cut through any parts that have adhered to the ramekin. Now carefully turn the pie over in your hand so that you’re holding the lid of the pie and slide the ramekin off. Tada!

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours

Picture done by my dad.

When I come upon a recipe that I’m really excited about it makes it hard for me to focus on my classes, homework… anything. I just keep thinking about trying out the recipe! It’s ridiculous.

This recipe was one of those, and it came at a perfect time because last Tuesday was really shitty for me and I needed to bake it out.

So part of my daily routine is to check out my favorite food blogs and gawker and see what they’ve got. Smitten Kitchen is the best, especially for college students. The author, photographer and cook of this amazing blog does all her cooking in a small half-galley kitchen. My kitchen right now is bigger than that, but I still like to minimize the amount of counter space and how many bowls and spoons I’m using when I cook and so does she. I’ve made a couple of her recipes and they’ve all turned out great including this one.

I changed a couple ingredients in this recipe and did a couple things a little differently than she did. Since my pie crust research told me to use vodka instead of water in pie crusts, that’s what I’ve been doing ever since and I used ground cloves instead of nutmeg (I don’t have any nutmeg).

I used only one size of circular cutter, instead of 2 different sizes and my pies came out just fine. This recipe makes roughly 30 mini cookies, but it really depends on the sizeof your cookie cutter. If you don’t have a circular cutter (or the desired size), you can use the lip of a mug. She also tossed the apple pieces individually before placing them in the dough, and I tossed them all at once in a large bowl. Also, my way of rolling pie dough is the best way to do it. Why? I work in a pie cart, so my way is the most efficient way. No seriously, it is.

Some tips to doing this recipe right:

• If your dough is starting to warm up too much don’t be afraid to put it in your fridge for 5-10 minutes for it to firm up a bit.
• Roll the dough thin! It poofs up a bit and you’ll get more cookies that way.

Apple Pie Cookies (or apple pie pops!)

Crust
2 1/2 cups (313 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting surfaces, dipping fork
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar (doing a little less sugar will make it less cookie-ish)
1 teaspoon (4 grams) table salt
2 sticks (225 grams, 8 ounces, 16 tablespoons or 1 cup) unsalted butter, very cold
1/2 cup (118 ml) vodka

Filling
3 medium apples, whatever you like to bake with (granny smith work best)
Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
1/3 cup (67 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (2 grams) ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

To finish
1 large egg
Coarse or granulated sugar for garnish

Make your pie dough:

Whisk together flour, sugar and salt in the bottom of a large, wide-ish bowl. Using a pastry blender, two forks or your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the biggest pieces of butter are the size of small peas. (You’ll want to chop your butter into small bits first) Gently stir in the vodka with your hands, mixing it until a craggy mass form and then knead it just two or three times to form a ball. Divide dough in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and flatten a bit, like a disc. Chill in fridge for at least an hour or up to two days.

Take two sheets of parchment paper, flour the dough on both sides and place in between the parchment paper. Rotate the dough in circles as you roll the dough out and peel the parchment paper off the dough every so often, flipping the dough. Roll out your pie dough pretty thin, a little shy of 1/8-inch thick. Use your cookie cutters to cut as many rounds as you can from the dough. Transfer them to parchment-lined baking sheets and keep them in the fridge until you need them. Once you’ve finished the first packet, repeat the process with the second packet of dough.

Prepare your apples:

Peel your apples. Cut thin slices (1/8-inch thick, using a mandolin works best for this and it’s much faster, but don’t cut yourself) from one side of whole apple, stopping when you hit the core. Repeat on opposite side. I got about 10 usable slices from each side of my small-medium-ish apples. Cut the pieces of apple so that they’ll fit into the dough with about 1/2 cm width of dough around the apples. Toss the apples in a bowl with lemon juice and your spices.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

And now, assemble away!

Grab your first disc of chilled dough and lightly dampen it on one side with the water. This is to help it seal. Take your first disc of apple and place it on the damp side of the bottom disk and if you want to make these into pie pops place a lollipop stick with about half an inch of the stick inside the crust and then carefully press an extra strip of dough over the stick to keep it in place. Place a second disc of dough on top; I found it easiest to seal it by picking the whole thing up (this is when you’ll be glad that your dough is cold and semi-firm; if it’s soft and getting sticky, chill it until it’s easy to pick up) and press the tops and bottoms around the apple with your fingers. Back on the floured counter, cut decorative slits in your “pies”. Dip your fork in the flour and use it to create a decorative crimp on the sealed edges. Brush your cookie with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar. Replace on baking sheet and chill while you prepare the others.

Bake your apple pie cookies for 25 minutes, or until puffed and bronzed and very pie-like. (If this is your first batch, peer in at them at 20 minutes, to make sure your oven doesn’t run hot.) Transfer to a cooling rack to cool before eating them…they actually taste better if you let them sit for 5-10 minutes, trust me.

Total Time: About 2 1/2 hours (mainly because you have to let the dough sit)