Apfeln…

Orange, yellow, and red, with the scattered pine in between is the current motif.  As is the reminder to self to simply create a bit more leisure in the day. Meanwhile the summer addiction to peach pie has been translated, amidst this inspired thought, to a classic apple indulgence.

Apple Pie

Preheat oven to 45o

Crust (2, bottom and top)

6 oz. cream cheese (cold)

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks, cold)

2 cups of flour

1 egg white

Mix first three ingredients by hand until blended. Divide in half, chill for another 10-15 minutes if needed (if it’s too sticky), then roll out bottom half on floured board. Line 9 inch pan with this crust then brush with egg white. Chill along with the other half of the dough.

Filling

6 cups of apples, sliced

3/4 cup of sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2+ Tb flour

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1+ Tb lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tb butter

Mix lemon juice and vanilla with sliced apples. Stir together sugar, cinnamon, flour, and nutmeg. Mix  well with apple slices. Fill prepared pie crust. Add chopped pieces of butter on top of apple mix.

Roll out second ball of pie crust dough and cut into 1/2-3/4 inch strips (a cleaver works well for this.) Weave over pie and crimp edges (for images of this process, see the Peach Pie recipe here.) Brush egg white over top of crust.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then cover edges with tin foil and reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake 40 minutes more.

Cool and enjoy…

Image Credit: EssjayNZ

 

Peaches and Pie…

Today’s reward for a roller coaster of a week? Peach pie. Cathartic, sensual, decadent. What else is there?

The recipe follows…

Pie Shell (already doubled for two crusts, bottom and top)

6 oz. cream cheese
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter (cold from the fridge)
2 cups flour

1 egg (or egg white), beaten

1. Mix cream cheese, butter, and flour with fingers til blended. Divide in half and roll one half out on floured board. Line a 9 inch pie pan with this first crust and crimp the edges. Brush inside with a beaten egg (to avoid soggy crust) and place in the fridge for the time being.

Filling

5+ cups peaches (peeled and sliced) [roughly 10-12 small-to-medium peaches]
2 T. lime juice
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinammon
1/4 tsp. (or slightly less) ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
2 T butter

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Place sliced peaches in a large bowl (big enough to hold a colander inside it.) Pour 2 T of lime juice over peaches and gently mix. Pour peaches and lime juice mix into colander and place the colander w/ peaches back into the large bowl to drain off excess liquid.

3. In another good-sized bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinammon, nutmeg, and salt. Add peaches to this mix and toss together gently to combine. Pour into pie crust. Cut up butter into small pieces and sprinkle over the peaches.

4. Roll out second ball of pie crust dough and cut into 1/2-3/4 inch strips (a cleaver works well for this.) Weave over pie as shown in images below and crimp edges. Brush egg over top of crust.

5. Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 degrees. Cover pie edges with tin foil to prevent burning, then continue to cook for approximately 35 minutes, until crust is brown and juice is bubbling.

Let pie cool (or cool from hot to warm) before serving…

I ran out of yellow peaches and mixed in some white ones that were also on hand…

And then…

Next? Vanilla ice cream…

 

July Report

Summer distractions? There have been many (as the dearth of posts on this blog does indeed attest)…

June brought a visit to the blueberry farms of New Jersey. We spent a good time out in the muddy paths of the field pulling the best blueberries off the branch, taking home a good number for cereal and a bit of baking (I’ve been adding them to the strawberry Obsttorte that is one of my standard summer treats). We also froze a good number to have in the coming weeks – and months, if they last that long…

My main distraction this summer, though, has been baking. While the rainy spring has switched to a very dry and sunny summer, it seems to have left me in the habit of working indoors this season. I’ve also been following the crowd that’s working through the recipes in the Bread Baker’s Challenge (all participants trying out, in order,  each of the recipes in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, with many then blogging their results… Eggs on Sunday offers a good look at the recipes’ process, see also this Flickr site for images.) Bagels have been the hit of the summer at home, especially as there isn’t a good, New York style bagel to be found anywhere nearby. It takes more than a two hour drive to get to a shop that does them properly, to be precise. Reinhart’s recipe is quite good and highly recommended. While the two-day preparation may seem like overwhelming logistics, the second day’s routine is actually quite simple and the recipe is well worth the effort. Not only are the bagels great for toasting, but they make a wonderful sandwich too…

And then there’s the garden. Certain plants are flourishing (basil, nasturtium, sage and other herbs… with eggplant and tomatoes coming along, the latter a bit better than the former, though I’ve also got my eye out for the blight that is plaguing so many this summer). Others, particularly the scallions, seem to be under-achievers this season…

 

A rainy weekend’s diversions…

This past Saturday brought a definite hint of the season that’s coming. Cold, wet, and cloudy. That kept me away from work on the back garden, though I did get some constructive time invested last week in pulling weeds and turning over an empty bed and starting on settling things for winter.

The inspiration of winter’s coming arrival also brought me back, amidst the weekend’s rain, to baking. Last week was a return to my mother’s own recipe for a childhood favorite: cinnamon-raisin bread. This week, I decided to experiment in a reinvention of the recipe. The aim: turning a white loaf into one that would belong to, or lean more closely towards, the whole-wheat category. I mixed my flours, experimented with adding a bit of granola, waiting patiently amidst a slow rise, and was rewarded (by luck, I’m sure) with a great loaf. It’s rich with a soft crumb and a complex flavor that echoes a nutty tone of oats and seeds.  I’ll still be tinkering with this one a bit (suggestions welcome), but here’s the experiment:

Whole Wheat Cinnamon-Raisin Bread
[note: I put my old Zojirushi bread machine to work for the mixing and kneading job here...]

The dough:
1 cup water
1 extra-large egg, beaten
2 T non-instant dry milk
1 T sugar
3 T shortening (I used Jungle brand’s non-hydrogenated shortening…)
3/4 cup granola (used a simple mix of sunflower seeds, oats, and the like, no salt)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/4 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 T yeast

1 cup raisins

The cinnamon mix:
1/4 sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon

Add all dough ingredients, except for the raisins, into the bread machine (on a dough / manual setting), and start. Set a timer for 30 minutes as a reminder to add the raisins, roughly during the second knead cycle. When the raisins are mixed in, a process that can take a few minutes of kneading, turn off the machine and let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes.

Punch the dough down, kneading it a few times to remove the air, and then roll out into a rectangle roughly 8 x 16 inches. Spread the cinnamon mix atop it, and then, starting with the smaller end, roll the dough tightly into a log, tucking the ends and seam underneath. Place the dough in a lightly greased bread pan (8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch), cover with lightly greased plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm spot until roughly doubled in size.

When ready, preheat oven to 350 and then bake for 40 minutes. I usually cover the top loosely with aluminum foil, shiny side up, at the 25 minute mark.

[addendum: Just realized I left yeast off the ingredient list - I've since updated the recipe to correct that (major!) error...]

Image credit: lee.mccain

 

Baking for the fall…

I’m catching up with a number of things this weekend, including some time off, and diving into my fall plan to get back to bread baking. It’s been a few years, so we’ll see how far it goes. I started off with something sweet and easy – cinnamon raisin bread – to go with the first of our really chilly fall weekends…

Given my current schedule, and the slowing of the growing season, this site will probably see a post once a month or so, as a record for baking (and the ever-ready invitation for advice and feedback) and also as a notebook for the work on the back garden… which is more than overdue for its autumn overhaul.

That’ll wait for a different weekend, though. This one is dedicated to kneading and eating…