Apple Crisp

The first of my many apple recipe posts just had to be apple crisp. It is my absolute favorite apple dessert. A thick crust of brown sugary oatmeal goodness on top of a baked bed of cinnamon apples. . .just to die for.

I don’t actually use a recipe when I make apple crisp – all the ones I’ve tried never end up with enough topping for my tastes. I like a THICK amount of it, not just a smidge on top of the apples. So the recipe here is a rough idea of what I use, but mine varies from batch to batch. Feel free to play with it so it’s adjusted to your tastes!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups baking oats
1/2 cup butter
5 small to medium size apples (I used Macintosh for this particular batch.)
Lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 375F.

Start by combining your flour, sugar, and oats. Mix thoroughly – I do all this by hand instead of with a spoon as I find it mixes better overall.

Then add in your butter, and mix up. Again, I do this by hand as I find that creates a better texture for the topping (I do use a spoon to scrape down the sides however). Once combined, set aside.

Now it’s time to peel and slice your apples. My mom got me this Pampered Chef all in one Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer and it makes every apple-baking project about 500% more efficient than hand cutting and peeling your apples. I highly recommend the investment into this contraption. It may look like an 18th century torture device, but it is amazing. I ended up using only 5 of the apples I’d set out for the crisp, because that was what filled my pan. That’s how I measure how many to use – however many fills my 9×9 pan.

Once the apples are in, I squirt some lemon juice on top and then sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar.

Then place your crust on. This is yet another step I do by hand since I find it much easier to place the topping with my fingers than to try and smear it around with a spoon.

I bake mine uncovered for 30 minutes. This allows the crust to get a nice crunchy top, but still be chewy on the underside. So each bite is a fabulous combination of crunchy, chewy, and gooey apple. Mmmmmm. Definitely eat it warm – with or without ice cream. I actually prefer apple crisp without ice cream; I save it for the pie!

Hope you enjoy some apple crisp this season!

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Molasses Cookies

I’m about 95% sure that molasses cookies are my all time favorite cookie. They are such a perfect combo of soft and chewy, not too sweet with that lovely spice taste. . .I’m drooling thinking about them. However, I make them sparingly, and really only in the fall. I think the fact that I only have them twice a year or so definitely adds to my love for them!

Molasses cookies are definitely a bit more involved compared to my chocolate chip cookie recipe, but they are so worth it. So if you’re up for a bit of extra time and effort, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

3/4 Cups Margarine, melted. (I use Country Crock Spread which isn’t true margarine, but works perfectly.)
1 Cup White Sugar
1 Egg
1/4 Cup Molasses
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger
1/2 Cup White Sugar (for rolling)

First combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a small bowl.

Mix thoroughly, and set aside.

In a larger bowl beat sugar, melted butter, and egg together until smooth.

Pour in molasses and mix well.

Pour dry ingredients into the wet, and combine thoroughly.

At this point, cover your bowl with tinfoil and chill in the fridge for an hour, minimum. (Mine chilled for about two hours since I let it sit in for all of my little missy’s nap time!)

Once chilled, preheat oven to 375. Measure out your half cup of sugar into a bowl, and some flour into another bowl. Flour your hands regularly as you roll the dough into walnut size balls (mine were slightly larger) to prevent it from sticking.

My assistant really enjoyed the ‘flour your hands’ part!

Roll each ball in the sugar, then place on a cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks, and enjoy!

These didn’t last long in our house. This batch made roughly 34 cookies. . .they were gone in about five days! However we did share with our neighbor, and with my brother. That’s the excuse I’m sticking with at least.

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Nom Nom ‘Nana Bread

Thanks to my two and a half year old I now pronounce the word ‘banana’ as ‘nana’, and thus apply it to all banana related things.

It was cool enough last week for me to get in some baking. Yay! Upon opening my freezer, I discovered that I had SEVENTEEN overripe frozen bananas in there. So naturally, some banana bread was in order! Especially since it then meant I had room for some fro yo in the freezer. Yummo.

I always use overripe bananas when making banana bread. I usually wait until they are fully spotted and brown in the fruit basket, then I pop them in the freezer where they last for a long time. . .I don’t think mine have ever really lasted longer than a couple weeks in the freezer since I bake all. the. time. But I would say they’d last many months frozen for sure. I use the overripe bananas mainly because they are so much sweeter than ‘ready to eat’ bananas, which really cuts down on the sugar you have to add. (Just as an FYI, the reason the banana fruit browns is the process of the starch turning to sugar – hence the sweeter-when-brown deal.)  So I got out my recipe book and went to town!

This recipe is my dad’s version – I’ve been eating this banana bread my whole life!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 & 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups mashed bananas (roughly 6 average size bananas)
• 1 & 1/4 cups white flour
• 1 & 1/4 cups wheat flour
• 1 & 1/2 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
  Adding walnuts is always optional; I can’t stand them, so my bread is nut-free!
  Preheat oven to 350F.

Add flours, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. . .

. . .and mix well!

 
In a separate larger bowl, combine oil and sugar and beat until creamy. Also, mash your bananas – I usually do it after the oil/sugar step. I opted not to photograph getting the frozen bananas out of the peels and mashing them because frankly, it looks incredibly gross. It really does – seriously unappetizing. . .but I promise you’ll end up with delicious banana bread!

After the oil and sugar is creamed, add in eggs and beat well.

Then pour in your mashed bananas and mix until fully blended together.

Pour you dry ingredients into the wet mixture,

and combine thoroughly.

And of course my little baking assistant always gets to sample the batters!

Pour batter into loaf pans. I use a silicon pan with four mini loaves as you can see. I find them much easier than dealing with metal ones – despite being stainless steel all the ones I used to have would end up rusting. These are amazing, completely non-stick meaning no greasing is needed, and super easy to clean. Can’t go wrong in my book! If I feel like making full size loaves, I use glass pans, which definitely DO need to be greased before the batter is put in! These also make great muffins – fill your muffin tins 2/3 full.

Bake for 45min to 1hr for loaves; I’d check muffins after 25mins. Once out of the oven, let cool for a full hour for loaves – thirty minutes for muffins. Then pop out of the pans and enjoy!

This bread also freezes extremely well. I usually give away some of my loaves to my family, but occasionally we’ll pop a couple into the freezer to have on hand. A couple slices with a cup of tea is one of my all time favorite breakfasts. . .or afternoon snacks. . .or both in one day. Yum.

Lastly, a quick aside about my baking. You may notice in my photos there aren’t any electric mixers – handheld, or stand. I don’t use them in everyday baking (I use a handheld mixer when I make buttercream frosting – doing that by hand would just be too difficult for my taste). I know I’m a bit old fashioned at heart, and maybe that’s why, but I’ve just never seen a need! Everything I make is easily done by hand with a whisk. Yes, it takes a bit more elbow grease, but I’m fine with that. However, if you use a mixer – simply apply it where it’d normally be used!

C is for Cookie. . .

. . .that’s good enough for me! You’re welcome for getting the Cookie Monster song stuck in your head. 🙂

I love to bake. I thank my grandmother for instilling that in me – one of my absolute favorite memories with her is being probably four, standing on my stool up at her counter and making homemade bread with her. She still makes it by hand to this day. Nowadays, my baking tends to be more dessert focused than hers ever was! In the summer baking is usually a rarity for me – it’s just too hot and humid. I got my fill of summer baking last year when I was doing a weekly farmers market selling my baked goods – every Friday was spent in my kitchen for a ten hour baking day in 90+ degree heat. I definitely don’t miss that part of it!

Lately, despite the week and a half straight of rain up here, it has still been a hot humid mess. However, it finally cooled off enough that I didn’t mind running the oven. My little miss requested chocolate chip cookies and I was happy to oblige.

I’m not a mum who minds mess. I love to include my little girl in as much as possible in the kitchen – even if it means added mess. I make the biggest mess ever baking anyway, so really she can’t add much more mess than I already do. Case in point – she didn’t spill a single thing while helping me make these cookies whereas I accidentally ripped the flour bag and poured flour all over myself and the kitchen floor.
Mommy – 0. Toddler – 1.

The recipe I use is a modified version of one I saw on Pinterest. I’ve tried many a chocolate chip cookie recipe, but this one is definitely my new favorite (at least when I’m using my modifications).

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter (or spread) I use Country Crock Spread, which isn’t real butter and it works perfectly.
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour (I always split my flour in cookies and breads between white and wheat. Sometimes I use entirely wheat flour. It certainly doesn’t make them healthy, but it’s slightly better! And there is no discernible taste difference.)
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

First, preheat your oven to 350F.

Combine your butter and sugars.

Stir until they are a smooth creamy consistency.

Add in your egg and vanilla, and mix together.

Then add in all the dry ingredients.

And stir it all up into a dough!

Then pour in your chocolate chips and mix ’em up.

And don’t forget to eat a few chips. . .

And of course a spoonful of cookie dough!! Yeah, we eat raw cookie dough in this household.

Scoop onto tinfoil (or parchment paper if you prefer) lined cookie sheets. I never used to see the point in a dough scoop until I did the farmers market. They were the easiest way to get uniform-size cookies and things! And now that I have one, I use it every time I make cookies.
Anywho, pop them in the oven for NO MORE than 12 minutes. They WILL look undercooked on top, but trust me, they aren’t! You end up with a soft chewy delicious cookie, that will stay chewy for days! I’d eat them within a week though. This recipe yields a minimum of 24 cookies – I usually end up with 28 – 30. Enjoy!