Apple Pie

I decided to make apple pie since I’d heard that it was easy to make, the recipe I used is here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe-Tools/Print/Recipe.aspx?RecipeID=12682&servings=8

I found an article on making pie crusts and was going to use it to aprocimate amounts but ended up using a recipe my aunt gave me. The Pie crust article can be found here:

http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Perfect-Pie-Crusts/Detail.aspx

“Crust Recipe

2 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

4-6 tbsp cold water

Mix the sugar, salt and flour together then cut the butter into that mixture until the butter is crumbly and pea sized. Add cold water gradually until mixture is moistened.”

I’m not exactly sure how much butter we put in but I think we ended up putting in more than what the recipe called for. After mixing the ingredients together I kneaded the dough a little bit until the flour is all mixed together though my Aunt says that with pie crust you want to touch it as little as possible. Don’t forget to cut the dough in half since you need to have some dough for the lattice topping. Roll one of the dough balls out and place it in your pie pan.

Filling:

INGREDIENTS

1. 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
2. 1/2 cup unsalted butter
3. 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4. 1/4 cup water
5. 1/2 cup white sugar
6. 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
7. 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F

You start by melting the butter in a saucepan, although we melted it in the microwave and then put it in the saucepan. Add the flour gradually so as not to make a mess. Add the water, white sugar, and brown sugar, then bring to a boil then let it simmer while you cut and peel the apples. We used 8 apples like the recipe says but there would have been plenty of apples with only 6 or 7.

Put the apples into your pie crust in a small mound. The recipe says to put the lattice on before the sauce but we put the sauce on 1st and it worked fine, but I think it would have worked better with adding the sauce after.

Roll the other ball of dough out and cut it across, the dough strips should be about an inch wide. After you cut the dough then put the strips onto your pie one at a time, you can weave them if you want. Here’s a video to show how:

http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Making-a-Lattice-Top-Pie-Video/Detail.aspx

On my pie I made the mistake of not sealing the edges and so the filling leaked out and made a mess in the oven so be sure to seal the sides when adding the lattice topping.

Baking:

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue baking for 35-45 minutes or until apples are soft.

Serving:

You just cut the pie in whatever size pieces you want and enjoy! The pie tastes best hot it tastes great by itself but adding a little vanilla ice cream is also good. Here’s a picture of the finished pie:

Overall:

It was fairly easy to make and was really fun! Although I’d suggest investing in an apple peeler, we don’t have one here and my cousin and I spent a fair amount of time peeling the apples. When the pie was finished it tasted great, although because of the filling overfilling I had to take it out of the oven early so the apples were still a little hard.

Japanese Christmas Cake

I’d wanted to bake a Japanese desert but it needed to be something that didn’t use very many ingredients, what I ended up making was a Japanese Christmas Cake. Basically all it is is a sponge cake with whipped cream and fruit on top. The recipe I used is found here: http://japanesefood.about.com/od/japanesecake/r/christmascake.htm

Sponge Cake:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbsp milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 Tbsp butter

You start by whisking the eggs in a bowl, then put them into a double boiler and add the sugar a little at a time until fully mixed. Then add the flour a little at a time, because otherwise you’ll edd up with a huge floury mess. Mix the butter and milk in a separate bowl and then add this mixture to the batter and stir. Bake in the preheated oven (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for 25-35 minutes.

Topping (Whipped Cream):

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 4 Tbsps sugar
• Various fruits (strawberries, peaches, cherries, and so on)

Mix together the cream and sugar and whip until stiff peaks form.

To Serve:

Cut a piece of cake and put a dollop of the topping on top of it and then put some fruit on top of that, we only used peaches but you can add other fruits as well. We also put a little bit of chocolate sauce on top of t

he cake and that made it taste better.

Overall:

It was easy to make but definitely not the best recipe, it tastes a little dry so you have to have a lot of topping and fruit to make it taste good; if I make this again I probably would find a different recipe to go off of. So it was fun to make one time but I don’t think I’ll make it again.

Chocolate Mint Squares

We needed something that we could make for desert for guests and my sister found this recipe and decided to make it, and I helped her make it. The recipe is for chocolate mint squares and the original recipe can be found here:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateMintSquares.html

The recipe is basically just a mint Nanaimo Bar, it’s made up of three layers:

The bottom layer is a cookie with coconut in it, the middle layer a creamy filling and the top layer is chocolate.

Bottom Layer:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) (113 grams) butter

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1/3 cup (30 grams) unsweetened cocoa

1 large egg, beaten

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (200 grams) graham cracker crumbs

1 cup (65 grams) Coconut

1/2 cup (50 grams) walnuts or pecans, chopped

Before you start you need to crush the graham crackers so that you don’t have to deal with it later, make sure you make it into crumbs and not just small chunks. Also at this time chop the nuts.

You start by melting the butter in a pan then stir in the sugar and cocoa powder. Then add the egg gradually so that the egg is mixed fully into the mixture. You then allow it to cook for about 2 minutes. When it’s done add the vanilla, crumbs, coconut, and chopped nuts. Put this mixture into a pan and the cover and put it into the refrigerator for about an hour, although we only had it in the fridge for 30 minutes so that amount is probably long enough.

Filling (Middle Layer):

Ingredients

1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter

2 - 3 tablespoon milk

2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder (Bird's) or vanilla pudding powder

1/2 teaspoon pure peppermint extract

2 cups (230 grams) powdered sugar (confectioners or icing) sugar

Green Food Coloring (optional)

First melt the butter and soften the cream cheese in the microwave so that it’s easier to mix together, instead of using the microwave you could just leave them out on the counter for a while so that they can soften.

To start you put the cream cheese and the butter into a mixer and blend them together. Then beat in the milk, vanilla pudding powder, peppermint extract and powdered sugar. Lastly you add a few drops of green food coloring and mix until it’s fully mixed in. Spread the filling onto the bottom layer and put in the fridge until firm (about 30 minutes, although I think we only had it in there for about 10 minutes)

Top Layer:

Ingredients

4 ounces (115 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter

In a double boiler melt the chocolate and butter, spread this mixture over the filling and refrigerate. It only really needs to be in the fridge long enough for the chocolate to harden but it can stay in longer.

To Serve:

For serving it my sister cut three squares and put it so that the tips of the squares were together and the other side of the squares were spread out, she then put some whipped cream in the center of the squares and drizzled chocolate sauce on top, it was really yummy. A picture on the finished product:

Overall experience:

This recipe was really easy and fun to make and the result was yummy, I’d definitely try making this again. This recipe would also be fun to experiment with, like maybe use a different pudding powder and see how that’d taste or put some other flavoring besides the peppermint; if anyone tries experimenting with this recipe please let me know the results.