Apple Pie Crumble

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love giving food as gifts.  I made this for my dad for this birthday, which was at the beginning of September (my apologies for the huge delay in posting!).  He loves apple pie but I wanted to do something a little different.  So I decided to make an apple pie crumble!  Genius, right?  Quick and simple.  Just the way I like it (I save the hard stuff for days when I feel like making yeast breads).  I love my recipe for apple pie filling.  The apples with the spice and sugar mixture is so good that I find myself eating the apples before I put them in the filling!  Of course, anyone who does something like that will only admit to "taste testing" because who in the world would want to send something out before tasting it?  Certainly not me!  With apple season upon us, this is a wonderful way to put some delicious apple-y goodness on your table with not much effort!


Apple Pie Crumble
filling courtesy of Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook
crumble courtesy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
the idea of combining them?  All me.

Filling:
6 c. Apples (I use a combination of Braeburn and Granny Smith)
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1/2 c. Sugar
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice

Crumble:
1/2 c. Flour (KAF)
1/2 c. Rolled/Old Fashioned Oats
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
3/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/3 c. Butter (leave it set out for around 15 minutes to make it easier to handle)

Peach Crisp

Last weekend, Ryan and I took a trip to the farmer's market.  I love going to the farmer's market.  I love sampling the local produce and it just gives you a good feeling when you know you're supporting local farmers.  The produce you get from the farmer's market pales in comparison to what you get at the grocery store.  If you remember from one of my previous peach posts, I only buy peaches from the farmer's market because I can't find the peaches I love anywhere else.  Sadly, peach season has come to an end but I did find one lone farmer selling the last of his peach crop and I bought six peaches.  Still yummy but they had to be used quickly because I knew they weren't going to last long.  So off I went to my plethora of cookbooks!  I wanted to make something quick and simple with ingredients I had on hand and I found this cute little recipe (and for those of you that are tired of my KAF adoration/recipes, this isn't a KAF recipe!) and I just happened to have everything I needed.  The recipe is extremely versatile you can use this crisp recipe for any type of fruit!

Peach Crisp
courtesy of Southern Plate by Christy Jordan (adapted slightly by me!)

Fresh Peaches (I had 6 medium-large peaches.  Don't have fresh?  You can use one can of peaches, drained)
1/4 c. Flour (KAF - you can use All Purpose or Self-Rising, no matter what you have on hand)
1/4 c. + 1/8 c. Brown Sugar
1/4 c. Oats (quick-cooking or old fashioned?  Doesn't matter - use what you have!)
1/2 tsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice (or you can just use cinnamon)
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) Butter, fresh from the fridge

Preheat the oven to 400.
Arrange the peaches into 6 ramekins (or an 8x8 pan.  I used ramekins because I love individual servings)
In a bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients.
Sprinkle over the peaches (if using small ramekins, it should take around 2 Tbsp. of the dry mixture to cover the top).
If using ramekins, cut the butter into individual tablespoons and then cut in half.  Use 1/2 Tbsp. butter for the small ramekins (cut the butter into small pieces) and dot over the ramekins.  Repeat process for the remaining ramekins.  If using a big pan, dot the butter all over.
Bake until lightly browned which is around 20 minutes.
Serve warm and preferably with ice cream!

(these are his and hers crisps - cute right?)

Calories - Small ramekins (R) - 152, Large (L) - 240

PDQ Blueberry Muffins

I know, I know.  I've already done a blueberry muffin recipe.  But sometimes, you want something that you can just (literally) throw into a bowl and put into the oven.  This is a perfect recipe for that.  I just happened to have some fresh blueberries that needed to be used up before they went bad and I knew that my last recipe called for fresh and although it was very good, I wanted a recipe that could use either frozen or fresh.  Enter this recipe!  The nice thing about this recipe is that it's so basic that you can add any sort of berry you want - blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, or even a mixture of both (if you like that sort of thing).  The key to remember is that you need to add your berries BEFORE you add your wet ingredients.  Why?  Keeps them from sinking when you bake them.  If you forget, toss the berries in just a tiny bit of flour and add them in.  Its the same concept, just at different times.  Oh, what does "PDQ" stand for?  "Pretty Darn Quick" :)

PDQ Blueberry Muffins
courtesy of King Arthur Flour's 200th Anniversary Cookbook

2 c. All Purpose Flour (KAF)
1/2 c. Sugar
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
1 1/2 c. Berries (fresh or frozen)
1 c. Milk (I use skim because I always have that on hand)
1/4 c. Butter (I use salted.  If you have unsalted, add 1/2 tsp. salt)
2 Eggs

Preheat oven to 500 (yeah, that's hot but bear with me).
In one bowl, combine the dry ingredients together with a whisk.
Add in your berries.
In another bowl, combine your milk, butter, and eggs and mix until well combined.
Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredient and stir for 20 seconds.  Is this important?  Yes!  You want some lumps in your batter because it makes a light and tender muffins.
Pour into a light greased muffin tin/muffin cups.
As soon as you put the muffins in the oven, DROP THE TEMP to 400.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Apple Blondies

I loves apples.  It took me a very long time to actually be able to eat apples in anything though.  When I was little, I didn't eat apple pie or apple dumplings or apple anything.  Except apples.  I love raw apples!  As I've grown older, I've grown to love apple things.  I make a wonderful apple pie that I hope to make again and post the recipe for.  My father asked me to make him a deep dish Dutch apple pie once.  That recipe took me 3 different recipes from 3 different cookbooks just to be able to finish.  That was a hassle but it turned out good.  I may make that again one day now that I know what in the world I am doing!  This was much, much simpler.  And it uses my favorite cinnamon chips!  I'm telling you, when Christmas rolls around and Harris Teeter gets in their annual stock of cinnamon chips, I'm buying a case!  Haha!  The recipe actually calls this "Apple Brownies" but there is no cocoa in this recipe so technically it should be called a "blondie" which is what I'm calling them.  I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!  (Goes GREAT with vanilla ice cream!)


Apple Blondies
recipe courtesy of King Arthur Flour Baking Sheet, Autumn 2011

1 1/4 c. All Purpose Flour (KAF)
1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1/2 c. Butter (I use salted - if you use unsalted, add an additional 1/2 tsp. salt)
1 c. Sugar
1 Egg
2 1/2 c. Apples, Peeled and Diced (I used Braeburn apples for this recipe) - amounts to around 2 or 3 apples
1/2 c. Cinnamon Chips
1/2 c. Walnuts, Chopped

Preheat oven to 350.
Spray an 8x8 pan with butter flavored cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon.
Melt the butter in a saucepan or microwave.
Remove from heat and whisk in the sugar.
Cool the butter and sugar mixture to lukewarm and add the egg (use caution because you don't want scrambled eggs - make sure your butter/sugar mix is cool!).
Combine the butter/sugar mixture with the flour mixture.
Fold in the apples, cinnamon chips, and walnuts.  (NOTE:  This mixture will be THICK - it's gonna take some elbow grease to make sure everything is properly mixed together!)
Pour the batter into your 8x8 pan.
Bake for 40-45 minutes.

(see those lovely cinnamon chips?  Yummy!)


Calories:  206 (per 2" square)