Apple Pie

My Grandfather loved his mother's apple pie and that is the only apple pie that he would eat. That's all we heard about growing up. His sister Betty would make the apple pie for him and he would top it with a slice of cheddar cheese. Not vanilla ice cream? Really? That was strange to me then. I now love apples with cheddar cheese, but I still won't put it on my pie.
I found this apple pie recipe while in my teens, and the first time my Grandfather had it, he told me that it was better than his mother's. That was the ultimate compliment, and thus started the tradition of me making him apple pie instead of a cake for his birthday. My Grandfather would have been 98 years old tomorrow (October 8) so I made a pie to celebrate the wonderful man that was my father figure. In his eyes, I could do no wrong. He was there, sitting next to my bed when I woke up after my c-section when I had my daughter. He helped me buy my first new car. He let me sit on his knee even though I was too big to sit on his knee. He let me push the buttons on his police scanner. He picked me up from school when I missed the bus. He picked me up from my orthodontic appointments. He made me pancakes on Thursdays... for supper! He bought donuts at Dunkin Donuts and let me pick out the ones that I wanted. He sat at the table at the lake house and watched me swim at Webster Lake. He let me sit outside with him after my bath and listen to the Red Sox on the transistor radio. We watched the trucks taking the wrong exit from the highway, thinking they were going to the Mass Pike. He loved me, K-A-T KAT. No one ever called me that except him, and no one ever will. Love you Grandpa, Happy Birthday!!!

INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon flour
1-1/4 cups sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 cup water
3 pounds tart apples
1 tablespoon flour
pie crust for a double crust pie
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Place 1 teaspoon into the bottom of a pie plate and spread it around

This helps the pie crust not stick to the the pie plate.
Place bottom crust into pie plate

Put the pie plate onto a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil.

You'll thank me for this one after you take the pie out of the oven and it's bubbled over onto the cookie sheet. You won't have to scrub the oven of burnt, sticky apple syrup.
Peel, core and slice apples into 8 sections

Put them into a bowl with enough water to cover them and a splash of lemon juice to help keep them from turning brown.

Preheat oven to 450°F.
Put the sugar, salt and water into an electric skillet

Cover and heat until sugar begins to dissolve.

Drop enough apples into the skillet to cover the bottom

Cook gently until fork tender, then using the fork, remove the cooked apples to the pie plate.

Continue until all of the apples are cooked.

Using a whisk, add the flour to the remaining syrup in the skillet, adding a little water if it's too thick.

Cover the apples with the syrup

then top with the butter, cut up into pieces

and the cinnamon

Cover with remaining pie crust

Tuck the edges under while dampening the underside edge to seal to keep the leakage down to a minimum

Using a knife, stab some holes into the top crust to let the steam escape

and place the pie on the cookie sheet into the preheated oven and cook for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 400°F and cook for an additional 25 minutes.
Remove from heat

and allow to cool for one hour.
Top with cool whip, ice cream or a slice of cheddar cheese :)

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

The first time I ever ate one of these was at a former local bakery next to my office. I swore at that time that I would somehow figure out the recipe and make them because they were so good. That was probably five years ago. I haven't had one since, and the bakery is now a very popular restaurant serving gourmet sandwiches and luncheon entrees, along with some dinner hours and having a bakery of their own. I would love to someday have my recipes in a restaurant, but until then, I will continue to find something I really like and put my twist on them to make them mine. These Whoopie Pies do not have the usual cream filling. What they do have is my signature cream cheese filling, adapted to be a little sweeter to counter balance the spicy pumpkin cake that the filling is sandwiched by. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS:
Cake:
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1.2 cups solid pack pumpkin puree
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Filling:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.
Lightly grease cookie sheets - I spray them with Pam and then use a piece of wax paper to spread it lightly on the pan. Set them aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour

salt, baking powder, baking soda and pumpkin pie spice

Whisk to combine

Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine oil

and pumpkin

It will not look appealing

add the brown sugar (sorry, forgot the picture)
eggs and vanilla

and beat until combined well.
On low speed, mix in the flour mixture

until combined

Using a large spoon, put the batter into a gallon-sized Ziplock bag

Cut off the bottom corner - about 1/4"-1/2". Be careful, because as soon as you cut off the tip, the bag decides that it's time to make to cakes whether you are ready or not. Gravity is a wonderful invention! So, lightly squeeze the dough onto the cookie sheets. The cakes will spread slightly, so make sure you leave enough room in between them.

Put them into the preheated oven and cook for 10-12 minutes.

Using a spatula, remove them from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack. Repeat with all remaining dough, making sure you have an even number of cakes. It would be a horrible thing to have an uneven number, because then you would have to eat a cake without the filling while you were waiting for them to cool!
Now wipe the crumbs off of the corner of your mouth and make the filling while to cakes are cooling.

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla

until smooth

On low speed, and as I said in my Banana Walnut Cupcake blog, I cannot stress this enough, I mean low speed, slowly mix in the powdered sugar until creamy. (If you don't do this slowly, everything within reach will be lightly covered in powdered sugar.) You should stop mixing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and once the sugar is mixed in well, turn up the speed to get it nice and fluffy.
Using a cake spatula or spoon, scoop some filling onto one cake

then top with another cake that's close to the same size ans the cake on the bottom.

I don't think any of my cakes were the same size. I got 22 complete Whoopie Pies out of this recipe, so the number is going to vary depending on the size you make them. I don't think any size is wrong, and I like to have various sizes. Someone might like a small one so they don't feel as bad when the have a second one. And someone will have a second one, guaranteed!

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope that you try these. They are easy and you can get the kids to help with this one.
Let me know what you think!
Kathi

Banana Walnut Cupcakes withCream Cheese Frosting

It's funny how get an idea in my head for something that sounds really good to make. When I go shopping, I make sure to have all of the ingredients I need for that recipe. I come home with really good intentions, but then something happens, life usually, and I end up not making the recipe. Then you find the odd ingredient three months later in the pantry and have no idea why you bought it!
When you buy banana's for a recipe, make sure that your husband knows not to eat the bananas. That's what happened the first time I went to make this recipe. So the next time I bought bananas, I made sure to tell him not to eat them, that they were going into a recipe I was making. Well, the creative juices ended up not flowing, and the bananas ended up in the trash, of coarse, after the fruit flies arrived and they were black as night. Then, I got yelled at for wasting the bananas. But when you buy bananas, you can't use them that same day for a recipe. You have to wait for them to be over-ripe so they can be mashed very easily. This time I got smart, and bought over-ripe bananas so I could use them while I was in the mood. Third time's a charm, they say!

Makes 24 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick butter, softened
1 1/2C. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1-1/2C. mashed ripe bananas *
1/2C. buttermilk
2C. flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2C. chopped walnuts

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
1 stick butter, softened
1 8oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla
2C. sifted powdered sugar

DECORATION:
2T. minced walnuts


*Ok, here's where I cheated a little. The recipe was only supposed to have one cup of mashed banana. I mashed up 2 bananas and it was almost a cup, so what's it going to hurt? I added a third banana. I think this added so much more banana taste to the cupcake that I will so this from now on.

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and granulated sugar.

One at a time, add the eggs until combined

The add the vanilla, bananas and buttermilk

On low speed, add the flour mixture to the banana mixture

 until throughly combined

Fold in the 1/2C chopped walnuts

Line cupcake pans with the pretty paper of your choice and fill 2/3 full with cupcake batter

Bake for 15-20 minutes (mine took 20)
Place pans on top of racks to cool for 10 minutes

then remove cupcakes from pan and place on racks to cool (about one hour)

Now, make your frosting. 

Clean out the mixing bowl you just used and make sure it's dry.

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla 

until smooth

On low speed, and I cannot stress this enough, I mean low speed, slowly mix in the powdered sugar until creamy. You should stop mixing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and once the sugar is mixed in well, turn up the speed to get it nice and fluffy.

You can either get fancy and put the frosting into a piping bag

or just use a knife. Now frost away! 

Sprinkle the minced walnuts

onto the frosting and voila!

These are by far, I think, the best cupcake I've ever made. I'm not trying to gloat, but I loved these, and so did a lot of my co-workers.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave me any comments, and have a great weekend!

Kathi