CrankyCakes

I’m really writing this one to proselytize on behalf of the humble baked apple.  It’s so maligned, an after-thought of an apologetic little dessert.  Which was appropriately forgotten when the actual time for dessert arrived … until the next morning, when they transformed breakfast into something amazing.

This was just as well.  I can hardly imagine the caterwauling and carrying on I would have faced if I had brought a warm, wrinkly apple to the table and tried to pass it off as dessert.

And then I started using the rest of them and realized how much more they could do.  This is my favorite kind of food discovery, a simple preparation that makes a humble and affordable ingredient especially flexible.

If you don’t have a current favorite baked apple recipe, here’s a classic one to start with.  Make 8 or a dozen apples and use them up all week long, in:

1. Oatmeal.  Just throw the whole thing in the bowl, toss the oats over it and stir/mash it up with a spoon.
2. As a bottom for cobbler, with biscuit dough on top and the apples especially flavorful and caramelized.
3. In quick, easy, mini apple pies.  Get miniature phyllo cups, scoop in a little bit of apple and warm at 300 for just a few minutes.  Use a melon baller to scoop a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream on top.

So it was International Bacon Day last week, and the boys were dismantling the furniture as I was cruising around the food blog world.

Normally, these sorts of things turn me off.  I just want to run and hide when I see the whole food world marching in lock-step with an ingredient or a technique or celebrity or whatever.

But this was bacon.

“Guys,” I said.  “What do you think of bacon ice cream?!”  They looked up from their couch-cushion boat.  I watched warring emotions cross their little faces like cloudbursts on a sunny day.  Clearly they were thinking, “Mmmm, bacon!  Ice cream, mmmm.  Smokey ice cream?  Can I get it in a cone?  Would the bacon melt it?  Can I still bite off the bottom of the cone and use it as a straw and watch Mommy try to keep her composure?”

But perhaps I project.

E. said, “Listen, Mommy: I have an even better idea.  What if you made a bacon pie!?  And then we have vanilla ice cream and put bacon on it?!  And you give me hot dogs for dinner first!?

Perpetually thinking about ways to get produce into their little mouths, I suggested that maybe we could make an apple cobbler with a bacon crust.  I’ll admit it: I was pandering.  The only thing they like more than apple pie is apple cobbler.  There were no hot dogs, because that seemed like going to Catholic mass to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.   And off we went.

Blackberry Apple Cobbler with Bacon-Sage Crust
adapted from The New Basics Cookbook & in honor of Sheila Lukins

Yield: 12 servings.

• 2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries, stems removed
• 8 apples peeled, cored, cut into wedges
• 1/2 c. plus 3 T. sugar
• 1 T. lemon juice
• Freshly grated zest of 1/2 lemon
• 2 c. whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 T. baking powder
• scant 1/2 c. unsalted butter ( I again send you to iRaw’s excellent site for her vegan version of biscuits, should you prefer)
  
• 1 egg
• 1/3 c. milk

• 4 slices bacon (or turkey bacon or veggie substitute, of course), cooked and crumbled into 1/2″ pieces
• 2 fresh sage leaves, chopped very finely, or 1/4 t. ground dried sage

1. Preheat oven to 425.  Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and set aside.
2. Combine berries, apples, 1/2 c. sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest in the prepared pan.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and 1 T. of the sugar.  Work in the butter with a pastry blender or your fingertips.  (I have a whisk like this, which I love partly for its double life as a pastry blender.)  Lightly beat the egg and milk together, and slowly but firmly (you don’t want too many strokes) stir into the flour mixture.  Stir in the chopped bacon and sage.
4. Knead lightly, sprinkling on a bit more flour as necessary to form a smooth dough.
5. Break off portions of the dough and place them on top of the fruit in the pan, pressing and spreading the dough as you go.  Cover the entire surface.
6. Sprinkle remaining sugar over the dough and bake until well browned, 35-45 minutes.  Serve immediately, with ice cream of course.

I’ve been out picking blackberries like mad.  They’re nearly done now, but we’ve had an amazing crop here on the edge of our property.  I’ve probably frozen 8 quarts of them in addition to all we’ve eaten fresh.

And as I was figuring out a blackberry dessert the other night, the chocolate-flavored marshmallows in my cupboard jumped into my hand, followed by the dark chocolate.  And then CrankyGreg asked why I didn’t figure a way to add in some graham crackers so they could become a s’more something.  And I loved the idea, though I’m really not often the person who takes the best, freshest produce and turns it into junk food.

But, you know, yum.

And then our fair was in town, and there was a Best Cobbler competition today so I turned the idea into a cobbler, then trundled off with 6 servings in a microwavable container, and then I won second prize.

The valiant judges.

Out of how many entrants, you’re surely wondering.

The answer is 2.

And next you want to know what the prize was.

The answer is $4.  (The blue ribbon winner gets $6.)

But really, this is a delicious recipe.  Think chocolate-berry jam with crisp brown biscuits on top. The marshmallows get all melty and browned and kind of mix in, and it’s just all tart and sweet and dark and comforting. And with all the berries I have in the freezer, I think I could be persuaded to eat this all winter long.

S’more Berry Cobbler
12 servings

Preheat oven to 425.

Butter a 9 x 13 pan and then combine in it:

Make biscuit dough by combining (and you vegan friends should check out my blogfriend iRaw’s site, where she just posted some gorgeous biscuits that could easily be adapted here):

with a biscuit cutter or two knives until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Lightly beat together:

And then stir egg/milk mixture into the flour/butter mixture.  Knead lightly to produce a smooth dough, adding a bit more flour if necessary.

Break off pieces of dough and place them on top of the fruit, pressing and flattening slightly.  Cover the entire surface.  Sprinkle 2 T. sugar over the dough and bake until well browned, 35 – 45 minutes.  Serve immediately, with vanilla ice cream, which it fairly screams for.

Originally Posted by Cheryl at 11/29/2008 12:06:00 AM

After having been shut out of buying Maple Walnut Pie for THREE years at the Craftsbury Antiques & Uniques Festival, at last I decided to make my own to bring to the Thanksgiving potluck.

I made Cream Cheese Pie Crust (mine was from the 1997 Joy of Cooking), which I’ll immodestly admit was the best crust I’ve made ever. It turns out that following recipes can actually pay off. So much for my usual ADHD approach to baking.

It’s hard to say just why Maple Walnut Pie is so much more delicious than my old favorite pecan pie, but it just is. Of course they’re very similar, but the smoky maple taste and the slightly tannic, bitter walnuts of this one create a sort of accessible complexity that is just terrific. (The mini one in the picture, by the way, is one made with pumpkin seeds for my friend who’s allergic to nuts. I would have pan-toasted the seeds first except it was Thanksgiving morning and there was zero chance of this level of attention to detail by then.)

It seemed the right thing to choose Yankee Magazine’s recipe for such a Vermont-y seeming dessert, and I think I’ll be making this often.