Archive for November, 2011
When you do a lot of baking, oven mitts and potholders are an everyday tool that is as important as your oven is – especially if you want to get whatever you’re baking out of the oven. While you can use a dishtowel wrapped around your hand, oven mitts give you a better grip and a little more peace of mind when lifting anything out of a 350F oven. Towards the holidays, more people than usual are baking, whether they’re roasting a turkey for Thanksgiving or baking batches of holiday Christmas cookies, and that means that the review of oven mitts in a recent issue (Dec/Jan 2012) of Cook’s Country should come in handy for almost everyone.
The magazine set out to find an oven mitt that offered a lot of heat protection as well as offering a lot of maneuverability. Mitts that were too thick made it difficult to grip a cookie sheet securely, while thinner mitts gave you a more secure grip. Some of those thinner mitts, however, didn’t offer the heat protection of the larger gloves. They tested the mitts with casserole dishes pulled from a 450F oven and, to measure heat resistance, held them as long as possible (do not try this at home!) while they were wired with heat sensors to see how much heat got through the gloves and how quickly. They also looked for mitts that were washable and easy to care for.
The test winner was the Kool-Tek 15-inch Oven Mitt, which offered great heat resistance, good pan control and came out of the laundry looking good-as-new. Also highly recommended was the Orkaplus Silicone Oven Mitt with Cotton Lining, which performed as well as the Kool-Tek for less than half the price. Gloves that came in with lower, but still good, ratings included the Calphalon 14-inch Oven Mitt and the Oxo Good Grips Silicone Oven Mitt which were not as grip-friendly as the winners, as well as the Le Creuset Oven Mitt, which work well but didn’t hold up quite as well after repeated washings.
Apple butter is a thick, smooth fruit puree made by slowly cooking fresh apples with sugar. It gets is name from the fact that the finished product is smooth as butter, not because there is any butter in it. There are many types of fruit butter out there, but apple butter is by far my favorite. Apples take very well to being turned into fruit butter and leave you with an amber-colored preserve that is bursting with sweet apple flavor.
My Homemade Apple Cider Butter is actually inspired by Smuckers Cider Apple Butter, which is a delicious product that the company only makes in the fall when apples are fresh from the orchard. It was actually the very product that launched the family-owned company back in 1897. Mine is made with lots of apples, apple cider and a mixture of brown and white sugar. The apples are cooked until they are tender, then pureed and cooked again with sugar until the butter-like finished consistency is achieved. Since you are cooking these apples down, the texture of the apples that you choose to work with doesn’t matter as much as it does when you are choosing apples for baking pie. You can use Granny Smith if you like tart apples or Fuji, which I tend to use.
I find that a blend of brown sugar and white sugar gives the preserve a real depth of flavor and is slightly reminiscent of apple pie – only more intense, because the mixture has been reduced by so much. I have used both plain apple cider and spiced apple cider in batches of apple butter with good results. Choose a good quality, all natural apple cider (or even apple juice) that you like the flavor of and you’ll be very happy with the results.
I use my homemade apple cider butter to top muffins, biscuits, pancakes, waffles and anything else I can think of pairing it with. I’ve warmed it up and put it on ice cream, and I’ve even turned it into an Apple Butter Pie. The rich apple flavor is sweet and addictive. This recipe doesn’t make a huge batch, so I simply store mine in an airtight container in the refrigerator as I use it (which doesn’t take long). If you are into canning, you could certainly can your cider butter after it has finished cooking and you can make a double batch if you want to have a lot of it on hand, or to give as gifts. If you don’t plan on canning, know that when stored in the fridge, a batch will keep well for at least two weeks.
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In Mini Pies: Adorable and Delicious Recipes for Your Favorite Treats, pie lovers will find their favorite dessert transformed into a miniaturized version of itself. Mini pies pack in all the flavor of their full sized counterparts, but come in a single serving package. The pies in the book are all designed to bake in muffin tins, so you don’t need any special equipment to make or bake them. The cookbook is small – just like the pie recipes inside of it – so it is easy to make room for it even on an already crowded shelf of other cookbooks.
The book begins with a crash course in mini pie making. The authors explain how the crusts should be prepared, rolled out, cut and fit into the muffin tins to get the best results. There are eight different crust recipes, including a graham cracker crust, a vegan pie crust and even a savory cheddar cheese crust. Directions for baking the crusts with the fillings and for blind baking them are also included. These crusts form the basis for all of the recipes in the book, but they’re also a good jumping off point for any other pie you might be inspired to create once you have the mini pie technique down pat.
The recipes are divided into three sections: Fruit Pies, Creamy Custard Pies, and Nut & Savory Pies. All of the recipes are clearly written and look very approachable, even if you’ve never tried making a mini pie before. Each recipe makes a dozen little pies, enough for a crowd if you want to serve these as dessert after a big family dinner. Most of the recipes have photos with them, which not only gives you an idea of what the finished pie should look like, but also how to top them and style them so that they really look impressive (just like getting that perfect swirl of frosting on top of a cupcake). In fact, the last chapter in the book is all about toppings and gives you several ideas for flavored whipped creams and marshmallowy meringues that can finish off any pie with flair.
A great pumpkin pie should have a creamy, rich texture, a great pumpkin flavor and a good balance of spices to it. It shouldn’t be overly dense, heavy or coarsely textured. I am a big fan of pumpkin pie – especially during fall or close to Thanksgiving – and I love making it at home. This is my Perfect Pumpkin Pie, one that I’ve tweaked over the years until it delivers exactly the type of pumpkin pie that I like. It is an easy pie to make and gets great reactions when you serve it to a crowd of family and friends because most people don’t expect a pumpkin pie to be so good.
I typically use canned pumpkin puree (homemade pumpkin puree works well, too) because it is convenient and delivers a consistently good result. The pumpkin is mixed with brown sugar, eggs, milk and spices and then baked. I always pour the filling through a strainer to catch anything that will keep the pie from being as silky as possible, such as a chunk of brown sugar or a fibrous bit of pumpkin. Like most custard pies, I bake this at a high temperature to “set” it, then turn the oven down to let it finish baking in a more moderate oven so that the pie doesn’t overbake or crack. The resulting filling is creamy and rich, with a distinct pumpkin flavor.
One of the keys to this pie is to use fresh, flavorful spices. I use my homemade pumpkin pie spice mix, a blend of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. If you are using older spices (things that have been in your spice rack since last Thanksgiving… or the one before that), they will still work, although you might want to increase the amount of spice by an extra half a teaspoon to get that same punch of flavor in your pie.
I like to use a regular pie crust for this type of pie. Not only does a tender pastry crust add a nice texture to the finished pie, but it doesn’t need to be prebaked, so rolling out a piece of dough only adds a couple of minutes to your prep time. The baking time for this pie is relatively short and you will get the best results in a glass or metal pan, as both heat up much more quickly than ceramic bakeware and will allow the pie crust to brown better while it bakes. If you’re pressed for time, a store-bought graham cracker crust also makes a good option for this pie filling.
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When it comes to apple pie, I firmly believe that you can’t beat a made-from-scratch pie. It’s fun to make and shape the crusts and you have total control of how sweet or tart your filling will be. The option of opening a can of prepackaged pie filling and pouring it into a frozen pie shell is not necessarily a bad one, however. I know that doing this allows you to fill your kitchen with the smell of freshly baked apple pie while saving some valuable holiday time for doing other things. Plus, there are some good options out there for both premade pie crusts and pie fillings. Trader Joe’s Apple Pie Filling is a new offering from TJ’s, introduced just for the holiday pie-baking season. The large jar holds 32 ounces, which should be enough for a generously filled apple pie, and it is made with the same all natural ingredients that you would probably put into your pie filling anyway.
The filling tastes like, well, the filling of an apple pie! It has a good, fresh apple flavor and a mild mix of spices, so it actually reminds me a lot of apple cider. It has a good consistency, with plenty of large apple slices, so you won’t confuse it with chunky apple sauce even though it looks very similar while still in the jar. The apple slices are very tender and the filling surrounding them is smooth and sweet.
Since I like my apple pies on the chunkier side, I probably will not be replacing my homemade fillings with this one when I’m making a full sized pie. If I did, I might chop up one fresh apple into thin slices and add it in for a little extra texture. I would definitely use it (and already have!) to fill up single serving pies baked in muffin tins or in my mini pie maker, as those smaller pies require fillings to be precooked anyway. You can also use this as the base for an easy apple crisp or heat it up on the stovetop and serve it with vanilla ice cream.
