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Apple Pear Carmel Pie Perfection

Pie has always been a classic holiday dessert. But sometimes we want something a bit different. Maybe, right now you are frantically looking for an alternative to pumpkin pie or apple pie; they seem kinda ho hum. Look no further, apple pear caramel crumb pie to the rescue!

Fresh tasting, locally sourced fruits are exactly in the spirit of Thanksgiving. The apple is the predominant flavor but the pear adds sweetness and a special flavor. The sugars, spices and lemon peel create a yummy caramely sauce. It is not that really sweet caramel of sauces; just enough sweetness to tease your palette.

This pie is fantastic with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. I even tried a slice with some sharp cheddar in the British pie tradition; it was nice but I really like it best all alone, so the delicate fruit and spices show their winning flavors.

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This is the dry blend you mix the fruit slices with before pouring in the crust.

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Loaded with crumb topping and ready for the oven!

This recipe is a blending of my own pie filling and the pie crust and crumb recipes from Annalise Robert’s cookbook, Gluten-Free Baking Classics. I used less sugar, more fruit, and made a few other changes to create my own special pie using apples and pears. Her cookbook is a fabulous resource and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone trying to bake gluten free for a family member. There is nothing like the classic desserts that we traditionally enjoy at celebrations and feasts to comfort a celiac who can’t eat what they used to.apple pear pie, squash, chicken and dumplings 019

Angie’s GF Apple Pear Crumb Pie

Crust:
1 c plus 2 tbsp brown rice flour mix (at bottom of recipe)
2 tbsp sweet rice flour
1 Tbps. granulated sugar
½ tsp xanthan gum
¼ tsp salt
6 Tbps. cold butter cut into 6 chunks
1 lg egg
2 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice

Spray 9 inch metal pie pan with cooking spray, dust with white rice flour.

Mix dry ingredients in bowl of stand electric mixer. Add butter and mix until crumbly and resembling coarse meal. Add egg and juice. Mix until it comes together into big chunks. Shape into a ball with your hands. Put it on a crust sized piece of wax paper (14 x 14 inches more or less), flatten the crust ball some; put on top of it another piece of wax paper and chill it all in your fridge 15-20 minutes while you chop the peeled and cored fruit into ¼ to 1/3 inch slices.

Filling:

5 cups peeled, cored, and thin sliced cooking apples (4 big apples)
2 cups (2 large pears) bosc pears; peeled, cored, and sliced thin – place in medium bowl

Mix the following in a small bowl and pour over the sliced apples and pears:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tbsp. tapioca flour
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. grated or zested lemon peel (I zested)

Roll out pie crust between the two sheets of wax paper; try to get the thickness even, no thick middle! Peel off one side of paper and place in pie pan, centered. Remove other slice of wax paper. Crimp edges all around. Fill with sweetened fruit mix. Sprinkle the lemon peel evenly over top and pour the crumb topping (1 to 1½ cup) evenly over this mixture. The more crumbs the thicker the crust they will form; for a really thick crust use all the crumbs from the recipe below.

If you love your pie really sweet add another ¼ cup granulated sugar to the dry mix part of the filling. I found the pie to be plenty sweet but everyone has their own sweetness level.

I put a pie guard under my pies to contain any oven accidents. If you make many pies it is a must. pie guardBake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30 minutes with a piece of aluminum foil on top of the pie, then 30 more minutes uncovered until bubbly and the crust is light brown. Cool at least 2 hours before serving at room temperature.

Note: I bake pies in my bottom heat pizza oven and it gives me a great browned crust. If your oven isn’t bottom heat you might want to pre-bake the crust 10 minutes before filling and topping the fruit.

Crumb topping

Put all four ingredients in the same mixing bowl you made the bottom crust in and mix well with mixer paddle until crumbs form.

¾ c brown rice flour mix
½ c granulated sugar
½ tsp xanthan gum
1/3 c cold butter cut into six chunks
Brown Rice Flour Mix (same as King Arthur GF blend)
2 c brown rice flour
2/3 c potato starch (not potato flour)
1/3 c tapioca flour

Cranberry Crackle Tart: Light and Flavorful

I discovered this recipe on line, back before last Thanksgiving, at splendidtable.com. I loved the look and sound of it but didn’t find time to make it until last Christmas. Love at first bite. Like a fruit tart and a pavlova had a baby: this is the felicitous result. Light and delicate making it perfect after a hearty Thanksgiving feast. It is really guilt free if you eat it minus any toppings. I devoured it with vanilla ice cream on top at last year’s Christmas luncheon, nice flavor combination. I want to make one for Thanksgiving, maybe this time I will be serving it like you do a Pavlova, with lightly sweetened real whipped cream on top. Yumm!

It is really easy to throw together. If you are gluten free you can use the recipe provided below, which I adapted the splendid table recipe to make it gluten free. At holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas Wegmans often has gf redi-made crusts. So does Frey’s Better Foods in Hellertown. If you are a wheat eater use whatever cookie tart crust you like. I added the cinnamon to my crust and found it added a lot to the complexity of the flavors. The crust absolutely needs to be prebaked before you put the tart together.

I should say I seldom use fresh cranberries; I generally make a fresh relish – old family recipe – for Thanksgiving but never got it made last November. So I had the bag of cranberries in the fridge in the fruit bin. Yeah, it sat there a month: I did have to pick through it (you always should) after I rinsed them and remove and squishy ones. There are usually a few of those mixed in and they aren’t great for anyone to eat. Let the picked over berries dry. Anyway, my point is; this tart is fantastic tasting even if you aren’t a huge cranberry fan.

I used some smooth raspberry jam (what I had) but you could probably use most any jam. Just chose one full of real fruit in a flavor you like as you can definitely taste the jammy flavor mixed in with the crust and the meringue topping. I loved it with raspberry jam, a favorite flavor for me.

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Sweet Cookie crust

Place the following in a stand mixer bowl and combine

1 cup GF flour (recipe below)
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp xanthan gum
½ tsp. cinnamon
Add 5 tbsp cold butter, cut into 6-7 chunks. Mix on low until the butter is just crumbs blended in.
Add 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 tbsp water. Blend well.

Pour the crumbs into a ten inch tart pan that was sprayed with cooking spray. Or a glass pie pan. Spread it up the sides. Press gently in so it is a cohesive crust but do not press really hard or it will be like concrete when you finish baking it!

Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. Set the crust on a rack to cool to room temperature. Do not let it get more than light brown.

Brown Rice Flour Mix (Same as King Arthur’s GF Blend)
2 c brown rice flour
2/3 c potato starch
1/3 c tapioca flour
Filling

2 tablespoons chunky cherry, raspberry or strawberry jam
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
Pinch of fine sea salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups cranberries (if they’re frozen, don’t thaw)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Directions: When you’re ready to fill and bake the tart: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Gently spoon the jam on top of the crust and spread it evenly over the bottom, I used the back of my big spoon for this operation. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the egg whites with the salt at medium speed just until they are fluffy and fairly opaque. With the mixer going, add the sugar in a slow, steady stream, then keep beating on high until the whites are shiny and form definite peaks; they will look like marshmallow. This is a meringue.

Pour the cranberries into the bowl of meringue and, using a flexible spatula or spoonula fold them into the meringue. Try to distribute the fruit evenly, but don’t mix too much– you want to keep the meringue fluffy. Spoon the meringue over the jam and spread it to the edges, making it swirly if you’d like. The jam might push up around the sides of the meringue, and that’s fine. Don’t fret if it looks like not enough filling, it will puff up in the oven to fill the pie pan.

Bake the tart for 1 hour, at which point the top will be light beige and cracked here and there. (If you’d like more color, you can bake it a bit longer or even put it under the broiler.) I did not go there! Transfer the tart to a cooling rack and cool to room temperature. I did cut it while slightly warm and we all thought that was just perfection. If you’d like, and I do, dust the tart with confectioners’ sugar before serving. Whipped cream on top is also great.

Storing: The tart is best the day it’s made, although it’s still pretty nice the next day. Leave the tart at room temperature, covering only the cut part with a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap. I doubt you will have any the second day anyway. It is that tasty.

Blueberry Nutella Smush – Heavenly Ice Cream Treat

There are times when nothing but ice cream will do.  After a long tiring day and not much in my tummy I ate an omelet for supper.  It was pretty good but I had seen this article on ice cream blends in a food magazine at the library and was craving to try one. There were more than a dozen mixtures pictured, all based on vanilla ice cream and fruit and at least one or two other ingredients like a sauce and cookies/nuts. nutella

There was one combination I was sure I had all the ingredients, ice cream, bananas, nutella sauce and cornflakes.  Seemingly simple with clean, clear flavors.  Upon some reflection I decided to replace the banana with some fresh blueberries I had purchased at a farm stand. Bananas seemed too bland and I adore blueberries with ice cream. Continue reading →

The High Cost of Gluten Free = DIY Baking!

Everyone knows gluten free foods cost more.  They cost more partially due to higher costs for some ingredients and partially the extra cost in the process to avoid cross contamination.  The rest of the increased cost is the greed of manufacturers who know they have us gf types over the proverbial barrel.

I, myself, find that baking my own treats and desserts is much more fun than buying expensive stuff that can taste like cardboard.  It is an adventure to bake gluten free.  Sometimes the desserts can be even tastier than they were with all purpose flour.  It is so rewarding when that happens!  Some recipes are easier than others.

This post was inspired by my friend Cortney who is gluten free but says she isn’t much of a baker.  My goal is to encourage her and others in the same boat to get baking.  Begin with something easy and build your baking confidence.

brownies

A good starting point would be brownies.  The recipe I use; see post recipe from March 28, 2014, is very easy to put together and they are crazy good.  The method is actually identical to how I made my classic version when I used all purpose flour years ago.

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Another fairly easy thing to make – muffins. I have posted a number of excellent muffin recipes over this past year.  The recipes are very similar to each other. Basically, you mix the dry ingredients and keep dumping in the rest of the ingredients in the order listed.  Stir briefly to combine and spoon into greased muffin tins and bake.  One point: don’t use more than two kinds of fruit or the flavor will be confused. Muffins are tasty, useful and easy peasey.

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Once you get comfortable with brownies and muffins then you can upgrade to making cookies.  I have found a few great ones and some of them aren’t too difficult. Russian teacakes are very similar in technique to the wheat flour based version but are actually better in texture and flavor.  Another great cookie is the cowboy cookie; see my post last fall. Please try cookie baking, they are much yummier than ones you can buy and frankly cheaper.

rolls

When you get more confident you can try making rolls. I have posted a recipe or two I use often.  The puffy ones I make in muffin pans are so so easy and everyone loves them.  I guarantee it!

Once you get rolls down you can think about that bread thing.  I like making gf french bread.  You do need that special pan with the tiny holes and the rolling shape for cradling the dough/loaves.  The recipe I love is from food.com. Easy peasy and great for family dinners.

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Then there is pie; I really love the crusts I use for regular pie and the cookie crust for gf tarts.  Both are made in the mixer and the texture and flavor is very good. The crumb crust is so easy and I dump together the crust ingredients in my stand mixer to stir it up.  Chill briefly and roll out between wax paper, parchment paper or in a pie bag (my choice!) Check some of the recipes I have posted for pies or tarts.

These suggestions should get you started in the right direction to conquer gluten free baking. I will give you a few months to get down those six suggested baking areas for beginners.  Then we can revisit and go for trickier stuff!

You CAN do gf baking even if you are not much of a baker.  There isn’t any kneading and not as much shaping or forming as with white wheat based flours.  Don’t be psyched out by your fears of the freaky gluten free flours.  Don’t buy every flour under the sun like I did! I use that brown rice blend for a lot of my recipes. Two very good choices for a ready made mix are Better Batter or Cup 4 Cup.

PS: I read an article recently that is full of great advice; if you are new to gluten free or struggling with it; read this twice! I did…. http://www.moneytalksnews.com/21-delicious-ways-eat-gluten-free-budget/?all=1

Bake on my friends, bake on!

Micro Greens Are In My Salad!

microgreensMicrogreens…what the heck is that?  Well…it is just basically sprouts grown in dirt.  Today for my lunch salad I used some baby kale and the first of my micro greens which I started a couple weeks ago.  As well as some burpless cucumber and cauliflower.  I poured some homemade olive oil vinaigrette over it.  It was awesome!

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This post is a revised version of one I posted last May. Being as it is still too cold to even plant my peas I am very glad for my microgreen crop which is growing in a tin can that once held bamboo shoots! Just poke a few holes in the bottom and you have the perfect shallow container to grow them.

I got my seed mix from superseeds.com a/k/a Pinetree Seeds of Maine, a family business which has been around since 1979.  I have found it to be a great place for inexpensive, good quality seeds and plants.  I get most of my seeds there. They happen to have a book on sale there about microgreens; see picture in this post.

Anyhow, last winter I bought a packet of these microgreens from Pinetree. I chose the kitchen sink variety; a mixture of many greens and veggies.  I planted them 1/3-1/2 inch deep in seed starter medium.  Watered them well, and waited. In just 7-8 days the first shoots appeared.  I made one for my neighbor Grace who’s house is warmer than mine and hers sprouted in only 4-5 days! I was thrilled with the more than 95% germination rate.  That meant that my pot was packed solidly with tiny shoots.  Maybe a tad too tightly……. I put them in the kitchen window sill.  Watered them almost daily and turned them around every other day. Some grew extra fast; pea shoots that were nearly 2 inches taller than the rest of the plants.

Grace’s plants grow much faster in her warm kitchen and were soon ready to snip but I had a bit of a time getting her to see that they were for eating now! Grace, a retired florist is elderly and must not have heard my initial directions fully as she thought they were for planting out in the garden.  Eventually she took my advice and snipped off the pea shoots which were like 6 inches tall and enjoyed them in salads. micro greens, orchids, lemon coolers 009

In less than three weeks I was getting out my kitchen scissors and snipping off a section of my shoots to toss on a just made salad. This boosted the nutritional value of my salad considerably.  Not to mention the interesting flavor of all those tangy sprouts!

Sprinkled on my salad they added lots of phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.  They are a great flavor booster for your side or main salad.

Phytonutrients are what you say?  Well, one definition, courtesy of Wiki links is this:

The term is generally used to refer to those chemicals that may have biological significance, for example antioxidants, but are not established as essential nutrients.[1] Scientists estimate[citation needed] that there may be as many as 10,000 different phytochemicals having the potential to affect diseases such as cancer, stroke or metabolic syndrome.   From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytonutrients.  FYI: Wiki Links uses phytochemicals as a synonym of phytonutrients.

According to medterms.com:

Currently, the terms “phytonutrient” and “phytochemical” are being used interchangeably to describe those plant compounds which are thought to have health-protecting qualities.

Anyhow, definitions aside, microgreens are chock full of those healthy phytonutrients as well as crunch and flavor.  A small handful would be perfect in a spring salad or on top of a burger.

So, if you are not much of a gardener but want fresh salad stuff that is cheaper, fresher and healthier for your body than you can buy just about anywhere, get some packets of microgreens and start planting!

If you don’t have any pots lying around most any container with drainage will do.  I used a shallow empty tin can from oriental veggies. Last winter I used a half and half container scrubbed clean and laid on its side with the uppermost side cut off and a few holes punched in the bottom.  I filled it with potting soil.  Do avoid soil mixtures with Miracle Grow in them.  In a few short weeks you will be able to cut and enjoy your own super sprouted greens. Go forth and sprout!