Cranapple Fizz Cocktail

It might be the season of the pumpkin spice latte, but I like cranberry flavors much better.

Cranberry might not be the best match for your coffee, but it makes a nice cocktail, and it can be used in pie, ice cream, jam, chutney ... so many things.

The perfect friend for cranberry is apple, and Smirnoff combined those two flavors in their new Smirnoff Sourced Cranberry Apple. It's pretty tasty stuff, so you don't need to do a lot with it to make a cocktail.

Which is great.

I like tasty cocktails, but I don't get excited about mixing a ton of different ingredients to make a single cocktail in the evening. Because that's what I usually have. Just one.

Life is just a bowl of ... frozen cranberries?

The clove in this cocktail adds that nice holiday flavor that is so familiar. If you're measuring out one or two cocktails the day before you'll be serving, it's simple enough to count the cloves.

On the other hand, if you're planning on flavoring a lot of cocktails or making drinks by the pitcher, you can just put 1/4 cup of whole cloves in the bottle and let it steep for a day or more. The flavor gets stronger the longer it sits, so it's a good idea to taste it occasionally and remove the cloves when you like the flavor.

I briefly considered using some whole cloves as part of a garnish - stuck into an apple slice, for example. But no one really wants to bite into a whole clove, so I nixed the idea. The cranberries on top are a pretty nice garnish, and they keep the cocktail cool.

If you like super-tart things, you can eat those fresh cranberries used for the garnish. But beware. They're crazy tart.

Cranapple Fizz Cocktail

1 ounce Smirnoff Sourced Cranberry Apple
2 whole cloves
Whole frozen cranberries
Sparking or plain lemonade, chilled, as needed

The night before (or at least a few hours before) you want to make your cocktail, measure out the amount of Smirnoff Sourced you will need and add 2 whole cloves per ounce of the Smirnoff.

You can also make this well in advance and just let it steep in a closed container. Strain the cloves out before using the Smirnoff Sourced.

Put a few frozen cranberries into a martini-sized glass or something similar. Or a few more cranberries. As many as you like. The cranberries make a nice garnish and also help keep the drink chilled.

Add the strained Smirnoff Sourced, then fill with the sparkling lemonade (or plain lemonade, if you prefer).

If you don't happen to have prepared lemonade, you can simply add lemon, to taste, along with plain or sparkling water.

Serve chilled.

This post was sponsored by Smirnoff.

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Yogurt-Filled Crepes with Apple and Cranberry Compote and a #Giveaway

Crepes are so fun - thin little pancakes that you can do so much with. They can be sweet or they can be savory. They can be breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or dessert.

They can be whatever you want them to be.

I didn't grow up eating crepes, and the first time I had them, they were cheese blintzes. I thought they were magical. I had no idea how easy they were to make.

Of course, it helps if you have a decent recipe and a good pan to work with.

One of my lucky readers WILL have a pan to work with, because I'm giving one away, courtesy of Anolon. They asked me to create a recipe, so you have that, too. My recipe is a yogurt-filled crepe topped with a seasonal apple-cranberry compote. Follow the link to find it on the Anolon website.

You want this recipe, particularly at this time of year when cranberries are so plentiful.

The beauty of these crepes is that they're so versatile. With a plain yogurt, they're a lovely lunch crepe. But if you use a flavored or sweetened yogurt, the crepes transform into a perfect breakfast or brunch crepe. Add some whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream, and these crepes would make a lovely dessert.

You could, of course, switch things around and fill the crepes with the compote and top it with yogurt, whipped cream, or ice cream, but the compote is so pretty, I thought it was a shame to hide it inside the crepe. It really wanted to be shown off.

If you have extra compote, I'm sure you'll find a use for it. And then you might want to make more. Because it's really really good.

As far as the pan, it's an Anolon 9.5 inch Advanced Bronze pan. It's a pleasure to use - light enough to be able to easily swirl the batter over and over and over while you're making a lot of crepes. And it's very nonstick. The crepes slide right out of the pan when they're done.

And ... shhhh ... the pan is also very useful for heating or reheating tortillas. And for reheating your crepes, too. I think you'll get a lot of use out of it. If you're the lucky winner who gets one.

Thanks to Anolon for sponsoring this post and for supplying the pan to the winner! The giveaway is now over.

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Homemade Apple Cider with Ashmead and Roxbury Apples

In my last box of goodies from Frieda's Specialty Produce, I had some apples that I'd never heard of before. So I looked them up. Both the Ashmead Kernel Apples and the Roxbury apples were a variety of Orange Pippin apple.

Which tells me about as much as I knew before. I'm really not savvy about apple varieties, to be honest. I go to the farmers market or the store and when I see an apple variety I'm not familiar with, I'll ask if it's good for eating, sauce or pie, and then I know what I can use it for.

So ... when I started reading more about these apples, the one thing they had in common was that they were good for juice or cider. The Roxbury was the sweeter of the two.

I tasted both of them, and either would be fine for eating as-is, but I was on a mission to use them for something other than my afternoon snack.

So, I thought, let's give this a whirl. Juice.

But how? I have a juicer, but the first recipes I found all called for cooking the apples, then straining. Hmmm. If I'm going to cook them, I might as well make sauce. Then I found recipes that made an uncooked juice - or, if we're being technical, a cider, since what I made wasn't clear - it included some of the finer solids from the apples.

The recipes I looked at all included a whole lot of other stuff - cinnamon, allspice, maple syrup - which sounds good, but I wondered if they were really needed. And, seriously, they're not things that have to be added to the cider as you make it. If you want maple syrup in your cider, you can add a tablespoon to your glass and just stir it in.

So, I decided to go with a minimalist version. And I was happy I did. This stuff is pretty darned amazing.

Fresh Apple Cider

4 Ashmead Kernel apples
4 Roxbury Apples
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups water
Sugar (optional)

Cut the apples in half and remove the core, stem, and any bruised or nasty bits. I didn't peel them, but you can if you prefer*. Cut the apples into chunks that your blender can accommodate. I used a Vitamix, but any decent blender should be able to obliterate some apples.

Blend the apples with water and the pinch of salt until you have a smooth mash. You'll probably need to do this in batches. Try not to add too much water. It's easier to add water if it's too strong, but if you have a weak cider, there's no remedy for that.

Strain the pulp through several layers of cheesecloth, or a clean, lint-free kitchen towel. Or use a jelly bag. Remember that you're keeping the juice and getting rid of the pulp! Let the mixture drip into a bowl. If you're impatient, you can squeeze or mash a bit, but you really want to avoid pressing too much of the solids through the bag.

Taste your cider and add sugar, if you like. Mine didn't need any. If you think it's too strong, add water now, if you like. If you'll be serving over ice, you might want to leave it as is.

As my juice sat, a thin layer of white sediment settled to the bottom of the jar. While it was edible (nothing there but apples!) it had a raw-starch taste. So once the settling was done, I simply decanted to a new container and got rid of the starchy-flavored stuff.

As for the remaining pulp, you could cook it and perhaps squeeze out more juice, or you could make apple sauce or apple butter. If that's your plan, I suggest peeling* the apples in the first step so your sauce has a better consistency, without bits of peel. Unless you like that sort of thing.

Cheers!

I regularly receive produce from Frieda's Specialty Produce for my use on the blog.

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Irish Farewell - a cocktail

Apparently there's something called the Irish Goodbye, which, according to the folks at Smirnoff, is "a famed Irish tradition by ducking out of a party, social gathering or very bad date without bidding farewell."

I'm not Irish, but I've done that before. Not to be sneaky or impolite, but if the host of the party is busy or having a really great time, sometimes it makes more sense to quietly leave rather than disturb the host.

This is particularly true if it's a big party.

I've been in the situation where I've hunted for the host to say goodbye, and eventually I decide that I'll never win the hide-and-seek, so I leave and then contact the host the next day to say thanks for the great party.

Anyway, the folks at Smirnoff created a cocktail called the Irish Goodbye, which involves dropping a shot of Smirnoff Kissed Caramel vodka into a class of hard apple cider.

While that sounds like it could be good, I decided to spin it my way. I kept the Kissed Caramel (hey, they sent it to me, I figured I might as well use it) and I kept the apple flavor, but instead of hard apple cider, I decided to use a rustic apple juice - not the clear stuff that's all sugary, but a more substantial juice with great apple flavor.

Irish Farewell

Agave nectar or honey, as needed
Cinnamon, as needed
1 ounce Smirnoff Kissed Caramel vodka
Apple juice, as needed

Use a clean finger or a small pastry brush to coat the outer rim of the glass with a thin coat of of the agave or honey - this is just to create a sticky surface, so a light coat is all you need.

Sprinkle the cinnamon over the coating to crate a dusty rim. If you prefer a sweet rim, you could use cinnamon sugar, or plain sugar instead.

Fill the glass with ice, then add the vodka and apple juice. Stir and serve.

Smirnoff occasionally provides me with products to make cocktails on my blog. Cheers!

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Apple Butter

Apple butter is like applesauce intensified. Because, really, that's what it is.

What I though was interesting about this recipe from Farm Fork Food by Eric Skokan was the lack of sugar. While many recipes for applesauce are loaded with sugar, this apple butter suggests adding it as seasoning at the end of cooking.

Which makes perfect sense. Some apples are sweeter than others, so you might want more or less sugar to compensate. And some people like more or less sweetness.

Personally, I like tart flavors, so I only used about a teaspoon of sugar for the apple butter, and I was really glad it was optional.

The apple butter is actually half of a recipe - the other half is farmer's cheese, which is intended to be eaten with the apple butter along with some grilled sourdough bread. But I decided to just make the apple butter - I had plenty of cheese to pair it with.

Apple Butter
Adapted from Farm Fork Food by Eric Skokan

1 pound apples
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
Sugar

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

In a large Dutch oven over high heat, bring the apples, water and salt to a boil.

NOTE: The book didn't specify whether the apples should be peeled or not, but I didn't want peels and seeds in my apple butter, so I peeled and cored and cut the apples into chunks before cooking them. I suppose you could cook them whole, but it seems that it would take a lot of pureeing to get the mixture smooth.


Reduce the heat to medium ad coop until the apples are very soft and the water has evaporated, about 45 minutes.

Puree the apples in a blender until smooth (I used my stick blender right in the pot.)

Return the puree to the pot (I didn't need to do that, which is another good reason for using a stick blender).

Add the cinnamon stick if you're using it, and place the pot in the oven in the oven.

Cook at 300 degrees, stirring every 30 minutes, until the mixture is very thick - about 3 hours total.

Season the apple butter with sugar (I only used about a teaspoon),

Remove the cinnamon stick and transfer to a storage container (a small canning jar was perfect - it reduces a lot).

Keep refrigerated.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

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Browned Butter and Apple Bread #ThreeLoaves

Fall is here - and seems like it showed up early this year. And fall always makes me think of apples.

I'm guessing that when you start talking about apples, the next things that most people think of are pie and cinnamon. Or apple pie with cinnamon. Or maybe applesauce ... with cinnamon.

I know that cinnamon is the perfect companion to apples, but they don't always have to be paired. One of the best apple pies I ever made didn't have a single speck of cinnamon. The flavor of the apples was predominant, and there was just a hint of vanilla to add warmth.

So, when I agreed to make a seasonal bread recipe for #ThreeLoaves, I decided to use apples without cinnamon.

This bread isn't sweet - in fact, it's a little tart because of the apples. It's great for toast, fantastic for French toast, and amazing as a breakfast or brunch bread. But because it's not sweet, it's also perfect for sandwiches, particularly ham or roast pork. Or chicken or turkey or bacon.

Browned Butter and Apple Bread

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and diced
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 large egg
1/4 cup dry milk
3 cups (13 1/2 ounces) bread flour

Melt the butter in a saute pan and let it bubble up a bit. Let it cook until it begins to brown a bit, then add the diced apples.

Note: You can dice the apples any size that pleases you, but I suggest 1/4 inch or smaller, so they distribute throughout the bread and you'll have some in each slice.

Cook the apples, stirring as needed, until the apples are cooked through, but not soft - you want them to hold their shape in the bread. Turn the heat off, add the vanilla, and set aside to cool.

Put the bread ingredients in the bowl of your food processor, or into a large bowl if you intend on mixing and kneading by hand. If you're using an active dry yeast brand other than Red Star, and it has large granules, you'll want to let it soften for a minute or so in the water before you mix; if you're using Red Star, you can toss it all together without pausing.

Knead the dough with the dough hook until it becomes elastic. Or, mix in a large bowl, then knead by hand.

Once the dough is elastic, add the apples and all of the butter. Knead until the butter is completely incorporated into the dough. Cover the bowl and set aside until the dough has doubled in size - about an hour.

Spray a 9x5 bread pan with baking spray and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Knead briefly, then form the dough into a tight log about 8 inches long, to fit into the bread pan. Cover the pan and set aside to rise until the dough rises slightly above the top of the bread pan - about 30 minutes.

Uncover the pan and slash the dough as desired. Bake at 350 degrees until the dough is nicely browned and the interior of the loaf reaches at least 195 degrees on an instant-read thermometer - about 45 minutes.

Removed the loaf from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack before slicing.

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Maple Whisky Cooked Apples - Sous Vide

Okay, I'm gadget drunk with my sous vide machine. I don't post every recipe I make, so you can't see how often it's plugged in.

Trust me, I use it a lot. Or maybe I should say "them," since I just got a new unit to test. Review here.

This time around, I needed to use up some apples. I bought some for pie and of course I had more than I needed. So I decided so slice some up and cook them sous vide style. I didn't look up any recipes, I just winged it.

Since these were leftovers from making pie, these were pie-making apples - the kind that stay together when cooked, instead of turning into applesauce. I think next time I'll buy some sauce apples and see how that works.

The really interesting thing with these apples was how prevalent the maple whisky flavor was. I suppose that's because it didn't heat to a high enough temperature to burn off, and there was nowhere for it to evaporate to.

Well, it was prevalent to me. My husband only tasted apples. So, you decide whose taste buds you trust.

While I don't think I'd serve these to kiddies in any quantity, there's only a tablespoon of whisky here, so it's not like anyone's going to get tipsy from a couple of apples.

These would be nice on ice cream, mixed with yogurt or rice pudding, or all by themselves. Maybe on a slice of poundcake with a little whipped cream.

So many possibilities...

There was a bit of clear liquid with the apples, and that would be nice mixed into a cocktail ... perhaps with a few apples as garnish.

Maple Whisky Sous Vide Apples

3 cooking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon maple whisky (I used Crown Maple)

Put all the ingredients into a vacuum-seal bag, and seal. Place in pot with sous vide attached.

Set for 190 degrees for 4 hours. Or a shorter time, if you like.

I could see that these were fully cooked earlier, but I let them go a little longer, just to see what would happen as they continued cooking.

If you want to gauge the doneness, you can feel the pliability of the apples through the bag, so take them out when you think they're done.

At worst, you can re-seal the bag and continue cooking, if you're not happy with the result.

Serve warm, or chill and serve cold.

Yum

Apple Cheesecake Custard Pie

I found a really interesting apple pie recipe in a community cookbook - it was an apple pie with what sounded sort of like a custard filling. Sort of.

To be honest, the "custard" part of the pie sounded like it might be a little too wet to set properly. But I figured I'd give it a try. What the heck...

The recipe instructions were a little untrustworthy, in other ways. For example, it said that the apples should be peeled and then pared. But ... that's the same thing.

I tried the recipe, despite all the clues that I shouldn't have, making my best attempts to interpret in between the lines. It sounded like it could have been good.

It was an unholy mess.

I started poking around online and didn't find anything close. There were some apple custard pies ... but none seemed like the correct version of the one in the community book. Many of them called for condensed milk or even sweetened condensed milk, where this one called for plain old milk. Maybe that was the issue.

I poked around a little more, and didn't find anything that was calling to me to make it.

So I decided to whip up my own custom version. The apples are cooked first, so they don't release too much moisture into the custard. And the custard itself is a little different - it's actually a bit of a cross between cheesecake and custard.

Here's a confession. I had no idea how the apples would behave. I had no idea if they were going to stay put at the bottom of the pan, or whether they'd float to the top. Well, they did float a little, but they actually distributed themselves nicely throughout the custard, so the resulting pie has layers of apples interspersed with a creamy custard-like filling.

I thought it was pretty interesting.

Speaking of pretty, it didn't cut as pretty as some pies I've made. But that's fine. The flavor made up for it.

Psssst! There's a link to a GIVEAWAY at the bottom of this post! Courtesy of Casabella.

Apple Cheesecake Custard Pie

1 recipe for a single pie crust

For the apples:
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
4 apples, cored, peeled, and sliced

For the cheesecake custard:
4 ounces cream cheese
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

For the topping:
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

If you're making your own crust, have it ready and chilling in the refrigerator.

To cook the apples:
Melt the butter in a saute pan. Add the salt, cinnamon, sugar, and apples. Cook until the apples are slightly softened, then turn up the heat and continue cooking until there's very little liquid left, and the liquid that is there has thickened.

Set aside to cool to room temperature. This can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until needed. You absolutely don't want to out it into the pie crust while it's warm - it should be room temperature or cooler.

To make the filling:
Use an electric mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to beat the cream cheese to soften it. Add the sugar and salt ad beat until combined. add the eggs, one at a time, beating until combined. Add the vanilla and milk and mix until combined.

Roll the pie crust to fit your pie plate, Fit it into the plate and flute the edges as desired.

Place the apples in the bottom of the pan, then add the filling mixture.

Cover the edges of the crust with pie shields to keep them from over-browning. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 325 degrees and bake another 40 minutes, or until the custard is mostly set, but it's still slightly jiggly in the center.

Note: check the browning of the crusts about 10 minutes before the pie is cooked. Removed the pie shields if you want more browning - how much it browns is going to depend in your crust recipe.

Remove the pie from the oven when it's done and let the pie plate cool on a rack until it reaches room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled.

To make the topping:
Combine the sour cream and powdered sugar. Spread over the top of the pie. Please note that I'm a huge fan of sour cream toppings ... so I might have gone just a tad overboard here. Half as much would cover the pie with a thin layer. Or, if you're a fan of sweet, then whipped cream might be more your style.

Serve.

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Hot Spiced & Spiked Apple Cider

For the 37 Cooks challenge sponsored by Hamilton Beach, I wanted to do some kind of hot drink. So I started looking for recipes. I looked up glogg, grog, wassail, and mulled wine. And then I wandered around looking at a whole bunch of other warm cocktails.

What I found out was - everything goes, anything goes. The ingredients for each cocktail varied so much, it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended.

What one person called wassail was pretty close to warm eggnog. What another person called grog sure looked like mulled wine. Some concoctions were knock-your-socks-off alcoholic, while others were basically hot fruit juice.

There didn't seem to be any reason to riff off of a classic recipe, because I wasn't finding anything that looked classic ... or consistent. So I started with apple cider and added flavors I knew I'd like. If I was going to add one more thing, it might be cloves, since those tended to show up a lot in the mulled/spiced drinks, but I decided to leave them out since it seemed perhaps too common among them. I figured cinnamon filled that role nicely, and it gave me a good place to use some cinnamon sticks.

The flavor of this cocktail is reminiscent of apple pie, but the star anise add an interesting twist. It's pretty danged good, if I say so myself.

Hot Spiced & Spiked Apple Cider

1/2 gallon apple cider
1 cup white wine
1 cup rum
2 cinnamon sticks
1 star anise
1 orange

Put the apple cider, wine, rum, cinnamon sticks, and star anise into your slow cooker. Use a peeler to remove the zest of the orange in thin, wide strips. Place the zest in the slow cooker, then juice the orange and add the juice as well.

Cover the slow cooker and set it to high to warm the cider. The longer you cook it, the more the flavors of the spices will infuse into the cider, but it's pretty good as soon as it warms up.

Once it's hot, you might want to turn it down to low or warm if it will be served over a long period of time - you just want it pleasantly warm for drinking, so it doesn't need to be simmering when you serve it.

Leftovers can be strained and refrigerated and served chilled. Or reheat it for more warm drinks on chilly nights.

This recipe was developed using the Hamilton Beach Set & Forget programmable slow cooker which was provided by the manufacturer through the blog group 37 Cooks.

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Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls

I've made a lot of bread. A lot of sweet rolls. A lot of buns, rolls, bread sticks and flatbreads. Between my regular baking for personal use, baking for holidays or to bring to dinners or parties, and baking for my book and this blog, I'll bet that I've baked at least a thousand bread-like things.

Although I like the bread I bake better than most store-bought breads, I've gotten used to them. I don't think of them as all that amazing. Even cinnamon rolls. I like them. Sometimes I like them a lot. Still, they're just cinnamon rolls.

But once in a while, I come up with a bread recipe that's just ... ahhhh ... so good. Special. Different. That's how I felt about this one. The apples took these cinnamon rolls to a whole different place. Like apple pie and buttery cinnamon rolls all it one bite. These were sweet enough, but the apples brought some tartness as well. The cinnamon brought its richness and earthiness. They were just about perfect.

For those who like more sweetness, it's easy to drizzle this with a little icing - or a lot. Just mix powdered sugar with enough water to make it pourable, and you've got icing. Add a splash of vanilla, if you like, or leave it plain.

As far as the cinnamon, I received a large (very large!) bag of cinnamon from a company called Flavor of the Earth. They tout their Ceylon cinnamon as being healthier for you than other types of cinnamon. I don't know about that - you can look it up for yourself.

All I know is that if you use a lot of cinnamon, buying a 1-pound bulk bag is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying small jars of it. The cinnamon comes in a re-sealable plastic bag, and it's actually pretty sturdy. But I prefer other storage methods. I poured it into a quart canning jar. That's a LOT of cinnamon, right? And a pretty darned good bargain.

Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls

For the dough:
1 1/4 cups water
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) Red Star Platinum* yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk powder
1/2 cup instant mashed potato flakes
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 tablespoons cinnamon
Pinch of salt
4 cups diced apples (6 medium apples)
1 cup graham cracker crumbs

Plus:
1/2 stick butter for the pan

To make the dough:
Combine all of the dough ingredients (except the butter) in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. You could also knead by hand, but to be honest, trying to knead a whole stick of butter into the dough isn't a whole lot of fun by hand.

Add the butter and continue kneading until the butter is completely incorporated into the dough and it is smooth, shiny, and elastic.

Cover the bowl and set aside until the dough has doubled in size, about an hour.

While the dough is rising, make the filling. Combine the sugar, butter, cinnamon, salt, and apples in a heavy bottomed pan. Cook, stirring as needed, until the sauce has thickened to a syrup. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until needed.

Spray a 9x13 baking pan with baking spray. If you've got a pan with a cover, that's a plus. Cut the 1/2 stick of butter into pieces and scatter them on the bottom of the pan.

When the dough has doubled flour your work surface and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Turn out the dough and form it into a rough rectangle, then use a rolling pin to roll the dough to approximately 18x14 inches.

With one of the short ends facing you, sprinkle the graham cracker crumbs over the surface of the dough, leaving about an inch uncovered on the far end of the dough. Now, scatter the apples and sauce over the top of the graham crackers.

Starting with the short end closest to you, roll the dough, jellyroll-style, towards the far end. Don't roll tightly - keep it loose. Cut the roll into 12 even pieces, then arrange the pieces in the prepared baking pan, with cut sides up and down.

Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until the rolls have doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Or, if you prefer, cover the pan and refrigerate overnight, or up to 24 hours. The rolls will rise during their time in the refrigerator.

When the rolls have risen, remove the plastic wrap and bake at 325 degrees until the rolls are nicely browned, about 35 minutes. If you're baking refrigerated dough, add another 5 minutes to the baking time.

Remove the rolls from the pan and let them cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Drizzle with powdered sugar icing, if desired.

*I suggest Red Star Platinum, but you can use your favorite yeast.

Disclaimer: I received the cinnamon from the manufacturer as a sample.

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Cocktails: Apple Pie al la Mode

Hoo boy! Another flavored vodka for me to play with!

I'm really getting giddy about all the flavored vodkas that are available these days. And it's not just, hey, we added some lemon zest to this one and chocolate syrup to that one. The flavors are getting pretty creative.

The vodka du jour is Dutch Apple courtesy of my new friends at Ivanabitch.

Read that brand name a couple times, and if you still don't get it, say it out loud. I'll wait.

Done? Okay, then.

So, with a name like that, I was a leetle bit skeered of the vodka. I mean, what if it was harsh and weird. So I tasted a little. Hmmm. Well... sip-sip-sip. Nice and smooth. That's a pleasant surprise. This is the sort of stuff you could sip over ice, maybe. Or mix with a little splash of something.

But oh, no. My plans involved much, much more than that. I wanted PIE.

Apple Pie a la Mode


For the mulled cider:
1 quart apple cider
2 tablespoons mulling spices

For the cocktail:
Mulled cider - cold - to fill glass to about "there" (Yeah, I didn't measure. Shoot me.)
1 ounce Ivanabitch Dutch Apple vodka
1 ounce heavy cream (go big or go home)

To make the mulled cider:
Pour the apple cider into a medium saucepan. Add the mulling spices. You could tie the spices in a piece of cheesecloth, but eh, this works, too.

Bring the cider to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes and turn off the heat. Let the cider cool to room temperature, then strain into a storage container. Refrigerate until cold.

To make a cocktail:
Pour the mulled cider into the glass, leaving room for the vodka and cream. Carefully pour the vodka on top of the cider to create a clear layer. Ooooh, nice!

Carefully pour the cream on top of the vodka to create the final layer.

If you think I'm a genius of layered drinks, think again. I cheat and use one of these. You still need to figure out which layer will float on which other layer (and some things won't layer at all) but this thing makes it a lot easier.

If you're into it, grate a little nutmeg on top. Or not. Serve.

I was a little concerned that the apple cider would be too acidic and would cause the cream to curdle when it was stirred together - which, really, is the best way to drink this. But it didn't. And the flavor was an awful like like apple pie and ice cream.

Obviously, you'll have plenty of mulled cider left over. It's great as-is, or just make another cocktail for yourself.

I received the vodka, mulling spices, and layering tools from their respective companies. I was not required to write a post about them.

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Sauteed Apples with Zaatar

It's apple season, and there are tons of new varieties every year. I still have my old favorites, but I'm always willing to try new ones. Mmmmmm ... apples.

So when my BFFs at Frieda's Specialty Produce recently sent me three varieties of apples to try (along with other goodies), I was giddy.

The three they sent me were the Cox's Orange Pippin (orange tinged skin, nutty flavor), the Ribston Pippin (high vitamin C, yellow flesh with a hint of pear), and the Cortland (sweet-tart) which was the only one I was familiar with.

It was fun tasting them. I'd try one and decide it was my favorite, then try another and decide that was better, then the third and know that was the best. Then go back to the beginning and decide that, no, that was the best. Sigh. Useless. They were all good, and I couldn't make up my mind.

I decided to do a little cooking with them, making a little side dish to go along with a pork roast that was on the menu. Apples and pork are just about the perfect pairing. Since I wanted this as a side dish rather than a dessert, I didn't add any sugar at all.

And then I added some zaatar, which is a middle-eastern spice mix. For some reason, zaatar reminds me of pizza. Everyone thinks that's crazy. So just ignore my opinion and taste it for yourself.

Sauteed Apples with Zaatar

1 tablespoon butter
3 apples, cored, peeled, cut into large dice
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon zaatar

Melt the butter over medium heat on a small saute pan.

Add the apples, salt and zaatar and cook, stirring as needed, until the apples are cooked through - or as much as you like - but aren't so soft that they're falling apart.

None of the apple varieties I used were the type that disintegrate when cooked, so they held their shape nicely.

Serve hot, warm, room temperature, or chilled.

Yum

Apple Crostata with Cinnamon Pastry

The weather was telling me to bake a fall (ish) dessert, and there were apples from the farmer' market on the counter. I decided to make a crostata, since the free-form shape lends itself to adjusting the finished size of the pastry to the amount of filling.

I had small apples, only about 1/4 pound each. Three were Jonathans, and three were ... something else. I don't really know what they were.

I decided to add cinnamon to the pastry instead of putting it into the apple mixture and it turned the crust an interesting color.

I'm a bit undecided as to whether I like the color, but the flavor was good, and I like the clean taste of apples without cinnamon. Having it in the pastry makes it more of a garnish to the apples rather than the main flavor punch

Apple Crostata with Cinnamon Pastry

For the pastry dough:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 tablespoons ice cold water, divided

For the apple filling:
2 tablespoons butter
6 small apples, about 1/4 pound each
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the assembly and baking:
eggwash (1 egg, lightly beaten with a splash of water)
Sugar, for sprinkling
Thickener for apples mixture, if desired
2 tablespoons unsalted butter for dotting onto the apples, if desired.

Make the pastry dough:
Put the flour, cinnamon, and sugar into your food processor and pulse until the cinnamon is evenly distributed through the flour. Cut the butter into chunks, add it to the food processor, and pulse several times, until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

Mix the vanilla with 2 tablespoons of the water. With the food processor running, add the vanilla/water mixture as fast as it can be absorbed. Stop when the dough begins to come together.

You should be able to take a small handful of dough and squeeze it and it should hold together. If the dough is still too dry, add as much more water as needed.

Remove the dough from the processor bowl, form it into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Make the apple filling:

Melt the butter in a medium frying pan over low heat. Peel, core and slice the apples, putting them into the frying pan as you go, and stirring them around to coat with butter so they don't turn brown.

When all the apples are added, turn the heat up to medium, add the vanilla, sugar, and salt. Cook another minute or two, until the apples just begin to soften.

Remove the apples from the pan, put them in a suitable container, and refrigerate until they are completely cooled.

Assemble and bake:
When the dough has rested and the apples are completely cooled, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and lightly flour your work surface. Roll the dough out to a circle about 14 inches in diameter.

You'll be cooking this on a sheet of parchment, so if you want to finish the rolling on the parchment, do so. If not transfer it after you have rolled it out. It will hang over the sides a bit; that's fine.

If the apples are juicy, you can add some of whatever thickener you desire. I added a scant teaspoon of a pastry thickener from King Arthur Flour.

Spread the apples on the pastry, leaving at least 2 inches empty around the outside. Fold the dough over towards the center, crimping as needed. Brush the dough with the eggwash and sprinkle with sugar. Dot the apples with butter, if desired.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40-45 minutes, until the pastry is browned and done. Move the pastry to a rack to cool. Serve warm, room temperature, or cool.

Yum