What are you Baking the Week of November 7, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

No plans here yet.

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[Mike Nolan]

This is kind of pre-baking, I made apple pie filling today, enough for 4 pies plus enough left over to snack on for a couple of days. My wife discovered that the apple pie filling goes very well with Pepperidge Farms Bordeaux cookies.

I still have enough Winesap apples left to make another batch of pie filling plus a couple of apple strudels. I've got them in the garage where it is cool and they keep fairly well. I picked them 3 weeks ago and when I was processing them today I only found two that had to be thrown out.

[BakerAunt]

For Sunday breakfast, I made Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles, which we had with maple syrup and the rest of the blueberry sauce.

[Mike Nolan]

I also made enough pie dough for 3 double-crust pies, I'll probably make one on Monday, the other two will go in the freezer for future use. Leave them in the fridge overnight, along with the apple pie filling and I can have an apple pie ready for supper.

[skeptic7]

How do you make the apple pie filling in advance and how much filling does a normal size pie take? I have always use raw apples in a pie and mke it at the same time. Its 8 cups for a large pie and 4-6 cups apples for a small pie.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I usually par-cook my apples before I put them into the pie. That is in part because I use an oil crust and a streusel top. That mixture could be frozen. I have also once frozen cut up raw apples with sugar and lemon and later baked them into a pie.

I seem to recall that Zen (Kitchen Barbarian) has a recipe somewhere on this site where she discussed par-cooking the apples. I'll have to look for it.

[Mike Nolan]

Making the pie filling in advance is something I learned at SFBI. I find it is easier to make a large batch of it than enough for just one apple pie. I do the same thing with pie crusts, I usually make enough for 2 or 3 pies, freezing what I don't use right away. That way I can have an apple pie ready in about 24 hours.

If I was making enough for one pie, I'd want about 1 kg of sliced apples, probably around 3 pounds of whole apples, depending on the size.

The formula is:

Apples: 100% Winesap is my favorite pie apple, Jonagolds work well, too. I will use Golden Delicious if I have to. Granny Smith apples are dreadful these days, IMHO.
Sugar: 20%
Salt: 0.15%
Cinnamon: 0.15% (but I usually increase it by about a third)
Nutmeg: 0.05%

Cook the apples until they're soft enough to bend then strain off the juice.

Boil the juice then stir in a cornstarch slurry (2.4%), cook it for about a minute, then pour it over the apples. Add lemon juice (1.46%)

For my latest batch I peeled, cored and sliced enough apples to fill my 16 quart pot about 2/3 full, about 4.6 kg after peeling and coring, enough for 4 pies plus some extra. I could probably have gotten 5 pies from this batch but my wife likes the filling all by itself, and so do I. It also goes good with cookies.

Cool filling before using it. It freezes well.

I use 1100-1200 grams of filling for a 9" pie. Put a few small pieces of butter on top of the filling before putting the top crust on, brush the top crust with egg wash and sprinkle with sparkling sugar. Cut some vents.

I start it on a convection cycle at 385 degrees for 20 minutes, then switch to regular oven mode and drop the temperature to 350. It usually takes another 25 minutes or so. There should be filling bubbling through the vents and the crust should be nicely browned.

I've also used this filling for Irish Apple Cake.

I just added this recipe to the recipe section of the site.

Today's pie. It leaked a little, as it often does, which is why I put a larger pan underneath to catch spills.

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[Janiebakes]

I learned from jej to cook the apple pie filling before making a pie. It solves the problem of the apples collapsing and leaving a large open space under the crust. Skeptic, I follow the recipe in Betty Crocker for apple pie, then cook on the stove top until it boils. Let the apples, sugar and flour sit a bit to pull juice from the apples, use low heat and stir often. Cool completely before putting in the pie crust. Bake as usual. I make the Betty Crcker pie crust with butter not shortening and rest it in the fridge over night. Same with the filling. When ready to bake make two crusts and form a pie or roll one large circle of dough, place filling in center, pull crust up to cover most of the filling. Bake at 425 until crust is golden and filling is bubbling. For an extra treat, Brush the crust with beaten egg or milk and sprinkle with large crystal sugar before baking.

[Joan Simpson]

Nice looking pie Mike

[BakerAunt]

That pie looks delicious, Mike.

On Monday morning, I baked my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I had resting in the refrigerator.

In addition, I baked my version of the Oat Flax Meal Buns, a recipe that originated with King Arthur, although I have altered it. I cut the salt by one-third, and the yeast by ¼ tsp. I also use buttermilk in place of water, and water in place of orange juice. I use a bit less flour and increase the whole wheat content slightly. I replaced 4 tbs. canola oil with 3 Tbs. olive oil, and reduced the honey to about 2 ½ Tbs. I forgot to flatten the buns, so they were more like rolls, but they still worked well for open-faced Sloppy Josephines.

[skeptic7]

Mike;
Thanks for the pie filling recipe and directions. I'll try this in the future and see how it turns out. I can see it working for small apple pies where the pan isn't made to hold a larger volume of raw apples and to divide up making an apple pie into smaller chunks of time. You wouldn't have to find a block of time large enough to make a pie crust, cut up the apples, roll out the pie crust, mix the filling and bake the pie. The crust, the filling, and forming and baking the pie now becomes three seperate operations.

[BakerAunt]

I baked a new recipe on Tuesday: Pumpkin Pecan Loaf Cake, which is on the Nordic Ware site and features their wheat and pumpkin loaf pan. As always, I made some changes. I used half whole wheat pastry flour. I cut the sugar from 1 cup to ¾ cup and the brown sugar from ½ to 1/3 cup. I halved the salt and reduced the canola oil by a third. I deleted the milk, since I use my own pumpkin pure, but I added 3 Tbs. Bob’s milk powder. I also deleted ¼ cup raisins, as I do not care for them in pumpkin bread, and I omitted the vanilla because the spices should be enough. I used the wheat and pumpkin loaf pan, which I coated with The Grease. I set the timer for 55 minutes, but I checked it at 49 minutes, and the tester came out clean. Next time, I will check at 45 minutes. We each had a slice for dessert. It has just the right amount of sweetness and a firm texture. The taste is excellent. I will bake this recipe, with my changes, again.

[chocomouse]

I have gougeres in the oven now, to go with our soup for dinner. These have cheddar and parmesan, with a pinch of chipotle pepper. I usually also put in chopped chives or green onions, and I potted up a clump of chives from the herb garden a month ago just so I would have chives growing all winter---specially for gougeres and scones! But I forgot to use some.

[RiversideLen]

I made a pre-Thanksgiving test pumpkin pie. I wanted to try blind baking the crust as I've always used an unbaked crust for pumpkin pie. That tends to leave the bottom of the crust pale. So, I looked at a couple of techniques on youtube and decided on the ATK method. I covered the crust with 2 pieces of foil with the foil bent over to cover the edge and then put in the pie weights and baked it for 25 minutes at 375. Filled the crust hot, fresh from the oven, and then baked per the recipe. The pie and crust came out pretty good except the top part of the crust burnt a little (you can see it in the pic) but I liked the bottom of the crust much better than when I don't blind bake it.

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[Mike Nolan]

When I blind bake a pie crust, I find I usually have to use a pie shield around the outside to keep the top of the crust from getting overbaked.

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