Recipes for Writerly Treats
Writerly Treats: Apple Pie with Brown Sugar Crust
On Sunday, I made apple pie for the first time ever. Surprisingly, it actually turned out really well, so I wanted to share the recipe/process I used for baking it.
For fun, I also decided to try it with a brown sugar crust instead of just a regular apple pie crust. I think it’s great this way though a regular pie crust would be just fine. If you don’t want to make it as a brown sugar crust then you can still follow the recipe as it is and simply leave out the brown sugar.
What You Need:
2 cups self-raising flour or plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
125 grams butter
3 tablespoons cold water
3-4 apples
A little cinnamon
A little sugar
A little milk
Here we go!
First, I started mixing the dough for the crust. I mixed the flour, salt and sugar together before kniving in small pieces of butter and mixing it all by hand to create a flakey sort of flour consistency.
Mixing in the butter.
Then, I added the 3 tablespoons of water and formed the dough into a ball.
The dough
At this point, the dough needs to sit in the refrigerator wrapped in tin foil or cling wrap for half an hour.
While I waited for the dough to ready, I worked on the apples. I used three medium-sized apples and one small apple because that’s what I had here.
Apples!
I was also temporarily distracted by the apples and went vampire on them.
Apple Vampire
Once I overcame my urge to just eat the apples, I peeled and sliced them into very thin pieces. I read online you can slice them in chunks alternatively, but they’ll take longer to cook that way.
Apple Slices
Because I’m a slow peeler/chopper, the dough was ready shortly after. At this point, I also started pre-heating the oven at 200 Celsius / 400 Fahrenheit.
I took the dough from the refrigerator and split it into thirds. I took two-thirds of the dough, rolled it into a ball and used a rolling pin to flatten it out on a flour-dusted counter.
I then, very carefully, peeled the dough from the counter and placed it over the glass baking dish, lightly pushing it inside so that it filled the dish. Any extra bits I had hanging over the side I trimmed with the blunt side of a knife.
Success!
Time to put in the apples! I placed a layer of apple slices in the crust-filled pan, dusted that layer with a little sugar and cinnamon, then did another layer, sugar and cinnamon, repeat, until the pie dish was full.
Layers of Apples
Then, I brushed the top edge of the crust with a little water. This is supposed to help seal the top layer of crust. I then took the remaining third of the dough and rolled it out with a rolling pin on a flour-dusted counter. Very, very carefully, I peeled it from the counter and placed it over the top of the dish, trimming off the excess bits with the blunt side of a knife.
Time for the finishing touches! I used a fork to crimp the edges, brushed the top with milk, dusted it with a little cinnamon and poked two holes in the top for the steam to escape while baking.
Time for the oven!
Bake the pie for 10 minutes at 200 Celsius / 400 Fahrenheit, and then lower to 180 Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit for about half an hour to 40 minutes. Just keep an eye on the crust to make sure it doesn’t start to burn. Once it’s done, let it cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.
Yum yum!
Writerly Treats: Chocolate Cupcake Cookies
I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m writing or revising, I’m a bit of a snackaholic. Lately, I’ve been making all my snacks from scratch, and it’s become such a regular thing, I thought it might be fun to share some of my randomly-put-together “recipes” for cookies, scones and chips (crisps to those British folks).
Today’s snack was put together when I realized I needed some cookies, but I’d run out of brown sugar and chocolate chips. Usually, I like to make the snacks completely from scratch, but there happened to be a box of Betty Crocker’s Chocolate Fudge Cupcake Mix in the house, so I used that to create some soft chocolate cookies with a little chocolate icing on top.
What you need:
- Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Cupcake Mix
- 2 eggs
- 30 ml Vegetable Oil (about an ounce)
- 25 ml Milk (again, about an ounce)
- 1 cup Flour
- Sprinkles
I started with the cupcake mix in the box. I’m pretty sure this is available in the states as well.
The box, for reference.
Then, I added the 2 eggs and the 30 ml vegetable oil (about an ounce or 1/8 cup) as stated on the box. I mixed this together well. At this point, I also added an extra cup of flour to get more cookies out of the batch (I ended up with about 18 medium-sized cookies) and to make the consistency more cookie-like. Mixed well again.
Important Note: I did not add the water the recipe on the box calls for. In retrospect, even though I’m very happy with how these cookies turned out, I wish I’d had some brown sugar to add, as I think about half a cup of that would have really made them perfect.
At this point, it was ready for baking! I just rolled the dough into small, round balls, as you would with any regular cookie batch, and baked for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit) on a non-greased cookie sheet.
The dough after I'd baked over half of it. Those little white dots are the sprinkles from the box I decided to add for a little experiment. Tastes good!
While they were baking, I prepared the icing with the icing mix packet that came in the box. I simply mixed in 25 ml milk and stirred until I got an icing consistency.
After the cookies were done baking and had cooled for a few minutes, I spread a thin layer of icing on top and then lightly added some multi-colored sprinkles. And that’s that!
If anyone reads this and decides to try this out, let me know how it goes!
Final product!