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December 8, 2009

Apple Crisp

DSC_8559

When my mom offered to host Thanksgiving, I asked what desserts she’d like me to bring.  Her answer?  “Pumpkin pie and that apple dessert you made two years ago, the one I’ve asked you to make four times since then.”  What she didn’t say, but she and I both heard was, “And which you never made even though I asked you to serve it for Nathan’s first birthday.”  And I did felt a little guilty when I (virtually) heard that, especially since I had made the crisp for Helen just days before.

The good part was that I had made the crisp only days previous.  So, I knew where the problems with the crisp were, and I could ‘fix’ them for Thanksgiving.

Apples!

Paul and I love America’s Test Kitchen.  When I first decided to try my hand at apple crisp years ago, we pulled that recipe and made it.  Our immediate reaction was, “This is delicious, but the tasters in the test kitchen hate topping.”  We quickly increased the amount of topping by 50% which improved the crisp by roughly 500%.  This is the huge fix in this recipe.

The second fix?  America’s Test Kitchen tells you that you need cold butter for the topping.  I go a step further and say your butter better darned well be frozen.  Do not muck around with butter from your refrigerator unless you keep a subarctic fridge like my mother.  If you use cold, but not frozen, butter, you will end up with a giant unappetizing lump of dough for your topping, not the “damp sand” texture desired.  If you end up with said giant unappetizing lump of dough, do not give up.  Work on breaking it up as best possible and top your crisp with it.  As Tim Gunn would tell you, “Make it work!”

Nutmeg

The last thing worth mentioning isn’t really a fix at all, but a personal preference.  I love McIntosh apples and I love to not eat a meal prior to making my baked sweets.  This means that when my McIntosh apples hit the bowl of sugar and lemon zest and juice mentioned in step 5 below, I start to snack on them.  I normally eat about half an apple to a whole apple before I can stop myself.  Due to this, if you’re like me, I’d suggest adding an extra McIntosh apple, 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice, and an 1 tablespoon of sugar, and using a full rind of zest for this recipe.

Ingredients for Filling:

3 medium Granny Smith apples
3 medium McIntosh apples
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Ingredients for Topping:

8 tbls unbleached all purpose flour
7 tbls unsalted butter, chopped into 1/2 inch bits
1 1/4 cup chopped pecans
3/8 cup packed light brown sugar
3/8 cup granulated sugar
3/8 tsp ground cinnamon
3/8 tsp nutmeg (use fresh nutmeg and microplane for best results)
3/8 tsp salt

1.  For the topping, put the flour, sugar, spices, and salt in your food processor.  Don’t worry if you have a small one.  My wimpy food processor handles this recipe like a pro!  Pulse the ingredients once or twice to mix.  Add the frozen butter.  Pulse, pulse, pulse (about ten times) for 4 seconds each.  Your topping should look like sand or coarse cornmeal.  It should not be a big giant lump.  if you got the lump, your butter wasn’t frozen enough, but don’t despair.  You can break it up and use it, but it’s more work and it doesn’t look as good.  Add the nuts, and do 4 one second pulses.

2.  Make sure to refrigerate the topping for about 15 minutes or for the time to it takes to deal with the apples.

3.  Turn on your oven to 375 degrees and make sure your oven rack is in the lower middle of your oven.

4.  Peel, quarter, and core your apples.  Cut them into 1 inch cubes.

5.  Toss the apples, lemon juice, zest, and sugar in bowl.  I usually combine steps 4 and 5, tossing each apple into the mix as soon as I’m done with it.  This allows me to take a nice long Bejeweled break in the middle when I get tired of peeling and coring apples.  It also allows me to snack on some of my McIntosh apples!

6. Pour this mix into 8 by 8 baking pan.  Make sure to scrape the apple/lemon juice mix into that pan.  Distribute the cooled topping on your apples, and cook for 40 minutes.

7.  Crank the oven to 400 degrees for another 5 minutes.

8.  Let it cool slightly on a nice cooling rack and then serve (warm) with a nice cinnamon ice cream or whipped cream.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment!   |   Filed under apples jennifer recipe cook at 9:00am  
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/274678620/apple-crisp
August 21, 2009

Tarte Tatin

Apples!

Photo by Ivan Makarov.

As anyone who has ever eaten with me at a restaurant can tell you, I heart apple desserts.  I find them glorious, wonderful, autumnal, and something that I long for all year long, but they seem a damned nuisance to make at home.  You have to buy pounds of apples which must be peeled, cored, and cut.  There’s the crusts which appear finicky, or the crumbles which I can never get to the right crumbly texture.

Luckily, Paul has patience, the ability to follow a recipe, and a “let’s just do it” mentality, which is how I ended up eating a decadent tarte tatin one night, with a little scoop of cinnamon ice cream, and a dab of whipped cream, on the side.  I know it’s still summer, but September’s looming large in my mind, and I’m starting to think of apples all the time.

Paul’s added advice was, “Many blogs and food books stress how difficult pastry doughs are and that if you look at them funny, they fall apart or end up being super chewy.  That can be true but since pastry crusts are only made of flour, salt, and fat (i.e. butter) it shouldn’t be a huge deal to throw out a failed pastry dough and make another.  So long as you don’t overwork the dough you shouldn’t be scared of them and they are delicious.”

Tarte Tatin

Tarte Tatin Recipe

Pastry Dough:

1 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour

1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter (cold)

1 large egg (cold)

Carmelized Apples:

1 more stick of butter (YUM!)

3/4 cup of granulated sugar, plus one more tablespoon

3 lbs of Granny Smith apples, peel them, core them, quarter them.

Instructions:

1.  Do the pastry first.  Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl.  Dice up the first stick of cold butter and put the butter in to the bowl and coat the butter with the dry mixture.  Then, use your fingers to squish the butter and incorporate it into the dough.  You want it thinly crumbly, not thoroughly melted and mixed in.  The original recipe says you can toss all this into a food processor and go at it, but our food processor would cry and then die if we tried that.

2.  Then, add the egg and stire with a fork until little balls of dough form.  Press the balls together with the back of the fork, and then make them all into a ball which you’ll wrap in plastic and then flatted into a four inch disk.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but we often forget stuff like this in our household and let it refrigerate for like a few hours.  Just make sure it warms slightly so you can roll it out if you forget it for a long period of time.

3.  Back from watching some television or reading a book?  Unwrap the dough, and turn it out onto a floured surface where you’ll roll it out.  Make sure to sprinkle it with some extra flour first, though.  Starting from the center of the disk, roll it until you have a 12-inch circle.

4.  Move the crust to a rimless cookie sheet or a turned-over a rimmed cookie sheet if that’s all you have, or a convenient pizza peel if you have that.  Cover the dough with some plastic wrap, and put it into the fridge while we do the apples.

5.  Turn the oven on to 375, and make sure you have an over rack set to the upper-middle.

6.  On to the apples.  Melt the remaining stick of butter into a nine inch cast iron skillet.  Remove from heat and sprinkle the whole of that evenly with sugar.  You’ll then want to arrange your quartered apples in the skillet.  Our finished picture above should give you some idea of how that should look.

7.  Return the skillet to high heat.  Cook until the juices turn to a rich amber color.  This should take 10 to 12 minutes.  Then, remove the skillet from the heat, and use a pair of forks to flip the apples over to their uncaramelized side!

8.  Return the skillet to high heat again for another five minutes to cook the other side of the apples.

9.  Remove the skillet from the heat once more.  Slide the dough over the skillet and tuck the edges of the dough against the skillet wall.  Be careful, please.  The skillet is super hot.

10. Throw the whole thing into the oven, and cook for 25-30 minutes.  Your crust should be golden brown.

11. Put the skillet on a wire rack, let it cool for 20 minutes.  Loose the edges with a paring knife, place your serving plate over the top of the skillet and flip!  We had a few stuck apple pieces, but not many, and we just re-arranged them on top of the tart.

At this point, if you were smart, you already had a bunch of cinnamon ice cream and some whipped cream ready for topping.  If not, Paul will give me the recipe for his cinnamon ice cream another day to post here.

Comments (View) so far. Add your comment!   |   Filed under paul jennifer apples recipe at 10:00am  
URL: http://phillyfoodie.com/post/168164872/tarte-tatin
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