French Silk Pie

Ingredients:

1-9 inch pie crust, baked

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate pieces

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup sugar

2 egg yolks, beaten

3 Tablespoons whipping cream

whipping cream (for serving)

chocolate curls (for garnish)

In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, combine 1 cup whipping cream, chocolate pieces, butter, and sugar.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, till chocolate is melted. (About 10 minutes)

Remove pan from heat, and gradually stir about half the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks.
Return egg mixture to saucepan.

Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly till mixture is slightly thickened and almost bubbly. (About 3-5 minutes)

Remove from heat.  Stir in 3 Tablespoons whipping cream.

Place saucepan in a bowl of ice water, stir occasionally till mixture stiffens and almost holds its shape.  (About 20 minutes)

Transfer chocolate mixture to a medium mixing bowl.

Beat the cooled chocolate mixture with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until light and fluffy. (about 2 or 3 minutes)

Spread filling in baked pie shell.  Cover and chill pie 4-5 hours or until set.  Best if served within 24 hours, but will last 3-4 days if stored properly.  Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Serve with whipped cream and garnish with chocolate curls.

~Samantha

Caramel Apple Pie

My mom made this recipe yesterday.  We had a piece before bed.  =)  I didn't take pictures of the whole process, only a finished product picture.  This is a rather complicated recipe. Its a very good pie; the crust is especially good.

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon butter flavored shortening, chilled
• 1/3 cup ice water
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling:

• 6 cups apples (Jonathan or Granny Smith)
• 1/2   1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed   (My mom used half the amount of sugar.  It tasted fine.)
• 1/2   1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 Tablespoons heavy cream (My mom says she wouldn't use the cream next time.) 
• 4 Tablespoons butter

Streusel Topping:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• About 3 oz. Heath baking bits  (These are toffee, but don't have any chocolate on them.)

Directions:
(Before you begin place all ingredients for the crust, including the flour, and vinegar in the refrigerator.  Also place your rolling pin in the refrigerator, for best results)

• Filling:

Peel, core, and slice apples. Sprinkle with lemon juice.  Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and add apples.  Toss to mix.  Add vanilla and cream.  Melt butter in a heavy skillet.  Add apple mixture and cook approximately 8 minutes, to soften apples. Preheat oven to 450˙ F.

• Pie crust:

All ingredients, and your rolling pin should be chilled.  Combine the flour, salt, and sugar.  Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal.  In another bowl, mix water, and vinegar with the beaten egg.  Add the liquid mixture, 1 Tablespoon at a time, to the flour mixture, tossing with a fork to form a soft dough.  Divide dough into two pieces, one slightly smaller than the other.  Cover smaller piece with plastic wrap, and chill until you are ready to use it.  On a lightly greased counter top roll out the larger piece of dough to fit in your pie plate.  Place filling inside of crust.

• Streusel Topping:

Combine flour and sugar.  Mix in butter with fork making coarse crumbs.  Stir in the crushed toffee bars.  Sprinkle over pie.  Add top crust.  (My mom did a lattice top crust instead of a full crust.)  Seal, flute edge, and vent top.  Brush with beaten egg white, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.  Bake for 15 minutes at 450˙ F.  Reduce heat to 350˙F. and bake 45 minutes longer.  (Be careful of the crust; don't let it burn.  If the edges start getting dark, cover them with foil.)

~Samantha

Crusty Apple Pie

My mom told my dad if the recipe printed from her laptop she would make it for breakfast.  It printed.  She made it last night.  This is the picture-story of our Crusty Apple Pie baking experience.  We got this recipe off the King Arthur Flour blog. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog.

Step 1:
Crust:
2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cream cheese (lowfat will be fine)
10 Tablespoons cold butter
2 to 4 Tablespoons ice cold water

Put the flour in a bowl, add cream cheese, and salt.  Mix until crumbly. Cut the butter into pieces, then cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives.   The mixture should be crumbly, with some chunks.  Sprinkle the dough with a little of the cold water, and toss.  Squeeze the dough to see if it holds together.  If the dough is too dry add more of the water a Tablespoon at a time.  Divide the dough into two pieces, one being slightly larger than the other.  (We did four since we were making a double batch.)  Flatten each piece of dough into a disk, wrap well with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  While it chills, work on the filling.

Filling:
3 medium to large apples (we used Cortlands)
dash of salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar (we used part brown, part white)
2 teaspoons  ground cinnamon

Peel, core and slice the apples.  Daniel helped out by peeling our apples for us.
The apples should be sliced very thin.

Roll the larger piece of crust out to a circle about 13
inches in diameter.  We tried rolling the crust out on parchment paper, but the paper slid all over the counter.  Flour the rolling pin to keep it from sticking to the crust. (A rolling pin sock would work the best, if you have one.)
When we rolled out our next crust we just sprinkled flour on the countertop.  When we went to put the crust on the parchment paper before assembling the pie, we used a pancake flipper, dipping it in flour so it didn't stick, to help get it up off the counter.

After rolling out the crust, and getting on the parchment paper its time to do the filling.
Remember we  just need...

1/2 cup sugar (we used part brown, part white)

2 teaspoons  ground cinnamon

Mix the sugar and cinnamon together.

 Spread evenly on crust.

Lay the apples neatly on top of the sugar mix, overlapping them slightly.

After finishing this step, it might be a good time to preheat your oven to 425 F.

When this step is finished it should look something like this.
After this, sprinkle the dash of salt, and drizzle the lemon juice on top of the apples.
(We accidently missed this step on our first pie)

Then cut the 2 T. of butter into small pieces and scatter them on top of the apples.
(We sort of forgot this step too, and added a little butter later, after cutting the decorations in the top)

Remove the other piece of crust from the refrigerator.  Roll it into a 12 inch circle.  Carefully place the rolled out crust on top of the apples.  Bring the edges of the bottom crust up, and press the two crusts together, sealing well.

Brush the crust with milk, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.  The coarse sugar adds a lot of texture, and looks very nice.

Apple pies always need to have a few slits or holes for steam to escape.
My mom is great at cutting decorations into pies.  =)
She did an apple in the middle, with apple leaf-shapes around the edges.  It looked very nice.

Bake the pie in the preheated oven for 15 minutes at 425 F.  Then reduce the heat to 375 F, and bake for 25 to 35 minutes.  The crust needs to be golden brown, the apples soft and bubbling.

Mom did a great job!  It looks great!

Wait awhile so its cooled quite a bit before cutting it. (The original recipe says wait an hour)

   Finished product!  Looks great with a bit of whipped cream!

~Samantha