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Cinnamon Apple Pie with Raisins and Crumb Topping

Time again for a Secret Recipe Club post!

I hit the jackpot with my secret blog this month: Kristine’s Kitchen. Kristine has healthy food, naughty food, and everything in between. After sorting through her blog, I tweeted:

I got a bunch of replies telling me to let the husband choose and decided to pick the one I knew he would want: apple pie. Because if pie is an option, he’s going for it.

I was intrigued by this recipe because for one, it includes raisins. I have a very recent love for raisins so I knew I would love this. The recipe also calls for you to put the raw apples right into the pie crust instead of cooking them first, which is something I’ve never done when making a pie.

The pie turned out fantastic! And so easy since you literally just toss the ingredients together and throw them in the crust! My husband declared it the best apple pie ever to which I said, “Umm… you said that about the last apple pie I made”. He decided that they are equally good but this one is more of a seasonal apple pie because of the raisins. Men…

This is definitely one I’ll make again and again!

Two years ago: Mint Brownies

5 from 2 votes
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Cinnamon Apple Pie with Raisins and Crumb Topping
Ingredients
  • 1 refrigerated pie dough
  • 1 cup packed golden brown sugar
  • 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 2 3/4 pounds Granny Smith apples about 6 medium, peeled, cored, cut into chunks
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For the Crumb Topping:
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup 1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Instructions
  1. For the crust, roll out pie dough to a 14-inch circle. Transfer to a pie dish by gently wrapping the dough around a rolling pin and then carefully unrolling it. Gently press dough down into pie dish and trim excess dough around edges, leaving about a 1-inch overhang. Fold the edges under and crimp to make a decorative edge. Chill unbaked crust in freezer for 20 minutes.
  2. To make the filling:
  3. Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 375F. Mix brown sugar, flour, lemon peel, and cinnamon in large bowl. Add apple chunks, raisins, and vanilla; toss until well coated. Transfer filling to unbaked crust, mounding filling slightly in center. Bake pie until apples begin to soften, about 40 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, prepare crumb topping:
  5. Whisk flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in small bowl. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture begins to clump together.
  6. Sprinkle topping evenly over hot pie. Continue to bake pie until apples are tender and topping is browned and crisp, tenting pie with sheet of foil if browning too quickly, about 50 minutes. Cool pie on rack at least 2 hours.

 

 

 

 

 


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Peach Cobbler

The past few times I’ve gone to the grocery store, I’ve made the mistake of taking my husband and both boys. I’m sure you understand the problem with this. They. Want. Everything. Every cookie, every cereal, every ice cream, and in the case of my 4 year old, every piece of fruit. So I ended up with a ton of peaches recently. A ton.

The peaches are kind of ridiculous right now. They’re so sweet and juicy and perfect for this old-fashioned dessert which you can assemble in the time it takes dinner to simmer on the stove. This is seriously easy and so comforting. The only way it could’ve been better is if we’d had vanilla ice cream to go with it!

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Peach Cobbler
Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
25 mins
 
Ingredients
  • 6 large peaches cut into thin wedges
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
For the topping:
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 stick cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
  • 1/4 cup boiling water
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425F.
  2. Toss peaches with sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch in a 2 quart baking dish and bake in middle of oven 10 minutes.
  3. While the peaches bake, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in water until just combined.
  4. Remove peaches from oven and drop spoonfuls of topping over them. Bake in middle of oven until topping is golden, about 25 minutes. (Topping will spread as it bakes.)

Coconut Cream Flan

My turn to choose the Project Pastry Queen recipe again! I went with a recipe that I had never even noticed in the book: Coconut Cream Flan.

Flan has such a bad reputation but I stand by my belief that anyone who doesn’t like it, just hasn’t tried a good recipe. It’s so sweet and creamy, like a custard pie without the crust and who doesn’t like custard pie?! This version has just a hint of coconut and is topped with caramel. It’s pretty perfect.

I found the cream of coconut in the alcohol section of my grocery store, with the margarita mixes and things like that. It took me forever (and google) to find it so I wanted to share that tidbit with you. I used heavy cream in place of the half-and-half because heavy cream makes everything better. Trust me. And I left the rum out. I don’t like rum and didn’t feel like buying a bottle just for this recipe.

Seriously, great recipe! If you’ve never tried flan or think you hate it, give this recipe a try. I’m almost 100% sure that you will love it!

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Coconut Cream Flan
from The Pastry Queen
Ingredients
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 15-ounce can cream of coconut, such as Coco Lopez
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¼ cup dark rum
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
  2. Place the sugar in a small, uncoated skillet. Heat the sugar over medium-high heat until melted and golden brown. Pour it into a 1-quart baking dish or distribute it evenly among eight 1-cup capacity ramekins (about 2 tablespoons per ramekin). Tip and turn the dish or ramekins to coat the bottom(s) and sides with the melted sugar.
  3. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl until foamy. Stir in the condensed milk, cream of coconut, half-and-half, vanilla, and rum. Pour the mixture into the baking dish. Put the baking dish in a large baking pan and set it in the oven. Pour enough boiling water into the larger pan to reach halfway up the sides of the baking dish or ramekins.
  4. Bake 1 hour for the 1-quart or 45 minutes for the ramekins, until the center is almost set. Remove the flan(s) from the pan of water and cool on a rack. Invert onto a serving plate; cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. The flan(s) will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator.

Peanut Butter-Banana Cream Pie with Hot Fudge Sauce

This week’s Project Pastry Queen recipe was chosen by Josie of Pink Parsley and she chose the amazingly delicious Peanut Butter-Banana Cream Pie with Hot Fudge Sauce. And great timing too since tomorrow is Pi Day!

I am late posting this because I’ve been procrastinating. See, it was quite the undertaking. Crust, custard, chocolate, peanut butter, hot fudge, whipped cream – it took me all day long! But it was so worth it! I think I inhaled that piece up there in less than 2 minutes.

A few notes:

I used White Chocolate Wonderful because why use plain peanut butter when you can use white chocolate peanut butter? Go buy it. Now. (You can find it at Walmart, Target, pretty much anywhere.)

The crust tasted slightly underbaked to me and I left it in for 5 extra minutes or so. Keep an eye on that one.

Do not put hot fudge sauce in a squeeze bottle. It will explode.

If you don’t do gelatin for whatever reason, I think the pie would be fine without it. It won’t cut perfectly but between cooking the eggs and the cornstarch, it should be a-okay. Just don’t forget to add the banana liqueur!

So happy early Pi Day and make sure you check out Josie’s post for the recipe!

Pumpkin Maple Pie

 

I’m about to tell you something that you probably don’t want to hear. Cover your ears eyes if you can’t handle disappointment.

Ready?

I don’t like pumpkin pie!

Not at all. I always thought I did and then one Thanksgiving I had a revelation. It reminds me of baby food in a pie crust. Appetizing, right? From that year on, I cut out pumpkin pie and doubled my intake of pecan pie to make up for it.

But as a blogger, I feel like I need to have an amazing pumpkin pie recipe since that’s what people are searching for this time of year. This one is perfection as far as baby food pies go. The maple is subtle but really adds another dimension to an otherwise simple pie. My husband said it’s the best pumpkin pie he’s ever had and the baby had a piece for breakfast (I know…) so if you like pumpkin pie, you will definitely love this!

(Do not be intimidated by the pie crust recipe calling for a food processor. If you don’t own one, just freeze the butter for a few minutes and then grate it over the flour mixture. You can use your hands or a fork to combine it from there. Just work quickly so the butter doesn’t melt.)

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Pumpkin Maple Pie
Ingredients
For the crust:
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoon sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 sticks 10 tablespoons very cold (frozen is fine) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons very cold frozen is even better vegetable shortening, cut into 2 pieces
  • About 1/4 cup ice water
For the pie:
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 15- ounce can pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
  • 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • pinch of cloves
Instructions
  1. To make the crust:
  2. Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade; pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening care cut into the flour. Don’t overdo the mixing — what you’re aiming for is to have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 3 tablespoons of the water — add a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour. If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine. Scrape the dough out of the work bowl and onto a work surface.
  3. Shape the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling. (If your ingredients were very cold and you worked quickly, though, you might be able to roll the dough immediately: the dough should be as cold as if it had just come out of the fridge.)
  4. To roll out the dough: Have a buttered 9-inch pie plate at hand.
  5. You can roll the dough out on a floured surface or between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap or in a rolling slipcover. (I usually roll this dough out on the floured counter.) If you’re working on a counter, turn the dough over frequently and keep the counter floured. If you are rolling between paper, plastic or in a slipcover, make sure to turn the dough over often and to life the paper, plastic or cover frequently so that it doesn’t roll into the dough and form creases.
  6. If you’ve got time, slide the rolled-out dough into the fridge for about 20 mins to rest and firm up.
  7. Fit the dough into the pie plate and, using a pair of scissors, cut the excess dough to a 1/4- to 1/2-inch overhang. Fold the dough under itself, so that it hangs over the edge just a tad, and flute or pinch the crust to make a decorative edge. Alternatively, you can finish the crust by pressing it with the tines of a fork.
To make the pie:
  1. Set an oven rack in the lowest position and heat oven to 350F. Place the pie plate on a foil-lined baking sheet.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin, cream, milk, maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and cloves.
  3. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the crust and bake until the center is set, 60 to 70 minutes. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

Pear-Cranberry Pie with Oatmeal Streusel

I know, I know, more cranberries. I just can’t help myself though! The combination of pears and cranberries was too good to pass up.

The pie was very simple and would be perfect on any holiday dessert buffet. The oatmeal streusel topping is a nice change from a double crust fruit pie. The brown sugar and ginger (I know, I hate ginger but a little powdered ginger doesn’t bother me too much) in the topping was a perfect match with the pears and cranberries.

One thing though, if I was to make this again, I’d cook the pears with the cranberries. They were a little too crunchy for me but it could’ve been that my pears just weren’t ripe enough. Also, I used fresh cranberries in the pie but I’m sure dried would be fine. I would just use more water and less sugar.

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Pear-Cranberry Pie with Oatmeal Streusel
Ingredients
For the pie:
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup cranberries
  • 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
  • 6 peeled Anjou pears cored and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (about 3 pounds)
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • your favorite single pie crust recipe or a refrigerated one!
  • Cooking spray
For the streusel:
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
  • 2 tablespoons apple juice
  • 1 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
  1. Position oven rack to lowest third of oven. Preheat oven to 400°.
  2. To prepare pie, combine 1/2 cup water and granulated sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Add cranberries; return to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes or until liquid is reduced to 2 tablespoons. Remove from heat; cool.
  3. Combine lemon juice and pears in a large bowl; toss. Weigh or lightly spoon 1/4 cup flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine 1/4 cup flour and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Add flour mixture to pear mixture; toss to coat. Stir in cranberry mixture.
  4. Fit pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Fold edges under; flute. Spoon pear mixture into prepared crust.
  5. To prepare streusel, weigh or lightly spoon 1/3 cup flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine butter and apple juice in a bowl, stirring well. Add flour, oats, and remaining ingredients; toss. Sprinkle oat mixture over pear mixture. Cover pie loosely with foil; place pie plate on a baking sheet. Bake, covered, in the lower third of oven at 400° for 1 hour. Uncover; bake 15 minutes or until browned. Cool on a wire rack 1 hour.

Apple Custard Pie

Apple Custard Pie – layers of cinnamon apples, creamy custard, and a streusel topping. The perfect Thanksgiving apple pie!

Apple Custard Pie - layers of cinnamon apples, creamy custard, and a streusel topping. The perfect Thanksgiving apple pie!

My parents recently brought back some food goodies from their Tennessee vacation, including some big, beautiful apples. I’m usually not a huge fan of fruity desserts, but I really wanted to try these apples in a pie. I didn’t want a typical double-crust pie though and after a lot of searching, I settled on an apple custard pie. My husband’s favorite dessert is flan so anything custard-y is usually a winner around here.

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Strawberry, Blueberry, Peach Cobbler

You guys get Cooking Light magazine, right? Please tell me you do. If you don’t, order now. You won’t regret it. So those of you that do get it, did you die a little when you saw the cobbler on the most recent cover? Or was I the only one that happened to? I have been thinking about it since I got my copy of the magazine and today I finally found decent priced blueberries.

The original recipe uses blueberries, blackberries, and peaches but I’m not a big fan of blackberries. I switched to strawberries and I’m so glad I did. The fruit went together perfectly and the topping was biscuit-y and delicious. Now, the sugared almonds? Ehh, I hardly noticed them. This cobbler is just fine without them.

Try this recipe if you’re looking for a good summery dessert. My kid and I went through half the pan after dinner tonight. It’s that good.

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Strawberry, Blueberry, Peach Cobbler
Ingredients
For the filling:
  • 1 16-ounce package fresh strawberries, sliced
  • 2 6-ounce packages fresh blueberries
  • 3 medium peaches peeled and sliced
  • Cooking spray
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
For the topping:
  • 4.5 ounces all-purpose flour about 1 cup
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 6 tablespoons chilled butter cut into small pieces
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup sliced almonds
  • 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar
  • 1 tablespoon egg white
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. To prepare filling, combine strawberries, blueberries, and peaches in a 13 x 9–inch baking dish lightly coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch, juice, and 1/8 teaspoon salt over fruit; toss gently to combine.
  3. To prepare topping, weigh or lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, baking powder, and 1/8 teaspoon salt, stirring well. Cut butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add half-and-half; gently knead dough just until moistened. Drop dough by spoonfuls evenly over top of filling. Combine almonds, turbinado sugar, and egg white; sprinkle over top. Bake at 350° for 50 minutes or until topping is browned. Let stand 10 minutes. Serve with ice cream.