Apple Oven Cake

I have a large bag full of apples sitting on my kitchen floor. I should have more, really - I do have 8 apple trees on my property, but only a few of them are producing apples, because I don't really know how to prune and take care of them. Anyway, I do have apples, and I've been trying to figure out what to do with them - my husband won't eat them unless they are cooked (he thinks he's allergic to them - is this common?). He doesn't like apple sauce at all. Picky will sometimes eat apple sauce, but not with any regularity, and she won't touch apples in their natural form. Everyone will eat apple crisp, but that gets old for me after awhile, and my scale doesn't like it either (it keeps protesting by going a little higher each time I visit...). So I've been on the lookout for apple recipes.

I saw a recipe on Pioneer Women for skillet apple cake, and that sounded promising. On further investigation, however, I realized that there was a bit too much butter in that recipe. A bit. And then I remembered that a recent Sunset had a recipe for Apple Oven Cake, and I went sorting through all of my summer magazines to find it (It was actually in October - go figure). What I found is a kind-of apple pancake that you make in a cast iron pan. The butter content is much more reasonable (3 Tbsp as opposed to almost 2 sticks), however I wouldn't really call this a cake, exactly. It was fast to make, and I love the way it puffed up on the sides in a surprising way. I over-cooked it a bit, and I only had it in for 12 of the 15 minutes they suggested. So the edges were a little burnt. But it still tasted lovely, and the apples were all caramel-y and wonderful. The only thing I changed was the type of apple - it called for 1 sweet apple, such as Fuji - well, the apples from my tree are tart - baking apple tart. It tasted great - I would suggest that you'd be better off with a golden delicious or granny smith, here. But, maybe I'm mistaken. I have to admit that I generally prefer tart baking apples to sweet ones. Picky seemed to like it just fine too.

Here it is, from Sunset Magazine, October 2009:

Apple Oven Cake

• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1 sweet apple, such as Fuji, peeled and sliced
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup each flour and milk
• 1 tbsp each fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 425
Melt butter in a 12-inch ovenproof frying pan over high heat.
Add brown sugar and cinnamon, swirling to combine
Add apple and cook until just starting to soften, about 3 minutes
Meanwhile, in a blender, whirl together eggs, salt, flour, and milk
Pour egg mixture into pan and bake until puffed and brown, about 15 minutes
Sprinkle with lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Oh, yum! It was gone so fast...I may have to try again tomorrow, and see if I can make it perfect...

Plum crisp

I admit, when my husband is out of town, I rarely cook. I used to try, just to keep meal times normal for my daughter - but it was usually a study in frustration. I mean, who wants to spend an hour in the kitchen making a full, healthy dinner, only to have the only other diner refuse to eat? Although that didn't always happen, it happened enough that I learned my lesson. Now it's all about quick food, and I don't even try to make the same thing for her as I do for myself. I make myself a nice big fresh salad with all the trimmings, and I make her something that I'm fairly sure she will like. I mean, I could put some salad in front of her, but I already know what will happen (she won't even eat with it on her plate), so what would be the point? I always offer her a bite of mine, and she always refuses. Tonight was such a night - and I'm sure glad I didn't spend a bunch of time trying out a new recipe or making a casserole, because she didn't even touch her grilled cheese sandwich. Or mango. Or tomato soup. In fact, I'm pretty sure she didn't eat anything. I'm not completely sure, because I was too busy enjoying my beautiful salad - a nice organic salad mix, avocado, apricots, feta cheese, teriyaki tofu - and a yummy home made simple salad dressing made with Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar (which is, I think, the key ingredient...) MMMMmmmmm. And after, I enjoyed some plum crisp, made with plums from my friends backyard. Picky didn't even go for this - something in the air? I hope she's not getting sick...



My favorite crisp recipe at the moment is from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. I don't really follow a recipe for the fruit - you need about 3 lbs or 6 cups of fruit, and the amount of sugar varies with the sweetness of the fruit. For apples, I add a squeeze of lemon, 2 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon. For other fruits, I just add sugar, between 2 tbsp and 1/2 cup, to taste. I've tried adding either flour or corn starch as a thickener for fruit other than apples (which don't seem to need it) - I tried 2 tbsp corn starch tonight, but it was a little weirdly creamy - I think I prefer it runny, honestly. Perhaps I'll try instant tapioca, I think they use that in pie recipes sometimes. Anyway, the recipe is really the topping:

Crisp Topping

• 6 Tbsp canola oil (you can use butter - I find oil easier to work with)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats or chopped nuts (I almost always use oats, although almonds would also be good)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon, optional

You can also use a nut oil, such as walnut or hazelnut, for some or all of the oil - I haven't tried this, but it sounds good, especially if you're using nuts instead of oats. Anyway, all you have to do is combine the ingredients (if you're using butter, use your fingers to work the butter with the rest of the ingredients so that each piece is coated and you have a coarse, crumbly mixture). Spread the topping over a shallow gratin dish with your fruit mixture. Put the gratin dish on a cookie sheet (unless you just love to clean your oven), and put it in a preheated 375 degree oven. The recipe says 1 hour, 10 minutes, but I've always found 1 hour to be plenty. Plus, I usually have to loosly cover the dish with tinfoil about half way through or else the oats start to burn.



Although Picky didn't eat any of my plum crisp tonight, I know she'll enjoy some in the morning. I always eat a generous scoop with (plain) yogurt. Picky prefers the crisp alone, and likes the topping more than the filling (naturally). I think we enjoy it for breakfast more than dessert.


Tip: try combining fruits, or adding dried fruit. I put a handful of dried cranberries in tonights crisp - last week I made a delicious crisp with a little of everything from my CSA box: apricots, peaches, plums, and a can of blackberries that I had gathering dust in my pantry. oh yummy! My apple trees are promising many versions of apple crisp this fall! :)

Mango-banana "ice-cream"

Well, it has definitely been too hot to cook around here! We've been camping out in our basement, eating picnic food on a towel spread out on the blow-up mattress that we've also been sleeping on. It's times like this I'm glad I finally broke down and bought an ice-cream maker this year! I wanted to make my own frozen yogurts (with my own home-made yogurt) that are lower in sugar and have fewer ingredients than store-bought. Of course, you don't really need an ice-cream maker to make your own frozen yogurt or ice-cream - but it does simplify things, and makes a nice creamy blend (in much less time). If you want something firm enough for cones, however, you have to take the dessert out of your maker and put it into a container and the freezer for a bit, to firm it up. It comes out of the maker looking more like soft-serve - perfect in a bowl with a little granola sprinkled on top!
This recipe is great - and you could easily use it for smoothies or smoothie pops as well, although it makes a larger amount than I would normally make for that - perhaps for a brunch or a preschool snack. I got this from Kids' fun & healthy cookbook by Nicola Graimes:

• 2 medium ripe mangoes (I used about 2 cups of frozen cubed mango)
• 2 medium bananas
• 2 cups yogurt (thick works best, but it doesn't have to be Greek style)
• 3 Tbsp powdered sugar
• squeeze of lemon

Cut the bananas and mangoes into chunks and mix with the other ingredients. You could blend it together in a blender, or use an imersion blender, until it is a thick and creamy mixture (if you have a child like mine, you may want to be sure there are no chunks...). If you have an ice-cream maker, you can proceed according to the directions on your machine: I poured the mixture into the spout and watched until it looked like soft-serve (5-10 minutes), and then I transferred it into a container and put it in the freezer to firm up - although that didn't last long, and we ended up scooping the semi-soft mixture into our ice cream cones anyway. If you don't have an ice cream machine, put the mixture in a shallow container with a lid and freeze it. After 2-3 hours, whisk the mixture with a fork and put it back in the freezer for another 3 hours and mix it again. Yummy!

apricot yogurt swirl

Well, we had another food success last night - Picky tried and loved the turkey bolognese with spaghetti that I made! This is one of daddy's favorite dishes, and I make it mostly for him, as Picky hasn't tried it up to this point - I was thrilled to see her enjoy it! I will post a recipe as soon as I figure out exactly what I put in it - I'm thinking of adding in some kidney beans and see how that goes over as well. Anyway, I'm glad that I have the memory of Picky slurping up pasta last night (she usually only eats Asian style noodles, very rarely the Italian kind...) because this morning she was back to her usual antics. Picky wanted some iced tea with breakfast, which is fine. She wanted sugar, and so I got out a little container with simple syrup in it, which is a sugar and water mixture that we use to sweeten iced drinks, so that they won't be grainy. I explained this to her as I scooped a bit into her cup. Somehow she decided that the simple syrup made her tea "taste funny", and she wanted "regular sugar". Taste funny? It's the same thing!! It's even made from the same sugar!! Of course, explaining this does no good, so I let her put "regular sugar" into her cup instead. After all this tea business, she decided she was now no longer hungry for the cheese omelet that I made...sigh. Well, maybe it's the heat - it is quite hot already today, and promising to be sweltering. It's so hard to eat, or cook, in this heat. So here's an idea for something that requires little heat to make and is soothing and cool to eat - apricot puree swirled into yogurt!
I like to make my own yogurt - I have a large maker from yogourmet, and we go through the yogurt within a week or two. Home-made yogurt is, like most things home-made, better than store bought. For one thing, you can control the tang and the consistency. I like tangy yogurt, but Picky likes it a bit sweeter, so I usually make it somewhere in between. I also like quite thick yogurt, so I add a bit of nonfat milk powder into the milk when I make it, and that thickens it up a bit. All of this yogurt doesn't mean that I never buy those little tubes of pre-sweetened yogurt for Picky - although I have managed to convince her so far that these are a treat! I found this apricot yogurt swirl recipe in Kids' Fun & Healthy Cookbook, and since Picky has been on a bit of an apricot kick, I decided to give it a try. Ok, I admit, she tried but then ultimately rejected it based on texture (it wasn't smooth enough). I, however, thought it was lovely, and so I have it here anyway - I have a feeling that Picky will come around eventually:




3/4 cup chopped dried apricots (I prefer Turkish)
1 cup water
3 Tbsp fresh apple juice

Put the apricots and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover, and cook for 15-20 minutes, until soft. Let the apricots cool for about 30 minutes, then stir in the apple juice. Blend the mixture in a blender or in the pan with an immersion blender (my preferred method). Now you can put this in the fridge, and it's ready to stir into yogurt - I also enjoy a little sprinkling of granola on top (home-made, of course - I'll post the recipe eventually...)

Yogurt Smoothie Pops!

My recipe for yogurt smoothie pops is pretty flexible. I usually put in a banana, a generous seving of some kind of fruit, either fresh or frozen, several scoops of yogurt, a spoonful of frozen orange juice, a splash of maple syrup, and some milk or juice to get it to the right consistancy. I love my imersion blender for this task - it really makes the job easy and gives you less to clean than a traditional blender. Plus it's great for soups, too! The latest fruit combo that my dd is enjoying: banana, mango, and avacado! I know you wouldn't normally think to put avacado in a smoothie, but it works great here - it gives a nice creamy consistancy and doesn't have a strong flavor. Plus, it's super healthy! Ok, it does give it a weird color, but my dd drinks it with Yoda (who likes anything green - you do what you gotta do), and they think it's great, weird greenish color and all. And feel free to drink this as a smoothie (frozen bananas and/or fruit work best for this) rather than freezing it into a pop - or do both! Right now with the hot weather, either way is refreshing, and it's almost the only way to get dd to eat fruit, so I'm blending all the time!
Also, if you can get away with it, add a bit of wheat germ - it does make it just a little grainy - dd used to be fine with this, but she seems to eat more without it at the moment, so I'm leaving it out.
Oh, and I almost forgot - pour the mix into pop molds to freeze - I know there is another way to do this with little paper cups and stir sticks, but I'm sure you can figure it out. It takes at least a few hours to freeze properly.