Making An Apple Pie (Recipe)

This Thanksgiving was one for firsts all right. It was the first time I didn't go to my parent's house for dinner, the first time I met my boyfriend's grandparents, and the first time I was asked to bake a pie. Now, I have never baked a pie before, despite the fact that I do enjoy baking quite a bit. Here's the recipe I followed (and modified). I hope you all will give it a try!

The Crust

Ingredients

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 chilled bowl of water

1 egg

2 sticks salted butter (or lard/fat)

• combine your dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
• break egg into your water bowl and mix it in.
• cut the butter into the dry ingredients bowl and mix it in. I dove right in with my hands when it came to mixing so that I could more thoroughly do it as I didn't have proper mixing tools.
• begin to mix in your egg/water mixture. Do so only 1 tablespoon at a time. When it starts to stick together, it's good!
• divide your 'dough' into two equal portions and put into two ziplock bags. Flatten all of the air out and refrigerate for 1 hour.
• after the hour wait, flour a rolling pin and a cutting board and roll out one portion of the dough. place the pie plate over the dough to check the fit then fold the dough in quarters then forths to pick up and place into plate. Unfold with center of dough in center of pie plate. (*if your dough rips here, just get a little bit of water on your finger and smooth it back into place.
• with a small knife or kitchen shears, trim the edges of dough to fit the plate.
• repeat the rolling process for the second portion of dough and once it is flat, cut 1 inch wide, long strips for your lattice.
• put your cut apples (see filling recipe below!) into your pie plate on top of crust and start placing your lattice strips onto apples. Once it is how you like it, seal and crimp your edges with a fork then put into fridge for 30 minutes.

The Filling

Ingredients

8-10 Granny Smith Apples peeled, cut and cored

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 tbs flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup water

• preheat your oven to 425 degrees and turn on a burner to high heat.
• in a sauce pan pour your butter and 3 tbs of flour, stir, and let cook for 1 minute
• then add in your sugar, packed brown sugar and water. let this mixture come to a boil and reduce. cook like this for 5 minutes.
• pull your pie out of the fridge (if/when ready) then pour your filling mixture over the crust. smooth out over the top with a spatula. most of the filling should flow into the lattice work on your pie and what is left on top will make your crust even more flaky.
• pop your pie into the oven for 15 minutes
• then turn your oven down to 350 degrees and cook for 35-45 minutes.

and that's all! I improvised a lot of this recipe to make it work for us and I was glad that Josh had offered to help me with the apples and filling. It was a lot of fun and came out deliciously! There should also be another picture to your right on my Instagram widget so you can take a peek at the process.

Candy Corn Rice Krispie Treats Recipe

Happy Halloween friends! I didn't know if I'd be able to post this closer to Halloween as we are having a Halloween party, and I'm having a tough time making time to do things for the blog. Here is a fun recipe that puts a fun twist on normal rice krispie treats.

What you need:

1 box of Rice Krispie Cereal / Puffed Rice Cereal

2 bags of small marshmallows

2 Sticks of unsalted butter

1 orange to grate

1 lemon to grate

food dye or coloring in orange and yellow

vanilla flavoring

cooking spray

The process:

Separate your box of cereal into 3 equal parts as well as your bags of marshmallows. Coat a cooking pot generously with cooking spray and add 3 tbsp of unsalted butter to the pot. Pour in 1/3 of the marshmallows as well as a tablespoon of vanilla flavoring and stir mixture until it is runny and gooey. Add 1/3 of the cereal and mix until the cereal is thoroughly coated then pour into a square baking pan. Let it cool for a few seconds then pat the mixture flat with your hands so that it only takes up 1/3 of your pan.

You don't have to wash out the pot this time as you didn't use any coloring, but generously coat the pot with cooking spray again and add 3 more tbsp of the unsalted butter. Pour in another 1/3 of the marshmallows, a few drops of orange food coloring and about a tablespoon of grated orange zest into the mix. Stir the mixture until it's runny and gooey again and add another 1/3 cereal and stir until the cereal is coated in a beautiful orange marshmallow coating. Pour the mixture on top of the first mixture in your baking pan and flatten it down so that you leave 1/3 of the pan free to the yellow color.

This time you need to wash out the pot so that whatever remainder orange coloring will not stain the yellow layer. Once the pot is clean coat the pot with cooking spray and add 3 more tbsp of unsalted butter. Pour in the last 1/3 of marshmallows, a few drops of yellow food coloring and about a tablespoon or grated lemon zest into the mix. Stir your mixture until it's runny and gooey and add your last 1/3 of cereal. Stir until the cereal is coated in a bright yellow marshmallow coating and pour this layer on to the previous two layers.

Let this sit for a few hours then cut to your liking. As a bonus you can also shape these treats into triangle shapes with gloves and make them the traditional shape if you have the time, but even if you don't no one is going to care with how delicious these are!