Rich Roasted Pie Filling

Richly spiced, roasted apple pie filling. Where's my spoon?

When was the last time you dug into an apple pie filling that tasted great, no crust required? When I was a kid, Northern Spy apples were as prevalent in the orchards as the day was long, and when we went picking we were guaranteed at least two huge bagfuls of giant, beautiful fruit. Spies needed no adornment in my mom's pies, save for an occasional sprinkle of cinnamon. They were perfect on their own.

These days, spies are a rarity, and the other suggested substitutes simply aren't as good. The last pie my mom made wound up with a filling of relatively bland, over-softened apples that shrunk down so much it looked like there was hardly any at all. I've tried the old tactics of sauteeing the apples before adding them, etc, but still the results aren't what I was going for.

Then I started roasting them. It started as a fairly quick way to add flavourful fruit to oatmeal, and as I continued to tweak and add layers of flavour I eventually wound up with a pan of delightfully rich-tasting, ever so slightly gooey apples perfect for topping a dessert. In fact, I would have titled this recipe a "dessert sauce" instead of a "pie filling", except that when I gave it out as gifts, the recipients by and large made pies with it - the texture is reminiscent of canned pie filling, although the taste is not as sweet and definitely more multifaceted than commercial products. Us, though - we dug into a jar (or three) and spooned it over yogurt, warmed it up and dolloped it on ice cream (rum raisin ice cream is perfect with this) and even used it in lieu of syrup on Sunday morning pancakes. For Home Ec this year, I'm thinking of making a batch to turn into "apple pie rolls" - essentially stuffed, rolled up pieces of bread baked enchilada-style - or to use over French toast.

Sourdough Pain Noir #BreadBakers

This 100% sourdough Pain Noir is stuffed with chocolate, pecans and dates and baked cloche style for an impossibly crispy crust. It is begging for a smear of jam!

I adore sourdough bread. Given the choice, I would pick a loaf made with wild yeast, carefully cultivated for years and slowly leavening dough far and above the fanciest straight-dough loaf. Even things like cinnamon rolls and Chelsea buns get a boost when a little tang is added to the mix. The only thing I probably like in baking more than sourdough is chocolate. Give me some good dark stuff or a scoop of cocoa powder, and I am a happy, happy woman.

So of course, it was natural for me to want to combine the two for this month's Bread Bakers event! This month, the #BreadBakers were challenged to make a bread with either a sourdough starter, a poolish, a biga, a soaker or tangzhong. Obviously, since I had a good ol' starter hanging out in the fridge, I used that, but 75g each of flour and water, plus a pinch of yeast left overnight at room temperature would likely do the trick nicely too. To fulfill my desire for chocolate, I added not only did cocoa powder and chocolate to my lovely, tart sourdough, but dates and pecans fell into the mix too. While there is some sugar in the loaf (cocoa is bitter after all) the bread is in no way cloyingly sweet or "dessert-y". Rather, those I served it to preferred it with either a smear of cream cheese or tart cherry jam (or both) for breakfast, and toasted with salted butter for a snack. Either way, I was glad that it is baked "cloche-style" (AKA in a Dutch oven), because it kept the smell mediated... until you opened the oven!

If you'd like to create your own sourdough starter, you'll start about a month in advance (mine's been going for 9 years!). Here is a great source to get you going and here's how to keep it going. Now, a biga or poolish is not a sourdough starter, but it's similar in that its a mixture of flour, water, and yeast (in this case it's added, rather than wild, yeast). Like sourdough, it's made in advance to develop flavor. A soaker is typically cereals or rye that is soaked in boiled water a day in advance and then added to the bread, so that they don't break your teeth and insome cases are more nutritious.

The odd one out (and the only one I've never tried) is tangzhong. A tangzhong is a mixture of flour and water that is heated to 64 C, cooled, and added to the dough to soften the dough.

 

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.


If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send Stacy an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

Here's what our group baked up this month:

• Buttery Sourdough Biscuits from Cook's Hideout
• Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread from Mayuri's Jikoni
• French Baguette from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Golden Sourdough Garlic Focaccia from Ambrosia
• Hokkaido Bread with Tangzhong from Sonlicious
• Overnight 500g Sourdough Bread from Hostess at Heart
• Pai Bao with Tangzhong from All That's Left are the Crumbs
• Peanut Bread from Passion Kneaded
• Poolish Dough Pizza Crust from Palatable Passtime
• Sourdough Focaccia with Crispy Garlic from Baking Sense
• Sourdough Pain Noir from What Smells So Good? 
• Sourdough Whole Wheat Flatbreads from Sneha's Recipe
• Walnut Levain Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories 
• Whole Wheat Papo Secos - Portuguese Rolls from The Schizo Chef

Healthier Banana Chocolate Chip Scones

With less sugar, calories and fat, and more fibre than a storebought scone, these Healthier Banana Chocolate Chip Scones topped with almonds and raw sugar make a great teatime treat!

Scones are a rarity in this household. Mom and I both adore them (and their cousins, buttermilk biscuits), but I can no longer eat them and she doesn't trust herself around their buttery, sweet natures. On the rare occasion a biscuit or two might pop up at dinnertime, but scones? No dice. Too many calories, too much fat, and not filling enough to warrant the indulgence.

Then I came across a recipe that allows for sweet, tender and just-crumbly biscuits that also happens to be whole grain and a little bit better for the waistline. While searching for a use-up for bananas that wasn't traditional banana bread, Chemistry Cachet's blog popped up. The science (obviously) looked promising and I decided to give it a shot, making a few modifications to use what I had and nix what I didn't. The result was exactly what I had in mind: nutty and sweet, soft and flaky, and perfect room temperature or slightly warmed and topped with a dollop of homemade yogurt. Not only that, but they had both nuts and chocolate going for them - definite bonuses in our book.

Taste and texture aside, these scones are nutritional halos in the scone world. While sweet and nutty, each wedge will only set you back about 170 calories and 7 grams of fat, and contain just over 5 grams of sugar while 3.7 grams of fibre offset the carb load. These are not piddlingly tiny scones, either - one wedge is plenty for having with afternoon tea and is filling enough to last through to dinner. For comparison, a banana chocolate chip scone from COBS has  260 calories, 10 grams of fat and 17 grams of sugar, with only 1 gram of fibre.

Have you "healthified" a recipe lately? What would you love to make "better for you" but still great-tasting?

Mock Dried Pineapple

This sneaky swap for "real" dried pineapple is indiscernible from the real thing in baked goods, and lasts a long time in the pantry. Just when you thought you were all "zucchinied" out! 

Our zucchini are done for the year. Hallelujiah.

Unlike last season, the squash loved the weird cool / rainy then hot / humid Summer we had, producing en masse. With the last push of produce from those plants came the somewhat woody / spongy rejects which just aren't great for eating. However, those zucchini are (for the most part) awesome for baking! They're slightly drier (i.e. no need to really wring them out after shredding) and soak up flavour even better. When I came across a recipe for candied zucchini on The Persnickety Plate, I knew these last zucchini were prime for it. 

Essentially, the summer squash (you can use any variety) are peeled, cubed, and simmered in a sweetened pineapple juice until they're infused with the flavour. I then let them steep overnight for even more flavour before dehydrating them into chewy bites of fruity goodness. To keep them from sticking - especially if your climate is on the humid side - a toss with cornstarch or arrowroot keeps them separate. I didn't have that problem, since they went into muffins the same week, but you do what you do.

Unfortunately, because I made and used it so fast I forgot to take a photo... so next year (if I remember) I'll be sure to take a photo! One thing's for sure, I will make it a repeat!

Chestnut Gingerbread Cookies

Swapping out some of the usual flour for nutty chestnut flour makes for an incredibly easy-to-use dough that results in a seriously delicious gingerbread.
 

Confession: I started making dough for holiday cookies weeks ago.

It wasn't because I was seeing the never-ending "only X shopping days left" memes on Facebook, nor was it because one of the kids at school was humming "Jingle Bells". Nope, making cookie dough this early is something I do every year for two good reasons: time and money. Truth is, by the time December rolls around, I'm in the throes of report card editing and submission, and some of the recipients get their gifts very early in the season. Also, I give baskets of multiple bakes, candy and canned goods every year, and come holiday season it seems like every bowl and crevice in the fridge is in use. Making dough and freezing it well ahead of time means I only have to carve out a few minutes of oven time and a couple baking sheets before getting out of Dodge and packaging - not to mention I can make my gift tags with ingredients way in advance, only cutting them out when I need to seal the bags.

The second reason is, of course, money. Butter is getting ridiculously expensive these days, and vegan products (which I use for a few of my recipients who are allergic to dairy) more so. Luckily, baking ingredients (including butter, chocolate and cream) tend to go on sale around mid-September and early October thanks to the Thanksgiving rush, so I stock up and either make dough / batter or freeze the ingredients if they're destined for fudge or truffles (two things I always make within a week of gifting). I also stock up on nuts when they're on sale during the fall and freeze similarly. Generally speaking though, all my buying and most of the making is done before the snow falls - then all I have to do is try not to be ambushed by a bag of rock hard gingerbread or sugar cookie dough when I open the freezer.

While I endeavour to make different cookies for my giftees each year (both for their sakes and mine), when I come across a recipe that gets rave reviews across the board and is just unique enough to be "me", I can't help but reprise it. Such is the case with these gingerbread cookies. I made them for the first time last holiday season as a last-minute addition to the lineup, but with the holiday craziness never got around to posting it. However, they were such a hit with everyone - ginger-heads and non - that I couldn't help but make them again.

These dark, spicy cookies have two secret ingredients: the first is cream cheese, which lends a rich and slightly tangy body to the cookies along with a tenderness not found in anything other fat. Cream cheese also works in a way similar to shortening, preventing excess spread - perfect for these as cut-out cookies. The second trick is chestnut flour, which can be tricky to find unless you have a decent Italian market (I found mine in the St. Lawrence Market downtown, since my local shops don't have it). There really is no suitable substitute for it, since the nut itself is rather unique in composition (it's not as oily as other tree nuts, nor is it as fibrous as coconut). Luckily, it is available online, and a little goes a long way - a 1 lb bag can last a few years in the freezer. The chestnuts add a sweet, slightly toasty, buttery nuance to the dough, playing off the strong cloves and nutmeg and accenting the ginger. It also helps create a surprisingly sturdy, yet tender sheet of dough perfect for making boys and girls as well as houses and (if you're a glutton for punishment) castles.

The original recipe hails from Christopher St. Onge via the LCBO Holiday 2016 magazine. 

Have you started your holiday planning yet? When do you start, and what are your staples each year?