French Market Apple Pie

Although it makes me feel guilty to eat, one of my favorite desserts is this luscious, rich apple pie. When I was a child, my mom made the more traditional version of apple pie with the double crust. For the filling, she would simply sprinkle a little flour and sugar over the apples and let them sit to sweeten and thicken slightly. Being a brown sugar-holic, I searched for a more flavorful, brown sugar-using version of apple pie as I began to cook.

This recipe is a hybrid of several recipes I've tried over the years. I love crumb topping (more brown sugar, yeah!!), and this recipe is from a 1950's Betty Crocker cookbook I found in an antique store several years ago (don't even get me started on the hilarious and (these days) slightly offensive advice for housewives the cookbook has sprinkled throughout...stuff such as "about 30 minutes before your husband arrives home from work, comb your hair, apply fresh lipstick and make sure the kids are quiet. Remember, he's had a hard day at work and will appreciate the quiet haven he comes home to." Seriously.) The filling is thanks to my sister Becky, who calls it Special Sauce.

If you love brown sugar, I think you'll prefer the richer flavor and texture this apple pie has to offer. Have fun making it!

French Market Apple Pie

Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup plus 1 tbl. Butter Flavored Crisco Shortening
2-3 tbl. ice water

Mix flour and salt in medium bowl. Using pastry cutter or a knife, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle water over flour mixture and mix with a fork until flour is moistened. Gather together and press firmly into a ball.

On a lightly floured surface, flatten pastry ball slightly with your hand, then using a floured rolling pin, roll out from center to edges to approximately 1/8" thickness and 10" across. Carefully roll up flattened dough onto rolling pin, then unroll and gently ease into pan, being careful not to stretch the dough. Using kitchen shears, trim any edges that are more than 1" over pie pan edge, then gently roll 1" overhang up to form crust edge. For a decorative fluted effect, firmly place your right index finger on the inside of the rim and the left thumb and index finger around the pastry at the same point. Pinch. Repeat all around the edge of the pie. Sharpen points by pinching each one firmly.

Filling:
4 tbl. butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup Light Karo Syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
6-7 cups unpeeled, thinly sliced baking apples (such as Granny Smith, approx 6-7 med. apples)

Preheat oven to 400º. Wash and core apples. Either by hand or using a food processor, thinly slice unpeeled apples. In large saucepan over medium heat, mix together 4 tbl. butter, cinnamon, Karo and 1/2 cup brown sugar until well blended. Add sliced apples and sautée until apples are about halfway cooked, approximately 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Add apples to pie crust. Important: do not overfill.You may have leftover filling, which you can serve as its own dessert.

Crumb topping:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup flour

Mix brown sugar and flour, then cut in butter until crumbly. Hint: This can be done by hand or in a food processor. Make sure butter is cold.

Spread crumb topping over pie and distribute evenly. Place pie pan on a cookie sheet (to catch filling that may bubble up and out) and bake for 45-55 minutes. If pie crust begins to brown too much, cover edges with a thin strip of foil or a pie crust protector (available at your local supermarket).

Serve warm.

Soft Pretzels

This outstanding recipe comes from my good friend, Lyne. She and I have known each other for more than 15 years, but only in the last few years realized that we both share a love for cooking. Lyne was kind enough to share with me her recipe for soft pretzels, which she said took her quite some time to come up with. She developed the recipe on her own after buying a soft pretzel mix from Williams Sonoma. The price tag was fairly hefty, so Lyne set out to replicate the recipe from scratch. She went through a number of recipes, keeping the best parts and adding them to her developing recipe. The end result is this scrumptious, flavorful and easy recipe. The recipe gives instructions for traditional salt pretzels, but because of my sweet tooth, I decided to make half of the pretzels salt and the other half cinnamon/sugar. Both were mouth-watering delicious, and as usual, I had to fight the kids to get a couple for myself before they were history. Thanks, Lyne, for a fantastic recipe!!

Soft Pretzels

· 2 ¼ c. warm water
· ½ c. brown sugar
· 1 tbl. salt
· 1 packet yeast
· 4-5 c. flour
· Oil or oil spray
· 3 tbl. baking soda
· Coarse kosher salt
· Medium bowl for dipping solution
· Baking stones or sheets


Step 1
Put warm water, brown sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the warm water solution. Let sit for a few minutes.

Step 2
Add 4 cups of flour to the liquid. Stir. Add the last cup of flour little by little, mixing it in just until you have a medium stiff dough that you can knead. You don’t HAVE to use all of the flour unless you need to.

Step 3
Knead by hand until the dough looks smooth and is a bit stretchy. Oil a big glass or stainless steel bowl very lightly (1 tbsp.), and put the dough in bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put bowl on a stone over electric stove that has been turned on to keep stone warm. I place a small towel between the stone and the bottom of the bowl so it is not too hot. Do not do this on a gas stove or it will crack the pizza stone. If you have a gas stove, warm stone in oven while you prepare dough, them put on a burner (but do not turn it on) and continue. Place a towel over plastic wrap and let dough rise, undisturbed, for about an hour.

Step 4
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Step 5
When dough is ready, grab a handful of dough, dust some flour on your hands and roll the dough like a snake (about 1½ feet long). Twist into a pretzel shape (cross ends over twice and press them to the top of the pretzel). When shaped, leave pretzels on a floured surface (so they don’t stick together).

Step 6
When all pretzels are shaped, Dip twisted pretzels, one by one, completely into a solution of 3 tablespoons of baking soda and 2 cups of warm water (105°F). This will promote browning.

Immediately after dipping the pretzel, place it on a dry kitchen towel for a moment (to catch excess liquid) and place the pretzel on a baking stone.

Step 7 
For salt-crusted pretzels, sprinkle pretzels with coarse kosher salt to taste.
For cinnamon/sugar pretzels, omit salt.

Step 8
Bake for 7-8 minutes or until browned.

For cinnamon/sugar pretzels, mix cinnamon and sugar to taste. Melt 3-4 tbl. butter and brush tops of pretzels with butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar blend.

Serve salt-crusted pretzels with regular yellow mustard.

These are best served right away so they're warm. If that's not possible, warm in 200º oven for a few minutes and serve.