Classic Apple Pie

My Mom made the best apple pies. You might be able to say the same, but I've never tasted your Mom's, so I still believe that my Mom's is the best. Apple pie was one of my Dad's favorites. He actually enjoyed any pie, especially fruit pies, but since Mom's was the best, you can imagine how much he liked her apple pie! A few years ago I created a cookbook of family favorites and a double crust apple pie was, of course, included. 

Before I could make an apple pie, I had to learn how to make good pie crust dough, which I did. The truth of the matter is that I prefer to use Pillsbury ReadyCrust pie dough because it's almost as good as from scratch and much faster and easier...and Sweetie loves anything made with it. Still, I'll include the recipe for a two-crust pie dough in case you want to really experience the full apple pie making deal.

For apples I us Gravenstein apples because we have two trees loaded with them. They are ripe early for apples, getting just right about the middle of August. Still, later in the year I like to mix any that is still useable with a nice, tart apple like McIntosh or a sweet, crisp one like Honeycrisp. Use your favorite apple or a mixture, but do make an apple pie by the end of September and welcome in the fall. The traditional pie spices of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, plus a pinch of allspice, are those warm spices that herald the change of season to cool, crisp weather and crystal blue skies (we hope-right now we are having smoky skies from wildfires, but hope springs eternal).

Two-Crust Pie Pastry

2¼ cups flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup shortening
Ice water

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut shortening into flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle water, a tablespoon at a time, over mixture, stirring gently with a fork until all is moistened (6-8 tablespoons). Press dough into a ball. Wrap in plastic and chill before rolling out. Divide dough into two pieces. Roll out each piece until it is slightly larger than the pie tin. Makes one 2-crust pie or 2 pie shells.

Apple Pie

6-7 cups tart apples. peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons flour
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon (and you can add 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and/or cloves and/or allspice)
1-2 tablespoons butter, in small lumps
Pastry for a two-crust pie

Mix apples, flour and cinnamon. Pile apples in large, pastry-lined pie tin. Dot top with butter. Place second crust over the top, sealing the edges with water, and flute the edges. Slash the top crust in a few (about 5) places to allow the steam to vent. 

Bake for 10 minutes in a 4500 F. oven. Reduce heat to 3500 F and bake for an additional 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on rack.

Applesauce Hand Pies

 The Gravenstein apples are ripe! We have a couple of trees and so I made some Gravenstein apple sauce with some of the apples. They are so flavorful that I only added some pie spice to them...no sugar needed...then cooked the sauce down so it was pretty thick. A potato masher worked well to break up the cooked apples into a chunky sauce.

In the morning I had the bright idea to turn some of the applesauce into hand pies. Since I had my trusty ReadyCrust pre-shaped pie dough handy, I unrolled one crust worth of dough and cut the circle in half. Then I stacked the halves, long sides together, and cut the half into thirds. That gave me the dough pieces for three hand pies.

Bottom wedge of dough, two tablespoons of applesauce, leaving a half-inch edge, wet the edges, place the matching wedge of dough on top, press to seal all around, use the tines of a fork to double seal all around, cut a steam slit with a sharp knife, then onto parchment. Repeat with the other two sets of dough.

Before I started to assemble the hand pies I preheated the oven to 450 degrees F. and placed a baking stone on a lower rack in the oven. By the time I had the pies ready to put in the oven, it was ready. I slid the parchment and pies onto the baking stone using a cake transfer wide spatula to move the pies on the parchment. Have just the parchment between the pies and baking stone meant well cooked pastry on the bottom and any juices that escaped stayed on the parchment.  After 10 minutes I turned down the oven to 350 degrees F. and continued to bake the pies until they were browned, about another 6 -10 minutes.

Don't forget to let the pies cool a bit on a rack. The filling gets really hot!

Enjoy as is or drizzle with some confectioners sugar mixed into icing with a bit of hot water, for more sweetness. I like mine less sweet, so just ate them plain. They were outstanding!

Sweet Potatoes and Orange

A number of years ago I published a cookbook of family favorite recipes, mostly from midcentury, as a way to remember my Dad and to keep the recipes in the family. It's been long enough that it's time to update the book. Part of the update includes getting more picture of the finished recipe into the book, so I've started making some of the recipes for just that purpose.

Tonight we had Sweet Potatoes Margherita, a lovely casserole that has boiled and peeled sweet potatoes (yams actually), a bit of brown sugar and butter, and very thinly sliced oranges. If you can find seedless navel oranges, use them. 

All these elements get layered in a buttered casserole dish and baked. During baking you baste the dish with some of the collected juices/syrup. I made about half the recipe since there are only two of us eating the dish, not a family of eight, nine, or ten people. I also reduced the sugar and butter a bit and removed the pith from the orange slices that were in the lower layer. It helps reduce the bitterness that comes with orange pith, but isn't really necessary to do. What I ended up with was a very fresh tasting dish where you could really taste and appreciate the sweet potato flavor and the oranges. If you make it exactly as the recipe suggests, it will be a bit sweeter and richer and more bitter but still tasty. A lot of people prefer candied sweet potatoes and the given sugar, butter and water will give you a true syrup with lots of orange flavor to complement the sweet potatoes.

Although the recipe was popular before microwave ovens, I suspect that you could substitute sweet potatoes that are washed, poked with the point of a knife to prevent bursting, wrapped in a paper towel to keep moistness, and microwaved until tender in place of the boiled sweet potatoes. Then cool, peel, and continue with the recipe as written.

This is a great Thanksgiving dish, which is when we usually had it, but it goes well anytime with pork chops or roast turkey breast. Add a green salad and you have a meal that can take you back to 1950. Here is how the casserole looked right before baking.

Sweet Potatoes Margherita

Boil 6 sweet potatoes in water to cover until tender. Slice the peeled potatoes and arrange in layers in a buttered or greased baking dish, alternating with brown sugar, dots of butter or non-dairy butter and slices of orange with peel left on. Add enough water to make a thick syrup. Bake for 1 hour in a 350 degree oven, basting occasionally with the syrup in the dish.

Happy Birthday Max!

Sometimes days can be bittersweet. August 12this one of them. Almost 40 years ago Sweetie and I became the parents of a good sized baby boy. We called him Max after my Dad and his middle name was the same as Sweetie's Dad. An auto accident took him over 20 years ago, but it's still his birthday, so we still wish him Happy Birthday. You can see where the bitter comes from. The sweet was him, even though he also was so curious that it took an eagle eye to keep him out of mischief.

Today August 12th was also a cause for another celebration. Our daughter and HER Sweetie have bought a house! We are so excited for them and impressed with their choice and all of the avenues to a good life that come with it.

Hoping that you, dear reader, have some sweet in your day this 12th day of August in the year 2021.

Bruschetta

 Although my tomatoes are still about a week away from being ripe, this is really the time of year to enjoy fresh tomatoes in the Northern Hemisphere. I have yet to meet anyone who isn't allergic to fresh tomatoes who doesn't love bruschetta once served them. If you can, use heirloom tomatoes for the best flavor. You can often find them at the market as well as the farmer's market at this time of year.

You start with a baguette or other good bread, then brush with olive oil and toast. The best part is the tomato mixture which uses fresh tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh garlic. Unless you roast the garlic before making the tomato mixture, you will have strong garlic breath but I think it's worth it for the punch of flavors which go so well with the crunch of toasted bread.

If you have time, make the tomato mixture a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge so the flavors really mingle. The time to top the toasted bread is right before you plan to serve these. That way the toast stays crunchy. These make a wonderful appetizer. If you combine them with a green salad that includes some beans and corn, you have a complete meal and lots of deliciousness. Try it with some cooked Rancho Gordo beans and fresh corn, lightly steamed and cut off the cob. A taste of summer with the bruschetta!

Bruschetta for Two

4-6 1/2-inch slices baguette or other flavorful, firm bread
1 medium to large fresh, ripe tomato, preferably heirloom
1 tablespoon best quality olive oil
1 clove garlic or roasted garlic
3-4 leaves fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Brush the bread with olive oil. Toast the bread slices to a golden brown color. If possible, use a grill to toast them.

Chop the tomato into very small dice and place in a medium bowl, keeping as much tomato juice as possible with the tomatoes. Add the olive oil, mince the garlic and add, finely chop the basil and add it to the bowl.

Stir the tomato, oil, garlic and basil together. If possible, cover and let sit in the fridge for 2 to 24 hours. 

When you are ready to serve the bruschetta, warm the toasts, place them on the serving platter and top each with about a tablespoon of the tomato mixture, including some of the juices. If you have a few tiny basil leaves you can garnish the bruschetta with them. Add salt and pepper to taste...although you may not need any. Serve at once.

Spicy Tangy Plum Jam

 It's taken me longer than I had hoped, but today I made some plum jam using the small (an inch to an inch and a half in size) fresh ripe plums that a neighbor gave me. These plums have a yellow flesh, a green to rosy skin that is pretty tart, and a pit that is fairly easy to remove, but which takes up about a third of the plum.

Once processed by rinsing, cutting in pieces and removing the pit, the plums weighed two and 1/4 pounds. the recipe that I used, The Flavor Bender by Dini K., said to use one cup of sugar for each pound of plums. I decided to use brown sugar and to spice it up with a bit of cake spice and some ginger, both fresh and preserved. The tangy part came from the skins.

This is a great recipe. I didn't use pectin but I did grate an apple and use some lemon juice to help it set up as suggested by Dini. The mixture sat in the fridge for two days, except for the lemon juice which I added today when I started to boil the mixture. I made a great jam with just enough sweetness, offset by the tang from the skin and the mix of spices. 

The website, The Flavor Bender, includes great advice about jam making, so do read before going to the actual recipe. Because my jam was made with yellow fleshed fruit, it is an amber color, not the purple on the website, but if you use red or purple fleshed fruit, you will get that color.

Do give this a try...prepping the fruit takes the most time, followed by the stirring of the jam until it is thick enough. I used both a thermometer and the frozen small plate methods for deciding when to stop cooking. I boiled the jars, lids and bands while I was making the jam, so when it was ready I was able to remove the hot jars to a towel and immediately fill the jars. The amazing this was that it made exactly the right amount to fill three very small jars and one pint jar. Not too much, not to little. That never happens! 

Spicy Tangy Plum Jam
 from The Flavor Bender blog by Dini K.

Note: made by weight of prepared fruit - read all of the blog post HERE to get full information about making jam.

2 1/4 pounds fresh plums, washed, cut up and pit removed (from about 3 pounds fruit if small)
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon cake spice (mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom)
1/4 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon finely chopped preserved ginger
/14 cup grated green apple (OK to leave peel on)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1.             Wash the plums well. To remove the seeds - first cut the plum in half. Next, cut the plum half with the seed, in half again (into quarters). One of these quarters will have the seed attached, which you can easily pull out. Alternatively, you can cut the plum flesh around the seed.

2.     Repeat with all the plums.

3.     Cut all the plums into 1 inch chunks (roughly). It’s OK if the plums are a little crushed at this point, since they will be cooked down anyway.

4.     WEIGH the chopped plums, so you can decide how much sugar needs to be added. Place the plums in a large bowl (large enough to accommodate the sugar that will be mixed in too).

5.     Add sugar, salt, spices, ginger, preserved ginger and apple shreds into the bowl. Mix well.

6.     Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours (or up to 48 hours). Also, place some small saucers / bowls / spoons in the freezer for the jam test (explained below).

7.     When you're ready to cook the jam, scrape all of the plum-sugar mix into a large pot. Add the lemon juice and stir to combine.

8.     Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir the mixture to let it heat evenly. Lower the heat to medium - medium low, and cook until the fruits start to soften.

9.     MASH the plums with a potato masher, OR you can pass about ¾ of the mix through a food mill (this will remove the skins).

10.   Continue to cook the plums until the mixture reduces and starts to thicken slightly. Stir frequently to prevent the jam from sticking to the bottom and burning. While the jam is cooking, sterilize some heat-proof jam jars and lids.

11.           Check the temperature of the plum jam every 10 - 15 minutes (more frequently as it thickens more). Cook the jam until the temperature reaches 220°F (105°C).

12.           If you don’t have a thermometer, you can perform the JAM TEST. To do this, drop a little jam on a frozen surface (saucer / bowl / spoon). Then keep it in the freezer for about a minute and check the consistency. If the consistency is jelly-like without being runny, then you’ve cooked the jam to the right temperature. (If you run a finger through the jam to create a streak, the jam shouldn't join back up in the middle to fill the streak, if it's at the right consistency).

13.           Remove the pot from the heat.

14.           Using clean tongs, clean ladles and clean paper towels, carefully ladle hot jam into the hot, sterilized jars. Please be careful, as the jam and jars will be very hot at this stage (wear gloves or oven mitts to protect yourself).

15.           Screw on the lids while the jars are hot. As the jam and jars cool down, this will create a seal.

16.           Allow the jars to cool to room temperature completely. Then label and store.

Cozy

This is going to be a post with no cooking or baking, just some happenings and photos.

Sweetie's friends who are, as he is, former Peace Corps folks, came and visited this week. It was delightful!

We spent a lot of time while they were visiting on our back deck. Since we fitted it last year with comfy rockers and couch, it has been a great spot to hang out. This year, thanks to our generous daughter, we also have a fire pit, which can double as a table thanks to the wood top that Sweetie created. We also have a nice teak round dining table, chairs, benches and lots of umbrellas and a sun sail to keep excessive sun at bay. I'll try to add some photos of the back deck soon.

They stayed in a cozy farmhouse and really enjoyed it. We agreed to take some photos and share since they were so taken with it. Here are some photos of the farmhouse, starting by the entry door by the kitchen. 

To the right you have the microwave (with popcorn no less!) and a hot beverage area. To the left you have all of the cabinets and even a basket with sunscreen and a flashlight, plus fresh flowers.

Moving into the farmhouse you reach the living room area.

From there you can go left past the waste cans in the hall that goes to the bathroom and the two bedrooms, or go right past the couch to the stairs to the upper bedroom.

Let's go down the hall to the colorful bedroom.

I was told that the bed was very comfy!

To the left of the colorful bedroom is the second bedroom, which also serves as a sitting room because there is a Murphy bed that folds up.

The middle is a photo of the provided basket with all kinds of items you might forget to bring. Thoughtful. The bottom photo is of the Murphy bed.

If you go towards the street in the front room, you enter the office/closet, down one step.

This area also has a DVD player and some music DVDs, plus bins instead of a dresser, plus a full mirror and a large mirror to the left of the two Japanese prints. The door leads to a small deck which is the emergency escape for both the front and colorful bedrooms (which accesses the deck via a large window.

The bathroom has the usual sink, toilet, and shower, plus towels, etc., decorated in shades of aqua and blue, plus white.

If you go back down the hall and behind the couch, you reach a door that opens to the stairway hall to reach the upper bedroom.

I was struck by the simple beauty of the door into the upper bedroom.

The upper bedroom has a twin bed/daybed and also a dresser and closet, but it also serves as an office.

That's the end of the tour. Hope you enjoyed it!

New To Me

Being allergic to dairy is old hat by now and I have figured out ways to still enjoy cooking and baking...and eating without cream, butter, milk, cheese. Still haven't found a good replacement for most cheese, although I have found a good ricotta...Kite Hill brand, but I also was missing whipped cream. Even when I could have dairy it wasn't a frequent part of my diet, but every now and then, especially when ripe strawberries just beg to be made into strawberry shortcake, I did wish for something better than aquafaba.

Well, there is a produce now in at least two local markets that fills the bill...Silk brand whipping cream. Maybe you already knew about it, but it was new to me until this week.

Some good friends...two sets actually...came to visit on Wednesday, so we had dinner on the back deck. For dessert we had strawberry shortcakes, using individual sweet biscuits, based on my Mom's self-rising flour biscuit recipe, plus local strawberries that Sweetie prepared, and a big bowl of whipped Silk "whipped cream". It was a hit and everyone enjoyed it. 

I didn't tell anyone until we had finished that the whipped cream wasn't dairy whipped cream. Astonishment was rampant. So if you want a non-dairy whipped cream that is good enough for company, give it a try if your store carries it. If they don't, you might want to ask if they could...it's that good. Just so you know, I don't get anything from Silk for telling you about this great product.

By the way, we were having such a good time visiting that I almost forgot to take a photo. What you get are two shots of the shortcake being enjoyed! No Instagram-perfect photo of this dessert.

Summer Strawberry Shortcakes

serves six with some biscuits left over

The Sweet Biscuits: These are the kind that use self-rising flour.
3 C Sifted self-rising flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar, packed
1 C milk (plain or buttermilk)
 1/2 C shortening

Place flour and brown sugar in a large bowl. Use a fork to blend the sugar into the flour and then stir to combine thoroughly. Cut shortening into the flour until consistency of coarse meal. Add enough milk to make a soft dough (may be slightly more or less than one cup). Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead gently about ten strokes. Roll 1/2 the thickness of desired finished biscuit height. Cut with a floured biscuit cutter (or drinking glass rim). Place biscuits on a baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes about 14 two-inch biscuits. For shortcake, you can use a slightly larger cutter than two-inch if desired, and you will get about 12 biscuits.

The Strawberries: For six people, prepare two pints of fresh, ripe strawberries by removing the hull and slicing into a bowl, keeping as much of the juice as you can. Cover and chill at least 30 minutes.

The "Whipped Cream": Chill a stand mixer bowl (preferred), or other large bowl, plus the beaters, preferably the whip or whisk, in the freezer for at least an hour. When ready to serve, remove from the freezer and add the pint of Silk 'whipping cream' (or a pint of dairy whipping cream if you prefer) to the chilled bowl. Attach the beaters/whisk attachment to the stand mixer or a hand-held electric mixer and beat on medium-high 30 seconds. Gradually add 1 tablespoons granulated sugar, then increase speed to as high as it will go and beat until cream is thickened, but still a little soft.

Assembly: On each plate, place one of the biscuits, split or not as preferred. Top with a generous helping of the prepared strawberries, then dollop with some whipped cream. Serve with forks. Enjoy!

Note: The strawberries can be replaced by any other berry that is ripe and sweet, or with peeled, pitted and sliced peaches, sliced and pitted nectarines or plums, or pitted cherries. Summer's sweetness is captured so well in this dessert.

Fruit Enhanced Mini Cakes

A very kind neighbor dropped off at least three pints of wonderful, tart, ripe, mini plums the other day. We only got a few of our own plums this year, so I was delighted. I immediately thought of Dorie Greenspan's recipe for dimply plum cake. The lightly spice moist and delicious cake is enhanced by the juicy ripe plums, including the zing of the tart peel.

Last month when I was having lunch in Benicia with Natasha and another dear friend, we stopped at a Goodwill in the same shopping center as the lunch place. Natasha found me an adorable cake pan which had six heart shaped pans built in...sort of like a jazzed up muffin tin. Each heart shaped pan held more batter than a regular cupcake and that seemed to be perfect for turning the dimply plum cake into little heart shaped cakes to give to a Forestville friend for her birthday...and it was perfect.

Once I had the cake batter finished, I put about three tablespoons of the batter in the bottom of each little pan. I had already buttered and floured them as directed by the recipe. Then I spread the batter out to the edges of the pan, added some of the fruit, then topped that with about the same amount of batter, spread it out and topped that with more fruit. Each little pan was about half filled with fruit and batter. In the oven the batter rose and the fruit on top cooked and it was a bit difficult to make sure that the cake was cooked through. I added two minutes a couple of times to the 15 minutes I started with.

Once cooled, I removed the little cakes from the pan and fully cooled them on a wire rack. They deflated just a bit, but were still taller and wider than standard cupcakes. The best part was that they smelled sooooo good!

At the birthday party, five of us were able to share one of the little cakes, leaving the birthday girl with lots more for another day. I really liked the way that there was fruit throughout and that the lemon zest I used added more zing. The hint of nutmeg was just right, too.

Since you are unlikely to have this cute pan with the heart shapes, you can make this in a square cake pan - eight-inch preferred and that's the way I wrote up the directions below. You can play with the citrus zest, too. Orange, lemon, lime, even grapefruit can work. If you prefer cardamom or cake spice to nutmeg, try that. Any stone fruit works well, but some of my little cakes had strawberries, some raspberries and one had blueberries. Peaches, nectarines, cherries, figs would all work well. I did sprinkle some sanding sugar on top of each for a bit of sparkle and crunch, but it's optional.

Do try this at home since the Northern hemisphere is in the middle of summer fruit season so ripe, delicious fruit is easy to find and will be happy-making combined with this cake!

Simple Fresh Fruit Cake

Based on Dorie Greenspan’s Dimply Plum Cake in Baking:From my home to yours

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

5 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
Grated zest of one lemon
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract or the same amount of pure vanilla paste
¼ cup safflower or other plain neutral tasting vegetable oil
3 small to medium green, red or purple plums, halved and pitted, with the skins left on
¼ cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained
¼ cup fresh strawberries, rinsed, green top removed, cut in halves
¼ cup fresh raspberries, rinsed and drained

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a square 8-inch baking pan. Center a rack in the middle of the oven.

On a sheet of waxed paper or in a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until it is soft and creamy, about 3 minutes at medium mixer speed.

Add the dark brown sugar and beat 2 minutes more. Using a rubber or silicon spatula, scrape the bowl and beaters. Add the eggs one at a time and beat for 1 minute after each addition. Using a rubber or silicon spatula, scrape the bowl and beaters. On medium speed, add the lemon zest, vanilla or vanilla paste, and the vegetable oil and beat to combine completely. Reduce mixer speed to low and blend in the dry ingredient mixture, beating until just combined. Using a rubber or silicon spatula, scrape the bowl and beaters. and mix again briefly if needed to mix in any flour from the sides or bottom of the bowl.

Using a rubber or silicon spatula, scrape half the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out in the pan. Arrange half of the fruit on top of the batter, pushing the fruit down a bit in the batter. Take note of where each of the fruits are in the pan (if grouped together with one variety in one corner, another in a different corner, etc.) but you can also just mix the fruit and scatter evenly over the batter. Top with the remaining batter, spread out over the fruit, then top with the remaining fruit, settling the fruit down into the batter and grouping the same fruit on top of that below the batter if doing it that way. If not, just mix the fruit and scatter evenly, then press down. If desired, sprinkle a tablespoon sanding sugar over the whole top evenly (optional).

Bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden and puffed around the plums. A thin knife inserted in the center will come out clean.

Place the cake on a rack to cool for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the pan and unmold the cake. Invert and cool with the fruit side up. Serves 8.

You Get Used To It

Another year has passed without our loved and loving son in it. It's been over twenty years. A lot has gone on in those years and it's tempting to wonder what his life would have been like if he had lived, but instead I try to focus on what a wonderful life he had and how much fun it was to be part of that life. You never get over losing a child, but you do get used to it...at least I have. Some years I don't post much about Max in July, waiting until his birthday in August to celebrate his life, but this year I've been depressed (mostly by the ongoing pandemic and the unfortunate choices that are heating it up again) so I'm telling stories to remind myself to grab ahold of life and enjoy it as he did.

My family started doing a once a month Zoom gathering when the pandemic hit and we are still doing so. Many thanks to Natasha for making it happen! We met last Sunday and I asked those who gathered to bring a story about Max if they could. It was really nice to hear the stories. I was especially taken with the one where we were visiting my Mom and mashed potatoes were planned for dinner. Apparently Max and his sister asked if the potatoes would be peeled or not and then explained...simultaneously... that we don't peel ours, "because we're from California". I can just see them doing that. Makes me smile to think of it. I also feel really lucky to have our daughter as a friend, too, and as someone I can count on and who always makes me smile. In the photo above she is reading to her brother. She gave him more of herself than she remembers.

I got an email yesterday from a sister who missed the gathering. She described Max as a treasure, combining seriousness and mischief. She saw him as having a life full of enthusiasm, and that he provided both joy and challenge to his parents as we tried to keep up with his embrace of life. Those are her words and they fit. Remembering when he was young and soooo curious, so that I really had to keep an eagle eye on him all the time, I know of the challenge. The joy was frequent and intense. 

She also said that he crammed a lot of living into the short space of time that he was shared with us. I love that part! He did share so much with us and, to quote Calvin, the days were just packed! I remember that he assured me that the way to get so much life out of life was balance...he felt it was important to have a balance of work and fun. Some of it was both at the same time. Imagine knowing about that balance where you are nine years old. The following year, or maybe the year after that, he assured me that he was careful who he hung out with in middle school. He said that the people who were worried about being popular had to make decisions that he didn't want to have to make. He never specified what decisions, but he was pretty young to have even figured that out.

He left us via an auto accident on the same day the John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife lost their lives in a plane crash. A lot has happened in the world since then. He would have really enjoyed so much of the changes in tech since that was an area he excelled in. I'm glad that he missed things like 9/11, the pandemic, and 1/6/21. I still have hope that one of his friends or one of their kids will figure out how to 'Beam Me Up Scotty' before I die, not that I would do that but it's something I hope happens one day for moving people around. Sweetie says that we'll use that kind of technology to move garbage first since who cares it it comes back together the same way?

Have gotten way off track! Here's to Maximum Max! Let his passing remind us to enjoy life, keep a balance between work and play, to be sure to tell those we love that we do love them...and frequently. None of us knows how much time we have left in this world. Find your joy where you can.

Babes Bake a Hybrid

 The Bread Baking Babes have been baking bread for quite a while now and since we don't want to repeat ourselves, it has become almost a bigger challenge to find an interesting new bread to bake as it is to bake it. Aparna did a wonderful job!

This month our lovely Kitchen of the Month is Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and she has challenged us to bake Cruffins. This is a hybrid bread...a cross between a croissant and a muffin. The bread is a yeast bread, just like a croissant and it has thin layers and butter between them like a croissant, but it's shaped to bake in a muffin tin and so the resulting bread looks like ... a cruffin!

The recipe we were given was for a plain cruffin, only lightly sweetened. That meant that the person eating it could add sugar on top or some jam or just enjoy it's pure flavor which is buttery. I was making mine to share. One of the persons I shared with just loves cinnamon rolls, so I added an extra two tablespoons of sugar to the dough and some cinnamon sugar to mine before I started rolling up the dough. Because I like walnuts with my cinnamon rolls, I also sprinkled some chopped walnuts over the cinnamon sugar. That was a winning combo! You could also try maple sugar instead of cinnamon sugar, you could use granulated sugar worked together with a citrus peel like lemon or orange...so many ways to play with this delightful bread!

The dough for this treat is a rich dough, using both butter and milk, although there are no eggs, so allow enough time for it to rise. Mine rose fairly slowly. Allow time for rolling out the dough, too, because this is another one where the dough needs to be really thin so that you get those lovely layers. The filled rolls rose slowly, too, which helps to explain, a bit, why I burned mine on top. It was late in the evening when I baked them and I neglected to move my oven rack to a lower setting, so they burned on top

which is not that surprising with a sweet dough like this. The rest of the cruffin was just fine, so I sliced off the burnt top and sprinkled on some powdered sugar and all was well.

These are delicious and can also be fun to eat if you like to sort of peel away the layers and eat them one at a time. I have to admit that I enjoyed just biting in and getting the full cinnamon experience.

Do consider being a Buddy. Just bake the recipe and send Aparna an email by July 29th with your URL and a short description of your bake, plus a photo. She will send you a Buddy Badge.

Also, be sure to visit the blogs of fellow Bread Baking Babes to see what they have done with this recipe!

This recipe makes 8 Cruffins

INGREDIENTS : 

For the Dough :

1/4 cup sugar (more for sweeter cruffin) (I used 2 tablespoons proofing the yeast plus 1/4 cup with the flour)
1 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
50 gm unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk

For Lamination :
120 to 150 gm unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-2 oz. cinnamon sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

To Decorate/ Serve :
Icing sugar/Cinnamon sugar/ Melted chocolate, etc

DIRECTIONS :

If proofing yeast, mix together 1 tsp of the sugar, yeast and lukewarm water. Keep aside for 5 to 10 minutes till frothy.  Otherwise just add the dry yeast directly to the flour with other ingredients and then add the water while kneading.

 In a large bowl or the bowl of kneading machine, mix together the proofed yeast, sugar, salt and chilled butter cut into small pieces. Add milk and knead into a soft and elastic dough that comes away from the side of the bowl. The dough should not be sticky. Add a little more milk or flour, as required to achieve this consistency of dough.

 Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to an oiled bowl, turning the dough to coat it well. Cover and let the dough rise till double in volume. This should take between an hour to two depending on ambient temperature.

 In the meanwhile prepare your baking pan and keep aside. Butter and very lightly flour the cavities of your muffin or popover tray.

 Dust your working surface lightly with flour and turn the dough out. Lightly knead to deflate the dough. Divide into four equal pieces. Roll out each piece to a 60x20cm sized piece. The dough sheet will be very thin. If you have a pasta machine you can use that as it is easier to roll out thin sheets with it. I cut the dough into two pieces (60cm x 40cm each) and cut into 4 pieces after buttering each.

 Spread about 30 to 38 gm butter (depending on whether you’re using 120 gm or 150 gm of butter) of soft butter over each rolled out piece of dough. Cut each piece into half, lengthwise, creating two thin strips.

Roll one thin strip into a tight roll. Place this at the edge of the second strip and continue rolling till you have one thick roll. This will give your cruffins more layers.

 Cut roll in half lengthwise. Roll each half, like a circle (cinnamon roll style)with the cut layers side showing the outside. Make sure to tuck both ends under so it doesn’t open up on baking. Place the roll in the prepared muffin or popover pan.

 Repeat with all the dough pieces. Cover the pan with a kitchen towel and allow to rise for about 45 minutes. The rolls should look puffy and have risen to almost the edge of the cavities.

Bake the cruffins at 190C (375F) for about 30 minutes or till golden brown and done. Turn them out onto a rack and let the cool. Dust with icing sugar or brush tops the with melted butter and dredge in cinnamon sugar. Serve warm with coffee or tea.

Blueberry Season Pancakes

July is not only lily season, it's also blueberry season here in Northern California. 

When we lived in Berkeley we used to come up in July and buy a flat of freshly picked blueberries out at the blueberry farm near Forestville. Now we buy our blueberries from the farm stand on Hwy 12 coming into Sebastopol. They aren't huge ones, like the organic ones you can buy near where High School Rd comes into Occidental Rd., but the small ones are more useful for baking, in my opinion, and they have plenty of flavor, too.

Today we had some neighbors over for breakfast and I made German Pancakes, also known as Dutch Babies, with blueberries added because I like my blueberries cooked better than raw. I also served a fruit mixture of mixed berries with the baked pancake. I used a recipe from the blog Tastes Better From Scratch and it's a winner! Called German Pancakes, it uses very basic pantry items and six egg and 1 cup milk. I like that it's baked in a 9 x 13-inch pan instead of a round shape. Makes it easy to serve since you just run a knife down the center (long side) and twice across the short side to make six rectangles.

This makes a eggy, delicious, delicate pancake with a dramatic puff in the oven, which sinks down after it comes out of the oven (which makes it easier to serve!), but it isn't very sweet and has no leaveners, so you can make the batter up ahead of time, ready to pour over the hot, melted butter in the pan. The oven really, really needs to be fully preheated when you do put the pan back in. Otherwise, you won't get that puff.

Traditional accompaniments are maple syrup, lemon juice and powder sugar, fruit either fresh or jam.

German Pancakes with Blueberries

Serves 5-6

5 tablespoons butter (or non-dairy margarine or 'butter')
6 large eggs
1 cup milk (or nut milk)
1 cup all-purpose flour
dash salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a few drops lemon oil (optional)
1 cup fresh blueberries, washed and drained and picked over for stems or over-ripe berries
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

As oven preheats, put the butter in an ungreased 9x13-inch baking pan and place in the oven, just until the butter is melted. (Mine started to brown slightly at the edges)

Place the eggs, milk, flour, salt and vanilla, (and lemon oil, if using) in a blender and process until smooth. Scrape down the sides, if needed, and process again for a few seconds.

Pour the batter into the hot baking pan, over the melted butter. Sprinkle with the blueberries and with the sugar (if using).

Bake, for 20-27 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Pancake will puff up, but will sink down again as it cools once removed from the oven.

Serve at once. Can sprinkle with powdered sugar, with lemon juice, or serve with maple syrup and/or more berries.

Note: you can make this without berries, too, and it will still puff up gloriously and taste wonderful.