Sunday, October 26, 2014

Baking Friday - Cookie # 10

After 10 months of posting here, I think I have found posting about cookies to be the hardest.  Not because cookies are hard, but because cookies can be so commonplace.  Everyone makes cookies - good cookies, tasty cookies, cute cookies - so what can I offer to the conversation?  Especially on a monthly basis?  I don't feel like I have done a good job of covering cookies, so I thought that a good old-fashioned Deb Disclaimer was in order.

The other challenges I have is that I don't feel like I have an abundance of favorite cookie recipes to pull from - and perhaps I should have broadened the category to include candies - except that you don't bake candies...ah the dilemmas of life!  So yea, I realize that I am also making a mountain out of not even a mole hill...all stuff I've learned about this here blog life over the last year.  (I've already been thinking about a 2014 summary post of what I've learned - good and bad - from this personal Baking Friday challenge.)  Beyond all of that, inspiration can be hard to come by at times, even with the idea of holidays.  But I saw these recently, so this picture...
  ...became the inspiration for this platter of Fall inspired cookies!
Can you tell what is on this platter?  Let's begin in the center and work our way out to the edge.

In the center ring...er, bowl...we have Pumpkin Biscotti, following this recipe from KAF, and inspired by the pumpkin cheesecake cookie from our pic above.  And while I normally love the recipes from KAF, this is not a keeper in its present form.  It HAD to be dunked for the first few days.  After about 4 days stored in plastic bags/containers, they were finally OK to eat without dunking, but before that, they were TOOOOOO hard and crunchy for my tastes, so I am not featuring this recipe this week.  Once I get it a point where I like it, I will share my updated version for you to try sometime.  They were also a mess to decorate...

...so what you see in the bowl above were the best of the "best".
Moving on...

In our next ring, we have these heavenly Double Dark Mocha Drops that I featured back in January of this year.  I kept trying to find a chocolate cookie recipe similar to the chocolate brownie cookie in our pic, but I kept thinking about these same Double Dark Mocha Drops, so I just decided those are the ones I was going to add to the platter.  And I'm glad I did!  They are simply that good, folks.  As one taster put it, they are "sublime!"
But since I featured them back in January, I'm not going to talk about these again today. (And yes, I am aware that it is no longer Friday...ahem...)

So that brings us to our last ring above which are Caramel Dutch Apple Pie Bars, a recipe that is one I made up and what I am talking about for the rest of this post!  But before I begin, I want to back up just a bit and say that this platter of goodies was not shared with my normal, tried and true, ever-so-faithful taste testers.  No, I'm afraid not.  For I spent last week in another building with different work associates.  So I took a chance that these taste testers would be up for the challenge!  What do ya think?  Are they begrudgingly up for the challenge?  I believe this would be called a group high five, smiling beautiful ladies way of being up for the challenge!
Now, my friend, J, on the right, tasted one of these Dutch Apple Pie Bars and said "Perfection!"  And while I love her to death and her mother taught her right to say nice things, I have to disagree.  They were good, but not quite "perfection" when I served them on Thursday.  And here's why.

As my daughter, S, (whose mother didn't do a great job of always telling her to say nice things!) and my husband, G, pointed out in different ways, the top was too dry.  S said it like this: "The icing isn't sticking."  G told me this story: "As I was going to take a bite, I must have exhaled right beforehand, because suddenly the swirly icing drizzle wasn't there any more!  It had flipped over and got buried in the streusel!"  Now some might argue that my husband has a fierce exhale for all of that to happen, but the story bears out what I knew already.  The streusel topping was too dry.  It needed one change - MORE BUTTER.  Because...butter fixes LOTS of things!

Seriously, one of the reasons that I hadn't posted this yet was because I wanted to put this together again to confirm that my butter theory was right.  So hang on just a moment for that evidence while I share with you a couple of other reasons this is getting posted late.

  1. I got out of work late Friday night, but we got the 2015 Production Budget capacity level loaded. (Aren't you glad you read that reason?  Are you asleep yet?)
  2. We had a date night and went to see "The 100 Foot Journey" at the local Dollar Show.  If you have not seen it, I recommend it if you like food and families and "war" and journeys at all!  G didn't think that he would like it, but I knew he would, and he did.  (Unlike the man of the couple in the row in front of us.  I believe that he left and came back about 14 times during the movie!)
  3. We had a date day yesterday and drove up the River Road to look at the fall colors and hike about 3 somewhat hilly miles at Pere Marquette State Park.  It was beautiful!

So there.  I am posting late, and while I apologize for not keeping well to my Friday Baking posts on Friday, I don't regret the date night and day one bit!  Signed, G's Wife.

Ready for the recipe and pics of what I did?  Ok, let's go!

It began with this crock pot recipe for "fried" apples.  While the recipe says to cook the apples for 6 hours, I stopped after 3.5 hours so it could be used as an apple pie filling.  But this is a GREAT way to make apple pie filling!  Easy, foolproof and full of apple pie yummy goodness!  KEEPER!!!  My friend, M, from our TN office share this with me!  Thank you, M!

3 pounds of apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 t. cinnamon (at least)
Dash of nutmeg (I grate fresh)
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/8 t. ground allspice
< 1/8 t. ground cloves (just because I like cloves under control!)
Dash of salt
1/2 t. vanilla powder (optional, but a great addition!)
3 T. cornstarch
1 cup sugar (or combo of sugar and brown sugar to equal 1 cup)
2 T. butter

You simply put everything in the crock pot...
...cover, and let it cook on low for anywhere from 3.5 to 6 hours, depending upon your desired end result.  I gave it a stir at about 2 hours, but otherwise, I let the crock pot work magic on the apples!

Once that is cooked, you can serve it warm over ice cream, or let it cool and use it later for pie or as a filling in rolls or these cookies!  (It freezes well, too!)

Caramel Dutch Apple Pie Bars
Crust
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup pecans or almonds
2 T. sugar
1/4 t. salt
6 T. butter, melted

Filling
1/3 of Crock Pot Fried Apples recipe above
1/2 cup Caramel Bits (by Kraft)
1 T. butter, melted

Streusel
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oats (optional, but my mother added oats to apple crisp topping, so I like it!)
1 t. cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
Dash of salt
1/2 cup butter melted (use less at your own risk of jumping icing!)
Sparkling sugar for garnish

Topping
Powdered sugar glaze - thicker than normal so that it will pipe swirls if you like
Caramel bits, melted, or Caramel sundae topping

I began with the crust by simply mixing all of the ingredients in the food processor and then dumping into a foil-lined, sprayed 13x9 pan before pressing out even.  I baked it at 350 for 12 minutes.
I then spread the apple pie filling to cover and sprinkled caramel bits over the top and drizzled with the melted butter.  Promising!
For the streusel I simply mixed all of the ingredients in my food processor until thoroughly combined and nicely moist!  Mixing by hand would work easily, too.  I spread that over the caramel filling...

...and baked at 350 for about 30 minutes until golden brown and bubbly!
Once they cooled I drizzled caramel over the top...

...and then decorated with swirls of the glaze!
The first batch had this same swirl look, but hopefully you can tell from this pic that it was definitely on the drier side.
Or maybe you can't tell from the pic, but trust me, they were!

I cut these into bars to get about 42 bars (7 columns x 6 rows), but I think that I actually prefer them in even smaller bite sizes, depending upon the occasion.  In other words, one batch could serve from 10 - 84 people!  Or...maybe not 84, but I think you get the idea!
I hope you'll give these a try sometime and let me know what you think!  I would describe these as just about everything you love about a Dutch apple pie in a bite size, handheld form!

We have our final 5th Friday Baking feature next week, another cookie, but since this is a cookie that has to be fully assembled at least 24 hours in advance, I hope to get the cookie done Tuesday night, and the post done Wednesday night, so that I only have to add in the comments Thursday night and POST ON TIME for this one!

At least that is my goal!  Thanks for stopping by again!!

1 comment:

  1. So sad to have missed these treats that day, but I guess we can share with Alberici (sometimes anyway!) :)

    -Kristin

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