Carrot Cake Jam

I’ll start by noting that my decision to make this jam was mostly a happy accident– that being said, I’m so glad I did, because the results were *amazing*.

Anyway, I had some egg whites left over from my Dulce de Leche Flan, which made me start thinking about baking macarons to use them up (because why waste them on something easy?). And then I wondered what flavor of macaron I might want to make, and since Easter is coming up I thought about carrots, and carrot cake. But how to infuse carrot cake flavor into a macaron? Well, that’s where the carrot cake jam came in.

You’ll see the finished macarons later, but this jam is good for so many other things– it’s great with cream cheese on toast, delicious as a filling for cookies or tartlets, but my favorite use has to be for making the very best carrot cake ice cream *ever* (don’t worry, recipe to come).

The jam itself is sweet, spicy, and has a nice array of textures due to the variety of ingredients. I particularly like the pecans– without them the jam is awfully sweet, and they add a background savoriness that evokes the “cake” feeling of the original inspiration. You might also consider adding some shredded coconut, if you like it in your carrot cake generally. Either way, it’s sure to be sticky, gooey, and delicious!

Apple Pie Cake

So last fall we went apple picking. And you know what happens when you pick apples– you eat a bunch the first week, then the remaining apples just languish in the bag until you can find something to do with them. And since we had a lot of apples, several of them languished for quite a while…

I finally decided that it was time to use up the last few apples, so I went in search of a suitable recipe that I hadn’t tried before– and found this one! It’s apparently a copycat of an apple pie they serve at Disneyworld, and it’s pretty tasty! You start with a pie crust, then fill it with pre-steamed apples (to avoid them getting too juicy during baking) and a thick cake batter. It turns out beautifully golden-brown on top, and the addition of a layer of powdered sugar gives it just the right amount of extra sweetness.

Personally, I cut a corner and used a refrigerated pie crust, but you can make your own if you prefer. I find that using pre-made crusts gets you a thinner layer of crust, which I like in this recipe– too thick and it might end up stodgy-seeming with the extra cake batter in there as well.

Savory Brunch Tarts

So I mentioned the post-Christmas brunch we hosted earlier– along with sweets we also had several savory items, including a trio of delicious savory tarts. I was originally only going to make two– cauliflower and onion, and apple and fennel– but ended up having extra cauliflower, onions, and pie crust, and didn’t want to let it go to waste. The tarts didn’t turn out perfectly (cracks in the crusts allowed egg to leak through, making the bottoms soggy), but they were pretty tasty and provided inspiration for future recipes!

Apple Galette with Cornmeal Crust

So this is definitely the coolest kitchen gadget ever. It’s not high-tech, it doesn’t take up a ton of space, and it dates back to the late 1700s! My dad had one when I was a kid and I used to love turning the crank and playing with the resulting perfect spiral-cut apples. When I saw this one in a secondhand store for only $3.99 I knew it would be coming home with me.

Apple Fritter Doughnuts

One of the kitchen gadgets I use least often is the mini deep-fryer– it’s perfect for frying up a batch of chicken tenders, or an experimental batch of cronuts (I promise I’ll blog about those someday), but then you’re left with a bunch of oil you don’t know what to do with, and it’s a pain to dispose of, so I rarely go to the trouble. Still, once you’ve fried one thing, you may as well fry a bunch of things to avoid waste, so after my husband made some of the aforementioned chicken tenders that’s what I decided to do. But what to make?

I ran through the possibilities in my head, discarding some for being too involved, others for being too boring, and kept coming back to apple fritters. I love apple fritters, but almost never buy them because I invariably get distracted by the chocolate-covered old-fashioned donuts that are my favorites. But I’d faithfully bookmarked the recipe at some point, and when I came across it on my computer it was like fate was telling me that now was the time!

Secret Ingredient Apple Pie

It’s fall in New England, and that means apple-picking! Our family recently took advantage of a gorgeous fall day to head out to an orchard and participate in that most quintessential of fall activities, and came home tired, happy, and weighed down with a full nineteen pounds of apples. While my daughter has been doing her part to consume them (at least insofar as “taking two bites out of an apple and declaring it ‘all done'” can be considered consumption), that’s still a mountain of apples. So I thought I’d try my hand at another quintessential favorite– the apple pie, but with the added twist of a secret ingredient. What is it, you ask? Read on…

Crabapple Jelly- Smallest Batch Ever

I’ve never actually made jelly before. Compote, yes. Curd, sure. Even jam, way back when I was a kid in my grandmother’s kitchen. But jelly? Never. When I was offered a bagful of tiny crabapples and told that they were “great for jelly,” though, I knew that fate was dropping the opportunity in my lap.

I opened the bag and eyed the crabapples dubiously. They were so tiny (seriously, like cherry-sized)– wouldn’t it be a huge hassle to remove the seeds from each and every one? Happily, online recipes assured me that I wouldn’t need to do anything like that– simply cut the stem ends off and halve them. I’d only be draining the apples of juice anyway, not pureeing them or otherwise eating the solids. It actually sounded kind of fun!

Reader’s Digest(ibles): Almanzo’s Fried Apples n’ Onions

Sticking with the classics, my next trip down memory lane is Almanzo Wilder’s fried apples n’ onions from Farmer Boy. This book is seriously FULL of good eating– I came across a website that quoted every meal he ate in the book, and was drooling by the end of it. It all sounded amazing, but it’s too hot this summer to be roasting spare-ribs and cooking baked beans with salt pork, so I decided to go with something simpler: fried apples n’ onions.

This dish is just what it’s named– apples and onions, fried together. I don’t understand why most recipes online make it so sweet, adding tons of brown sugar and cooking until the apples and onions turn into mush. This is not apple pie we’re talking about here, this is a side dish, and Almanzo states in the book that he ate four helpings in one meal! If it were sweet I’m not sure that even I (with my notorious sweet tooth) would’ve been able to eat that much…