If
you are only going to bake one thing this season it should probably be
an apple pie. Why are you only baking one thing though!? Maybe you're
allergic to ovens. Maybe you have a phobia of flour. I don't know. I
don't want to judge here. But guys, can we just bake a pie today or
what?
And
while we're at it, let's put some bourbon in that pie, ok? If you've
never baked with booze before don't fret. We're really just after the
flavor: caramel, warm oak and vanilla. The actual alcohol content
greatly decreases anytime you bake with liquor, as alcohol has a pretty
low boiling point. Which is why you can make
homemade vanilla extract with vodka. Science.
First
let's talk crust. You can buy one or make your own. For this pie I made
my own. I love a flaky, unsweetened crust. Perfect backdrop for a sweet
pie with ice cream. :)
Perfect pie crust, makes one double crust pie (or two single crusts. Math.)
Needed: 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 15 tablespoons cold butter
(almost 2 sticks, but not quite) and 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon cold water.
In a food processor combine the flour and salt, pulse for a second or
two. Cut in the butter and pulse until just crumbly. Now slowly pour in
the water as the food processor is turned on low. (You can also do
these steps by hand with a little more effort, I'm just lazy.) Once
you've added all the water use your clean hands to work the dough into a
ball. Cover in plastic wrap and chill for an hour (or up to overnight).
When you're ready to use your dough let it sit out on the counter for a
few minutes before rolling out.
Spiced Bourbon Apple Pie, filling for one pie.
Needed: 3-4 sour apples, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon corn starch, 2
tablespoons bourbon, 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2
cup chopped pecans (optional).
Peel and thinly slice the apples. As you can see from the photo I
believe in very thinly sliced apples. The thinner your slices the more
area for the spiced bourbon coating to stick to. I use a
Mandoline
and highly recommend them. It's one of my favorite kitchen tools. Set
aside your apples and in a small bowl whisk together the milk, corn
starch, bourbon, cinnamon and sugar. Pour over the apples and gently mix
them up so that all slices get coated. Add in the pecans if using. Roll
out your pie crust and lay in your prepared baking dish. Pour in the
filling and lay on the top pie crust. Make sure to add a few slits to
the top pie crust to allow steam to escape as baking. I crimped my edges
using the side of a fork and I added a little label using
Alphabet Cookie Cutters
. Brush the top with an egg wash and bake at 375 F for an hour.
If
you don't have or don't want to use bourbon you can substitute 2
teaspoons vanilla extract instead. Bake a pie this week! Your house will
smell amazing. xo. Emma
Browned Butter & Bourbon Blondies
Camping in the fall is always the best. Cool crisp nights, blazing,
crackling fires, fleece jackets and hiking boots are just some of my
favorite reasons to pack the camper and head to the mountains. I also
love to bake something special to share at the end of a wonderful day
playing outside. Blondies are a moist and sweet, buttery treat that
will melt in your mouth and are easy to whip up in no time. Cut into
bite sized squares they also travel very well. They traveled well to
the Shenandoah Mountains, but I'm afraid they did not make it home
again.
I was looking for something a little different so I added bourbon,
toasted walnuts, milk chocolate chips and browned butter to this batch.
This was a super successful combination of flavors. I was inspired by
my
Derby Day Pie and
adapted a base recipe for Blondies originally published by Cooks
Illustrated in July, 2005. This is a grown up dessert as you get hints
of the smooth mild bourbon along with the toasted nuts and milky
chocolate.
Browned Butter & Bourbon Blondies
Browned Butter & Bourbon Blondies
(slightly adapted from a recipe published July 2005 by Cooks Illustrated)
1/2 cup walnuts
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus 1 tablespoon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, browned and cooled
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons bourbon
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small pan on medium heat, melt the butter stirring occasionally.
Cook the butter until it begins to have a nutty smell and turns an
amber color. Do not overcook or it will burn easily. Remove the browned
butter to a glass bowl or cup and set aside to cool.
Spread the walnuts in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until they are golden
brown. Transfer the nuts to a cutting board and chop lightly. Set
aside.
Cut a length of parchment paper to fit a 8x8 baking dish allowing the
paper to come up to the top of the pan on both sides. Cut another sheet
to fit in the opposite direction also trimming at the top of the pan.
Spray the parchment paper lightly with cooking spray. Set aside.
Whisk 3/4 cup flour, baking powder and salt together in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.
In another medium mixing bowl combine the browned butter and brown sugar
until blended. Add the egg and mix well. Blend in the bourbon and
vanilla and mix just until incorporated. Fold the dry ingredients into
the butter mixture just until combined. Do not over-mix.
Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of flour to the chocolate chips and toss
until the chips are somewhat covered. Add the chocolate chips (with
flour) and the toasted walnuts to the batter. Fold in gently. Spread
the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
Bake until the top is shiny, cracked and light golden brown, 22-24
minutes. Do not over-bake. Blondies should be chewy, not crunchy.
Cool the Blondies in the pan then lift out using the parchment paper.
Transfer to a cutting board and slice into bite sized squares. Enjoy!
I don’t even know.
I just… poured bourbon on the apples. ON the apples. And baked them. And covered them in cinnamon ice cream.
Oh and stuffed them with my favorite
crispy crumble mixture. It’s like… apple crisp.
Apple crisp baked inside an apple.
Covered in bourbon.
Covered in ice cream.
I don’t know why I do these things.
Bourbon not your thing? Pretty sure you could use rum here. Spiced
rum? It is fall after all. Maybe some sort of other delicious liqueur or
something? What about red wine?
Ooooh.
Crap.
Now I have to make these again.
Bourbon Baked Apples
Yield: makes 6 apples
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 45-50 minutes
Total Time: 1.5 hours
Ingredients:
6 large honeycrisp apples
2/3 cup oats
2/3 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup apple cider
1/3 cup bourbon (or less, depending on how much you enjoy bourbon)
cinnamon ice cream for serving (or pumpkin! or vanilla.)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Core the
apples - but not all the way - using an apple corer or a paring knife.
You want to cut about 2/3 of the way down to remove the seeds if you
don't have an apple corer. Carefully cut a circle around the stem and
cut about an inch downward. From there, use the same knife or a spoon,
remove the core and the seeds.
In a bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, salt and cinnamon. Add
softened butter and vanilla, and mix thoroughly with a fork and your
hands until it becomes clumped together. If desired, you can also add
nuts here! Stuff the mixture equally inside each apple. Sprinkle with
additional cinnamon if desired.
Place apples in a large baking dish. Pour apple cider and bourbon in
the bottom of the pan, then bake for about 45 minutes. This will depend
on the exact size of your apples (if using small/medium apples, start by
baking for 30 minutes), but it is easy to keep an eye on them because a
few times during the cooking process (every 10 minutes or so), you want
to spoon the cider/bourbon mixture overtop of each apple. Once the skin
looks all wrinkly and slightly darker in color, remove from the oven.
Serve immediately with ice cream on top.
You know those little snack cakes and individually-wrapped treats that every kid had in their brown-bagged lunch growing up?
I wasn’t that kid. I was the girl with a dinosaur-print thermos full
of chicken noodle soup, a plastic bag full of enough carrots to feed a
bunny family of 20, and a little can of tomato juice. Weirdest lunch
ever, right?
Growing up, my parents never kept any junk food in the house. No
candy. No ice cream. No cupcakes. If I wanted a snack, I had to make the
tough choice between dehydrated apple slices or vegetables. A few
times, my afternoon snack was sauerkraut. Seriously.
Sauerkraut. I can’t make this stuff up.
I wonder if my sugar-free childhood had any influence on my decision to go to culinary school and study baking and pastry…
I know my parents had good intentions, keeping the house free of junk
food and unhealthy stuff. I totally get it, and I’m actually glad I
grew up that way. I didn’t grow up craving foods packed full of
artificial flavors, colors, chemicals and preservatives. If I want
something sweet, I make it myself.
I’ve never had a Twinkie, or a Snowball, or a Ding Dong, or a Good Time Snackie Cake. That last one’s a real thing, right?
So when Ryan told me how much he loved those little oatmeal cream
pies when he was a kid, I knew I had to try my hand at making them!
Little itty bitty teeny tiny miniature oatmeal cream pies. They’re
adorable! They’re delicious!
…And did I mention they’re full of whiskey? Yup!
Yes friends, these are certainly not the oatmeal cream pies you grew up with–they’re 24928 times better. Honest!
According to my husband, these little babies are in his top three
most favorite cookie-type confections I’ve ever baked. Ever! They’re
kind of a big deal.
Plenty of brown sugar keeps the oatmeal cookies moist and soft.
They’re lightly spiced with cinnamon and vanilla, and good luck not
eating all of them before you even get around to assembling the mini
pies. They’re damn good cookies on their own. If I were feeling
particularly naughty, I might even break up a bunch of them, toss ‘em in
a bowl, pour over some milk and call that breakfast. Yes.
And the marshmallow cream?! Guys. This stuff is so, so, so delicious.
Technically it’s not really marshmallow cream, it’s really a sweet
Swiss meringue, the base for my favorite type of buttercream. But I’ll
be damned if this brown sugar whiskey-spiked meringue doesn’t taste, act
and look exactly like marshmallow cream. Actually, I think it might
even be more delicious. Shh. Don’t tell.
If you’re craving a grown-up version of a childhood favorite, you
simply must make these mini whiskey oatmeal cream pies! They’re perfect
for St. Patrick’s Day, too! Whiskey and oatmeal, together at last!
Mini Whiskey Oatmeal Cream Pies
Yield: 24 miniature oatmeal cream pies
The recipe for the
marshmallow cream will yield more than you need to fill the cookies, so
store it in an airtight glass jar at room temperature for up to two
weeks--if it lasts that long!
Ingredients:
For the Oatmeal Cookies
6 ounces whole wheat pastry flour
0.25 ounces baking powder
0.13 ounces baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounces light brown sugar, packed
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla bean paste (substitute pure vanilla extract)
½ ounce whole milk or half & half
½ ounce Irish whiskey
5 ounces quick-cooking rolled oats
For the Brown Sugar Whiskey Marshmallow Cream
4 ounces egg whites (about 4 eggs' worth)
8 ounces light brown sugar, packed
pinch of kosher salt
2 tablespoons Irish whiskey
2 teaspoons pure vanilla bean paste (substitute vanilla extract)
Directions:
For the Oatmeal Cookies
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, with a rack in the center.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon into a bowl and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment fitted on,
combine the butter, brown sugar and salt. Cream together on medium speed
for 8-10 minutes, or until very pale and fluffy.
With the mixer off, scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Turn the mixer on low and add the eggs, one at a time, waiting until
the first is incorporated into the mixture before adding the second.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the vanilla, milk and whiskey on low speed until just combined.
Slowly add the sifted dry ingredients to the mixer bowl, and mix on low until just combined and the dough comes together.
Turn the mixer off and stir in the oats by hand using a silicone spatula.
Using a small cookie scoop (mine holds approximately one teaspoon of
dough), portion the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving
about two inches of room in between cookies.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 5-8 minutes, or until the cookies are light brown and crisp at the edges.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 3-5
minutes before transferring the cookies to a wire baking rack to cool
completely.
For the Brown Sugar Whiskey Marshmallow Cream
Set a saucepan with about 2-3 inches of water over medium heat and allow to heat until steaming.
Combine the egg whites, brown sugar and salt in either the metal bowl of your stand mixer, or another heat safe bowl.
Place the bowl over the steaming pan of water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water.
Whisking often, gently heat this mixture until the sugar is
dissolved. Feel the mixture with your fingers (you can wear a glove!) to
check for doneness.
When the mixture is no longer grainy, remove the bowl from the
saucepan. Place the bowl on the stand mixer with the whisk attachment
fitted on.
Whip this mixture on medium-high speed for 8-12 minutes, or until the
meringue is light, fluffy and voluminous, and the sides of the bowl are
no longer hot.
Turn the mixer off and add the whiskey and vanilla bean paste, and whisk on medium for 30 seconds, or until combined.
Using a spatulate, transfer the marshmallow cream to a piping bag with a small round tip fitted on.
Assembling the Oatmeal Cream Pies
Place one cooled cookie face down on a piece of parchment paper, and
pipe about 2 teaspoons' worth of marshmallow cream in the center.
Place a second cookie on top, pressing down gently in the center to
coax the marshmallow cream to the outer edges of the cookie sandwich.
Repeat with the remaining cookies until all miniature oatmeal cream
pies are assembled. Depending on how large you made your cookies, you
should get approximately 24 pies.
Store the oatmeal cream pies in an airtight container at room temperature for two days, or in the fridge for up to four.
With
fall lingering in the air down South - and throughout the rest of the
country - the chilly weather can only mean one thing: it's pie season
down in Dixie.
While the fruity
pies of summer
are perfectly acceptable, I must admit that I'm a winter pie kind of
girl. Give me pumpkin, sweet potato, and pecan over berries any day. So
when a colleague recently requested that I make "something with
butterscotch," I didn't have to think too hard about it. Needless to
say, I happily obliged.
There's a bevy of butterscotch pie recipes floating around the food
world. Trust me, I know. I've made (and eaten) my fair share of them.
And while I love a cool butterscotch cream pie in the summer, I really
crave a dark and rich sort of pie once October creeps in... a broody pie
with the intense flavors of nutty browned butter and sugary sweet
caramel. Yes, please.
This old Southern favorite is a great way to celebrate the season.
Add a splash of bourbon and you've got yourself a party. Whether you
bring this butterscotch pie to a fall festival or serve it on your
holiday table, it's guaranteed to wrap you up in warmth.
Browned Butter Butterscotch Pieserves 8 to 10
For the filling1 standard pie crust,
blind-baked and cooled (Recipes:
Sour Cream Pie Crust or
Basic Pie Crust)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon bourbon whiskey
For the whipped cream1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
For the fillingIn a medium saucepan, melt butter over
medium heat. Continue to cook until lightly browned, stirring
occasionally, approximately 10 minutes. Add brown sugar to butter and
cook until sugar is completely melted and a paste is formed.
Combine evaporated milk and regular milk and pour into the
butter/brown sugar mixture. Bring to a simmer and stir until it is
smooth and the sugar is completely dissolved.
In a separate bowl, combine cornstarch, flour, and salt. Pour 1/ 2
cup of the milk/butter/sugar mixture into the cornstarch mixture and
whisk until smooth. Pour the smooth cornstarch mixture back into
saucepan, stirring constantly. Cook for approximately one minute, until
just thickened (cooking the cornstarch much longer can actually cause it
to lose its thickening ability).
Stream 1/2 cup hot milk/butter/sugar mixture into the egg yolks,
stirring constantly (this is called tempering; it prevents the yolks
from curdling in the heat). Pour this mix back into the saucepan. Cook
for approximately 30 seconds to one minute, and then remove from heat.
Stir in whiskey. Allow to cool until warm, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Strain filling through a fine mesh sieve and then pour into cooked
piecrust.
Press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding
in order to prevent a skin from forming. Chill overnight, or until firm.
For whipped cream In a medium-sized bowl, whip the heavy
cream with an electric mixer until foamy and starting to thicken. Add
confectioners' sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until soft peaks
are just formed.
If serving whole pie, top with whipped cream and slice. If serving
just a few pieces, slice and serve with a dollop of whipped cream.Behold: chocolate bourbon toffee cookies!
It’s easy to get over the tragedy of a lost pie when you have rich and chewy cookies spiked with bourbon. Pie? Whatever.
These are dangerous. I found
this
recipe for salted chocolate toffee cookie and went at it, adding just a
bit of bourbon. I baked half the batch as suggested in the recipe with a
sprinkle of salt on top, but then realized I had about 4 tablespoons of
chopped hazelnuts left in the cupboard so baked the second round of
cookies with nuts on top. Verdict? Perfection.
Chewy Chocolate Bourbon Toffee Cookie
Adapted from
Sel Et Sucre
Makes 3 Dozen Cookies
Ingredients:
2 C Semisweet Chocolate Chips
6 T Unsalted Butter, sliced
1 C All Purpose Flour
¾ tsp Baking Powder
¾ tsp Salt
3 Large Eggs
1 C Brown Sugar, packed
1 tsp Vanilla Bourbon Extract
2 T Bourbon
1 ¼ C Toffee Pieces
Coarse Sea Salt (optional)
1/4 Chopped Hazelnuts
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F. In a
heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt butter and chocolate
chips. Set aside to cool slightly.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the eggs, brown
sugar, vanilla and bourbon on high speed until light and fluffy, approx 5
min.
On low speed, beat in the melted chocolate and butter. Fold flour
mixture in by hand until just combined then stir in toffee bits.
Drop dough onto parchment lined baking sheet in 2 T sized scoops.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt if desired or press a few pieces of
chopped nuts into the dough. Bake on a rack centered in the oven for 12
minutes or until the cookies have shiny, cracked surfaces and are firm
to touch at the edges but still somewhat soft in the middle. Let cool
five minutes on the sheet before transferring to a wire rack.
