Apple Crisp

So one of the things that I did last fall was picking all of the good apples off of our apple tree, peeling, slicing, putting fruit fresh on them, and freezing them. By the time I was done, we had over 50 cups of apples. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to use them for the first time, a little nervous about how they'd taste, but to my surprise, they were fabulous! They're still sooo fresh tasting.

I made some more recently and went ahead and did a large batch so I could do some mini apple crisps and take some into work. Here's some of the many pictures that I took of them.

Mom's Apple Crisp

15 cups sliced apples 

3 cups sugar 

3 t. cinnamon 

2 1/4 cups flour 

1 cup butter 

Mix 1 1/2 cup sugar with cinnamon. Sift the remaining sugar with flour. Cut the butter into flour mixture. Mix the cinnamon and sugar into apples. Put into large 9x13" pan. Sprinkle with flour/butter mixture on top.

Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 and bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

I love eating this hot with some vanilla ice cream in it. 

If the recipe is to large, you can cut it down some to this:

10 cups sliced apples

2 cups sugar

2 t. cinnamon 

1/12 cups flour

2/3 cup butter

When you're mixing the part of the sugar with the cinnamon, reduce it down to 1 cup, instead of a cup and a half. 

Love to you and yours, 

Liz 

Sabayon and Fresh Berry Trifle

Old-Fashioned Pound Cake

2 cups of butter at room temperature

2  3/4 cups of sugar

6 large eggs

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 – 1/2 tsp of nutmeg

1/2 milk or half & half

1 tsp vanilla

1.            Mix the flour, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl and set aside. Combine the milk and vanilla and set aside. Grease and flour a bunt pan. (I like to use shortening and flour) Turn the oven on to 325 F.

2.            Beat the butter about two minutes on medium speed until it’s creamy.

3.            Gradually mix in the sugar, continue beating the mixture 5 -7 minutes until light and fluffy.

4.            Add the eggs, one at a time, beating just until the yellow disappears before adding the next one.

5.            Turn the mixer speed down to low and start adding the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternating with the milk mixture. Begin and end with the flour. Be sure to mix just until blended after each addition.

6.            Put the cake batter in the pan and put it in the oven for 1 hour and 15 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

7.            Cool the cake in the pan for 10 – 15 minutes, then remove it to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Servings: 14

Note: You will need only about a third of this cake for the trifle; the cake does freeze well though. Just wrap it in plastic and put it in the freezer for up to a month.

Sabayon

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup orange juice

1/6 of a cup of Vanilla and 1/6 cup water (1/3 cup of liquid total)

3 Tbsp. sugar

1  1/4 cups of heavy cream

1.            Prepare an ice bath. (An ice bath is just ice and water in a sink or a dish large enough to hold the bowl the Sabayon is cooked.)

2.              Chill the bowl you are going to whip the cream in.

3.            To make the Sabayon, whisk together the yolks, juice, liquid, and sugar in a stainless steel bowl and set it over a pot of barely simmering water. (Just in case you don’t know, the water in the pot should be at least an inch from the bottom of the stainless steel bowl.) Continue to whisk the mixture as it cooks. The custard will thicken, triple in volume, and become pale in color. This should take about 15 minutes. The mixture should fall from the whisk in ribbons that hold their shape on top of the Sabayon, this shows that the Sabayon is finished. Immediately take the Sabayon off the heat and put it in the ice bath, continue to whisk it until it cools.

4.            Whip the cream until it holds a medium peak. If you’d like, you can reserve 1 cup so of the whipped cream to decorate the top of the trifle. Now mix the cold custard and the whipped cream and refrigerate it for 1– 4 hours.

Trifle

2 cups of chopped berries

2 – 3 cups of cake (If the crust of the cake is too hard, trim it off)

Sabayon

1.             Make a layers of berries and cake and then cover them with Sabayon. If you reserved any whipped cream, then use it now to decorate the top of the trifle. Berries look pretty on top of the trifle too. 

Servings: 6 - 8

Thanks to my sister Willa for taking this picture for me. She has an awesome photography blog, by the way, here's the link: http://sootc365.tumblr.com/