Applesauce and Sugar-Free Applesauce Loaf

Homemade applesauce is too easy to make to not make.  You'll need a food mill with a medium disk, or a good strainer.  Follow this link for a recipe for 'Summersauce', applesauce with strawberries.  In this post, you'll find a photo of a food mill and some basic applesauce blabber.  If you're ill-equipped, you can always peel and core the apples and cook them.  They'll turn to mush and you can stir them vigorously, pretending all the while they're authority figures. They could be, say, State Troopers. Like the ones on the Taconic Parkway.  But State Trooper Sauce won't have as much soul. Skin adds soul.

To make applesauce, take some apples - like 4-6.  You can mix varieties or make it pure. My last batch was just golden delicious.  Core them and coarsely chop them.  Put them into a pot and add about 1-2 inches of liquid  ... water, or you can use apple cider. Add a small cinnamon stick. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the apples are soft.  Now, it's your call.  You can leave this unsweetened, or sweeten, to taste. You can use Red Jacket Orchard's Apple Cider Molasses to sweeten your applesauce.  These are personal choices and I wouldn't dream of getting in the way.

My friend Michael won't eat anything with processed sugar.  A couple of years ago, he asked me to bake something for him. It was a challenge for me to produce a sugarless cake that wasn't vile.  You know, sugar isn't just a sweetener, it's a tenderizer.  So, I went looking for a decent recipe I could play with.

Here it is!

Michael loves it, and although this one's for him (Michael helped me pack up for my upcoming move - the third time he's helped me move!), I hope you'll give it a try.  Use your homemade applesauce if you have some. Store bought will work too.

Applesauce Cake  Sugarless but still delicious

1 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce 1/2 c. flavorless oil 1 egg, size large, room temperature 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract 2 c. all purpose flour 1/4 tsp. kosher salt 2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 c. walnuts, toasted cooled and chopped and dried cherries, chopped (the dried cherries are great in this recipe) Procedure: Preheat oven to 325º F.  Grease a large loaf pan Combine applesauce, oil, and beaten egg.  In a separate bowl, combine and mix all dry ingredients.  Mix nuts, raisins, and dates. Add to dry ingredients to coat them.  Add wet ingredients and mix well by hand but do not beat.  With all ingredients blended, pour into the well greased loaf pan. Fill very full as cake does not rise. Bake at 325º F. for about 50 minutes.

Pumpkin Pecan Loaf

Blue Heron is migrating to a new kitchen with all new appliances! We're moving to Port Washington, and there's an organic market on the dock there through October.  Instead of packing, I'm baking.  


Packing induces stress.  Baking relieves stress.


It's PUMPKIN time!

and it's LOAF time.

Loaf is comfort food.

I'm sending this loaf to my son Oxford.
I don't think they get much pumpkin in Oxford.

Use pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie stuff.  I use organic pumpkin purée (Whole Foods own or Trader Joes own.)  Use your leftover pumpkin purée for soup!  Just add it to warmed up chicken stock.  Throw in some chopped fresh rosemary and for some autumnal flavuh and a little sweetness, some freshly chopped (peeled) apple (you can use a blender or masher or leave it chunky - it's up to you.)

If you haven't gotten a beater blade for your Kitchen Aid, get one.  You'll never have to scrape down the bowl again.  ("My Kitchen Aid Does the Tighten Up") When you toast your pecans, make sure you don't burn them (if you even slightly burn them, you've ruined them).  Cool them, then chop them.  Use a microplane zester for the orange and lemon zests! You'll keyword 'zest' when you're looking for other recipes.

Pumpkin Pecan Loaf

Adapted by Blue Heron Kitchen from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c. all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

¼ tsp. ground mace

2 eggs, size large, room temperature

¾ c. dark brown sugar, lightly packed

1/3 c. granulated sugar

2 tsp. grated orange zest

1 tsp. grated lemon zest

½ c. canola oil

1 ¼ c. canned pumpkin purée

½ c. chopped toasted pecans

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 345º F. (sue me).  Grease and flour one large or two smaller loaf pans. 

In a medium bowl, combine first seven (dry) ingredients and set aside.  (If you grate the nutmeg, it will make a significant difference.)

In the bowl of a Kitchen Aid or another electric mixer, fitted with the paddle or beater blade attachment, beat the eggs for a few minutes until light in color. Add the brown sugar in several batches, beating for several minutes, until creamy and light.  Add the granulated sugar and continue to beat until you have a creamy, pasty looking mixture. Add the zests and mix.

Reduce the speed and slowly drizzle in the canola oil in a steady stream.  Reduce the speed to low and add the pumpkin purée. Mix until thoroughly combined. 

Add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.  Fold in chopped, toasted pecans.

Spoon batter into the prepared pan(s) and bake in the middle of the oven, depending on the size of your loaf pans, from 45 to 60 minutes, or until the top feels springy to the touch. 

Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes in the pan on a rack and then release from the pan and cool completely before wrapping.  If you can wait, this loaf tastes better the next day.  It keeps well in the fridge, and may be frozen.

Jonah's Apple Butter

My son is a talented and passionate chef. He's currently pursuing a doctorate at Oxford, but prior to his shipping out, he visited the farmers market with me and we bought a variety of apples from Red Jacket Orchards (those gorgeous apples at the top of the blog) and he turned them into an amazing batch of apple butter. He agreed to sharing the recipe and here it is! Thanks, Jonah!

Apple Butter 
Recipe by Jonah Rosenberg -  adapted from the Joy of Cooking

The inspiration for making apple butter came in the form of a plywood basket of apples, picked way out in Suffolk County and looking reproachful on the dining room table. At first I was tentative, using only four sad-looking specimens. The reaction to the finished product was so good that I’ve doubled my assault, using eight fine apples, this time from Red Jacket Orchards.
The recipe requires tender loving care and little else, but it will make your house smell like a Norman Rockwell painting should, warm and enticing. If you make enough (read: use your biggest pot), you can jar it and give it as gifts to people over the next several months, which is handy indeed. If this sounds too Martha Stewart to you, then just think of it as a cheap and useful version of flowers.

Eight apples* (about 4 lb.) of as many varieties as you can find
1 liter of apple cider*
Around 5 cups of sugar (see note)

Halve the apples, pull out the stem and cut each half into thirds.

Put the segments into a large saucepan or stockpot and pour the apple cider over them. It should not quite cover them – if you want to add more liquid, put in a little water.

Cook the apples uncovered over medium heat for 30 minutes or until the segments start to break up in the cider.

Take the pot off of the stove and pass the apples and the cider, ladle by ladle, through a sieve or a food mill (which is what I use here; make sure to reverse the blade every now and again to clear the screen).

Now you have apple sauce; the JoC volunteers that you might start with store-bought apple sauce at this point. At this I frown.

Measure the pulp in a mixing cup and add ½ cup of sugar for every cup of purée. For my eight apples I got 10 cups, and so I added 5 cups of sugar. I know it seems like a lot, but resist the urge to scale back – for two reasons. The first is that the sugar acts as a thickener; it combines with the liquid to create a thick syrup, which condenses as you cook it. The second is that as sugar cooks, it tastes less sweet and more complex – think caramel. Heat reorganizes the sugar crystals to form all sorts of nutty-tasting compounds.

Mix the sugar with the pulp and place back on the flame at medium-low heat, and cook for… ever. This (along with passing the apples through the sieve) is the labor of love part; this needs to reduce and thicken for quite some time – maybe four hours.

I Want My ... Cosmic Cocoas

My brand of choice is Whole Foods' own Cosmic Cocoas.

peace, love and Cosmic Cocoas,
jane

They Always Bowl Me Over

I love Cocoa Puffs. And lately, I've succombed to Whole Foods' own "Cosmic Cocoas". They're pretty good. Actually, they're very good.

I just got this from "Credo". You might want to consider signing this petition. It's pretty awful what's going on with all these processed foods.

And open up Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food". It's a good read.

peace, love and Cosmic Cocoas,
jane

Subject: Cocoa Puffs as health food?

Dear Blue Heron Kitchen Readers,

Need another example that the food industry can't regulate itself?

How about an industry-sponsored health label that declares Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms to be a "Smart Choice"? That's the thrust of the new "Smart Choices" label, and it's no accident that it has turned out this way. Though many healthy foods are indeed eligible, the overall structure of the program -- with its industry-backed board-members, its burdensome application process and its relatively high fees -- appeals to giant packaged food companies at the expense of unprocessed, unbranded foods like fruits and vegetables.

I just signed a petition to ask the "Smart Choices" board to include fruits and vegetables, disallow sugary processed foods, and increase FDA oversight. I hope you will, too. Please have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/smart_choices_food