Martin's Hillside Orchard

Explore the Orchard

Apple Hand Pie

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Love this video tutorial that walks you through how to make hand pies. Just follow this step-by-step and you will have the most adorable and flavorful apple hand pies ever. Crimping is a cinch!

Ingredients:

  • Store-bought pie crust – you can make your own, but we took the shortcut
  • Butter – a bit of bacon fat* is an excellent addition. See note below
  • Apples – something flavorful like a Honeycrisp or Jonathan
  • Salt
  • White sugar
  • Brown sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Water

*Bacon twist – We had some bacon drippings left from breakfast so we used them in place of some of the butter. Wow, bacon and apples are a great combination! We need to explore this combination in more recipes

Big Apple Pancake

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This is a great brunch item. So fun to make.

Recipe comes from Epicurious

You’ll want to include something tart to offset the sweet, custardy goodness of the pancake. A few options – sprinkle fresh-picked raspberries on top, go with a tart apple to begin with, or add a bit of lemon juice to the pancake.

Baking tip – The recipe calls for you to bake the pancake until it is “puffed and golden”. By puffed, that means to let it poof up until it almost overflows the pan.

Cinnamon Apple Pie Bread

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“Forget the pie crust and get all the flavors of fall in a quick and easy cinnamon apple pie bread with brown sugar and cinnamon topping that’s as sweet as apple pie”

Things we’d recommend for when we make this a third time*

# of Apples – Recipe calls for 1 Granny Smith apple. We used 1 1/2 Jonathans and if we did it again would probably use 2 apples as the fruit brings nice moisture to the bread.

  • Baking time – We found the bread took longer than 30 mins to bake, like an additional 20 mins. That wasn’t a problem but wanted to share in case you were rushing to get your dog walked while it baked. My dog walks slow but we could have walked twice the distance. 🙂  And, yes, she got to sample the result and gave it a woof of approval.

*A third time?  Yes, indeed. The first time we (I) misread the amount of flour and added 1/2 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups. As a result, first attempt ended up more like a bread pudding.  Tastes wonderful but more like flan than bread. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that.  Cinnamon apple pie flan has a nice ring to it.

Caramel-Apple Brownie Cheesecake

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(Quite a mouthful that name. Recipes calls for Grannys but we used Jonathans. Any good baking apple will do.

Find the complete recipe at Southern Living

Trials and tribulations of an occasional baker (one of the orchard kids) — So, I decided that I needed to make this decadent dessert because my father, you know him, Alex (he drives the tractor), was having a birthday in September. He told Barb, you know her too, that he definitely did not want her to make this desert. It sounded too complicated to be good and/or he knew my mom had too many other things on her plate. Enter me, 250 miles away and with more time on my hands. I am all about spoiling my parents when I can. Yes, me, here to save the day even though the recipe calls for a springform pan which seemed a bit intimidating.

So what they don’t tell you is that you need to make sure you save the parts to your springform pan in one place. Seems logical, but apparently, not something I adhere to in my kitchen. After an hour of searching, the baking fever had left. This cheesecake business is more involved than I thought.

Two days later: Next tip — Probably best not to test the spring on the springform pan after you line it with the toasted pecans. They call these “spring”form pans for a reason and mine got SPRUNG. There was a scream or two of anguish and my pup came to assist with the cleanup as she chowed down on the tasty pecans strewn all over the floor. Luckily, I had a hidden stash of extra pecans in the fridge. Things were looking up until I realized I didn’t have any sugar in the house. I sheepishly ventured over to the neighbors with my trusty red measuring cup. I explained what I was up to and that it wasn’t going well. They laughed with me and were happy to help me out.

I then packed up the dessert in a new cooler that I bought for the occasion and trucked it home 250 miles to the orchard for the big birthday weekend. Very involved, I know, but I was on a mission. And, the cheesecake was quite yummy. My father agreed. How fun to get to spoil the ones you love once in awhile.

Hope your baking adventures are smoother than mine!

Mini Apple Pies

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Fun concept – use a muffin tin as the form.

Oops – I overbaked my crust a bit but still think these turned out cute. And, whether crust is a bit too done or not, they still taste great.

Mine aren’t exactly mini muffins as I didn’t have standard size muffin tin, but rather a larger muffin tin.  Probably more appropriate for serving size.  Or I guess one could eat about 5 of the minis 🙂

I went with Jonathans in this recipe trial but any good baking apple wood do, including Honeycrisp and Haralson.