I hope everyone who was affected by Sandy is doing OK. In some way or another the entire eastern half of the U.S. was affected in some way. My daughter, who lives in one of the zones in NYC that was evacuated, missed the worst of it as she has been down here helping me finish up the packing. Finally, after three cancellations, she has a flight going back tomorrow afternoon. Still no electricity in her home or business, but she heard her water is on, so while things will NOT be pleasant for a while, she felt it imperative to get back and check on everything. I am keeping my fingers crossed for everyone.
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This Cream Cheese Apple Cake from Mary at One Perfect Bite is totally delicious and was the hit of my Garden Club coffee last week. I made and froze a smaller loaf of it, so I can assure you it holds up beautifully to freezing, which is a huge plus. You can also see the cake cut in diagonals in my Apple Fritter post from a couple weeks ago.
Everyone loved this very moist cake, with just the perfect amount of apples. You've got to try it.....the cream cheese makes for such a lovely tender crumb. You'll love it. Easy to make, too.
Thanks, Mary!
Cream Cheese Apple Cake
From Mary at One Perfect Bite
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose
flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground
cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 ounces
cream cheese, at room temperature
2-1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs, at
room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/4 pounds tart apples, peeled and
diced (about 3 cups)
Confectioners' sugar, for
garnish
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease
and lightly flour two (9 x 5 x 2-inch) loaf pans.
Sift flour, baking
powder, salt and cinnamon together and set aside.
Put butter, cream cheese
and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat
ingredients on medium-high speed until mixture is very light in color — almost
white — and texture is fluffy, about 6 to 8 minutes. Scrape sides and bottom of
the bowl once during the process to insure that butter is evenly
incorporated.
Crack eggs into a liquid measure and add vanilla. With mixer
on low speed, slowly pour mixture into bowl allowing eggs to fall in one at a
time. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl.
Add sifted dry ingredients on low
speed; stop mixing as soon as flour is incorporated. Fold apples in by hand
using a stiff spatula and scrape batter into prepared pan.
Place pans in
the middle of oven and bake 60-75 minutes rotating pans halfway through baking
time. When cake is finished, a wooden skewer inserted in the middle should come
out clean. Allow cakes to cool 15 minutes before removing from pan. Cool
completely and cover with a thick dusting of confectioners' sugar. Yield: 16
servings.
These would have been so much cuter with Halloween sprinkles on the sides, but my box of sprinkles is packed at the bottom of a sealed packing box. Really, I didn't intend to do any more baking....so they got packed.
(Oh....and my packing? Many of you have asked how it's going......
Does this look organized to you? LOL)
Anyway....back to cooking. All I needed to buy was packaged sugar cookie dough so I decided to bake these yesterday, thinking I still had the sprinkles in the cupboard. Sorry about that. And....I really didn't take (or even have) time to practice getting the swirls just right. But one thing I did learn...chilling the dough in between each step would help a lot. (Never head into the kitchen when your mind is someplace else!)
You can go to Toni's blog, Make Bake Celebrate and see what they're supposed to look like. So much more professional than mine; her swirls are PERFECTION. And she had sprinkles in her pantry. :) You can see her step by step photos too, which are an enormous help... makes it so much easier.
They were fun to make, truly atrocious colors, aren't they? And perfect for Halloween, even if they didn't turn out as great as Toni's. Imagine them with sprinkles all around the outside.
(Am I the only one who feels weird about using colored food gels? And that one swirl really does look black in the cookie, but the photo makes it look brown.)
Swirly Halloween Cookies
From Make Bake Celebrate
Ingredients:
Sugar cookie dough
Orange, black, green, and purple food coloring (use gel...it washes off your hands)
Sprinkles (!!!)
Parchment paper
Wax Paper
Lollipop sticks (optional if you'd like to turn them into cookie pops)
Method:
Step 1: Roll your cookie dough into a ball and then roll into a log.
Step 2: Cut into 4 equal parts.
Step 3: Roll each piece into a ball and create a dent with your thumb, put some food coloring in each. If your wondering about the dent this will help keep the coloring on the dough and not on your hands. As you work the dough press the uncolored dough inside and push, roll, and gently work the dough as it colors from the inside out. Once you get good enough you won't have a single spot of color on you. (I actually wore plastic gloves.)
Step 4: Begin to roll each color into grape size balls. Somewhere between nickel size, and quarter size. Take the time and make sure they are fairly similar in size. Not only will this give you a good mix of color it's going to keep your cookies about the same size.
Step 5: Next take one of each color and very gently roll it together. It will kind of look like a beach ball.
Step 6: After all that rolling I found my dough was getting soft and warm, not good for coiling. So stick them in the freezer for a minute of two. They will chill just a bit and become nice to work with again. About half way through rolling the balls you may notice they are getting very soft again, just pop them back in the freezer for a moment and you'll be back rolling.
While your waiting set up your work station. You'll need a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to bake on. Some wax paper to work on and sprinkles and a knife near by. Also, go ahead and preheat the oven to 350.
Step 7: To make the coil start out by gently rolling the ball between your palms and then place on the wax paper. Gently and evenly roll out the dough into a rope about 8 inches long. I do so by first starting to roll it out naturally with my hands facing front and then I turn one hand lengthwise to smooth out the bumps. See how the colors are all kind of straight below? Once your done give each end a gentle roll in the opposite direction to "twist" the rope reveling more colors. Particular I know but you want all the colors to come out.
Step 8: Start out by rolling in one end. If one end is thicker use that one.
Step 9: Now coil up the rest of the dough. I found it was easier to gently pick up the dough and allow it to drop around the center into a coil. Rolling the dough flat on the paper by moving the center around resulted in bumpy cookies. If your end is kind of funky or pinched due to rolling, simply cut off the very end to smooth it out.
Step 10: Now gently pick up the cookie by lifting the wax paper and flipping it onto your hand. Roll the sides into the bowl of sprinkles.
Step 11: Place on parchment lines baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. (Don't put them too close together as they spread.)
Not often do I make fritters of any kind, but these were a delight. I served three things at the Garden Club coffee along with apple cider and, of course, coffee. Mary's Cream Cheese Apple Cake, which you can see on the left in the photo, the fritters (towards the back on the right) and some cranberry orange biscuits, which are on the right in front.
I know, I'm supposed to be packing, but I did leave the dining and living rooms fairly open so I could host the group of 28 women. They were good sports as they were surrounded by packing boxes. (You can see some in the background on the right.)
Back to the menu: the biscuits, I thought, were boring and dry. Of course, biscuits are supposed to be somewhat dry and they did look tempting and had a nice strong orange taste, but no, I'm not making them again. I may post the recipe later, but I'm not overly enthused. Perhaps for a tea? To dip? Like a thin scone?
For certain I'll be posting Mary's (from One Perfect Bite) cake later because it was far and away the biggest hit, but I'll go with the fritter recipe today. Yum.
Even the photo says yum. It's just that fritters make such a mess, don't they? First the frying, and then the glaze dripped all over the counter, the floor and the next day I even found some on a drawer handle. It was worth it though. They're such fun to serve this time of year. I had some large panettone liners and they were perfect for serving.
Apple Cider Fritters
From The Family Kitchen, posted by Ole & Shain Olmanson
Ingredients:
1 cup apple cider
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 apple, peeled and finely diced
pinch of salt
oil for frying
For the glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons apple cider
Method:
In a small saucepan over medium heat, cook apple cider until it reduces down to 1/4 cup of syrup stirring occasionally. Set syrup aside. Mix together butter, sugar and egg until frothy. Stir in apple cider concentrate. In a medium bowl, sift flour and baking powder together. Form a well in the center and add in the milk, apple chunks and the egg mixture. Knead into a soft dough.
Heat the oil to 370 degrees F. Scoop dough using a small scoop or by pinching off small amounts and rolling into 1-1/2? balls. Add to oil and dry for 4 to 5 minutes until golden and cooked through on the inside. Remove from oil and drain on a wire rack and paper towels.
In a small bowl, mix together powdered sugar and apple cider until a glaze is formed. Dip warm donuts in the glaze and set aside for the glaze to set. Enjoy.
