Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie

Flaky, no fail pie crust? Challenge accepted.

I've never been great at making pies and this would be my first made-from-scratch pie without the help of a friend or family member. I'm glad it's a classic cinnamon apple pie, can't mess that up, can I? The instructions look easy enough.

Using a food processor, I combined 2 cups of all-purpose flour and 3/4 teaspoon of salt. The Crisco all vegetable shortening is already measured out into one cup.

Just toss that bad boy into the food processor with the flour. Give is a few quick pulses.

Stop when it resembles coarse crumbs. You're at a good place here.

Beat 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of cold water, and 1 tablespoon of vinegar together to blend. Pour this mixture into the crumbs. Again, give the food processor a few pulses until everything comes together. The dough is now moistened and ready to scoop out.

Shape the dough into a disc shape, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes (of you can do this ahead of time and chill it overnight).

Can I say how much I love my apple peeler and corer? Made the job of slicing 8 Golden Delicious apples a lot easier!

Place the apples in a large bowl. Throw in 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt and nutmeg.

Give everything a good toss.

Take the chilled dough out of the fridge and roll it on to a floured surface. You'll need it to be 2 inches wider than your pie dish to accommodate the sides.

Gently and carefully place the dough into your pie dish. Place cinnamon apple filling onto the bottom pie crust. Spread and pack it down firmly. It's okay if the middle is slightly higher, the filling will shrink when it bakes. Place the remaining dough on top of the pie and brush with a beaten egg yolk. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake on the bottom rack of your oven at 425F for 20 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to 325°F. and bake for about 60 to 65 minutes. The crust should be golden and the filling will be bubbly.

What do you think? I think it is picture perfect! Fine, my pie decorating skills and trimming could use some work, but it looks good! I'm quite proud of it! And not only does it look good, the crust is flaky and the filling is delicious. A successful pie made in the afternoon makes for a great after dinner dessert.

CRISCO® No Fail Pie Crust
From Crisco®
For one double-crust pie or two 9” (23 cm) pie shells

2 cups (500 ml) of Robin Hood® Original All Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoons (4 ml) of salt
1 cup (250 ml) of Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
1 egg
2 tablespoons (30 ml) of cold water
1 tablespoon (15 ml) of white vinegar

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the shortening. Using a pastry blender, cut shortening into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.
2. In a small bowl, beat together the egg, water and vinegar. Add to the flour mixture and stir with a fork until moistened.
3. Divide the dough into 2 pieces and shape into a 4" disk. Wrap each with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. This will make it easier to roll out the dough.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out on disc of dough into an 11 inch circle. Carefully transfer to a lightly greased 9" pie plate. Fill with Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie Filling (recipe below).
5. Roll out second disc of dough to an 11 inch circle. Cover the pie with the rolled out dough. Tuck the edges under and pinch to seal. Flute the edges. Bake according to directions for the filling.

Classic Cinnamon Apple Pie
Adapted from Canadian Living

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
Portion Size: 10 to 12

Filling:
8 firm cooking apples (such as Golden Delicious)
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch each salt and nutmeg
2 tablespoon of unsalted butter, softened
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon of coarse sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Peel and core the apples. Cut into 1/4" slices and put in a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Sprinkle over apples. Toss the apples so all are coated with the sugar mixture.
4. Transfer apples to the prepared pie shell. Pack the apples down and dot with butter. Top with the second circle of dough. Tuck the edges under and pinch to seal. Flute the edges of the pie dough.
5. Whisk the egg yolk and brush on top of the pie. Sprinkle the sugar on top. Cut steam vents in the top.
6. Bake on the bottom rack for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and bake until the bottom is golden and the filling is bubbly, about 60-65 minutes. Allow to cool on rack.

And now the contest:
Snap a photo of your favourite pie. Share it using #CLEasyAsPie and you could win a $4,000 baking experience! For more details, visit Canadianliving.com/easyaspie!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Canadian Living and Crisco. I received compensation for it. There was no requirement to produce a positive review of this recipe. All opinions are our own.

Fried Chicken at Daishō

Daishō

190 University Avenue, 3rd Floor

Toronto, ON M5H 0A3

At last, the highly anticipated wait is now over, Momofuku is in Toronto! The city didn't just get one, but four clearly defined establishments. If you've been to the ones in New York City, you'll recognize that the only overlap is the Noodle Bar. And we don't have any Momofuku Milk Bars here ... yet?

So here's the quick overview: Noodle Bar serves the ramen, Nikai is a bar and lounge, Daishō serves the large format meals, and Shōtō is for the tasting menu.

When we were in New York, Howard and I never had the chance to try the large format meals, so we were very excited for Daishō to open here. This is probably the first of many meals there.

For any of the large format meals, you have to make reservations in advance. This wasn't too difficult with their online reservation system. We managed to book a Saturday for our group of six to have the fried chicken dinner.

Friendly hostesses greeted us and we were led to our seats at the bar. We were a little disappointed we didn't get a table, as the stools don't make for comfortable seating for a family style meal (especially for those of us who are a foot shorter than the guys, it was harder to reach the foot rest). Immediately, we were all given glasses of water (nice!) and two plates of pickled cucumbers to start.

Howard's parents actually make great pickled cucumber, so we had that to compare it with. Because Daishō didn't peel some of the cucumber skin off, there were parts that were really bitter. Overall they were good, we always enjoy cucumbers with sesame oil, vinegar, and red chili flakes, but if I had to choose, I'd pick the ones Howard's parents make.

The fried chicken meal includes two whole fried chickens. I'm telling you, it is quite impressive when they bring it out. The size of the pile of wings and drumsticks is enough to make you start salivating. The skin of the chicken is crispy and nicely seasoned. However, if you want flavour for the meat, you'll need to dip it in the ginger scallion sauce or jalapeño garlic sauce.

We are also given thin scallion pancakes, shaved radishes, herbs, and a jar of pickled vegetables.

Our server had recommended we order some dishes to go with the chicken. His personal favourite were the brussels sprouts, but no one in our party was a fan of them! Instead we decided to order the carrots with birch syrup, malt, and black almond; cabbage with pork, pine nuts, and pok pok vinegar; and the nugget potatoes with fermented black bean, chili, and orange.

Unlike the large portions of chicken, the vegetables came in a smaller portion. The carrots were plated beautifully, everyone got a taste of it since there were so few. The cabbages received split reviews from our table. Some didn't like it, others found it interesting, and I, rather enjoyed the flavour from the charred cabbages. The nugget potatoes were good, but not rave worthy.

Service at Daishō is ... efficient. Our glasses of water were always refilled, plates and cutlery were swiftly collected. Even though we were still working on the pickled cucumbers, they were also suddenly taken away. While we appreciated the fact that they kept the tables tidy and made room for all our dishes and plates, it was disheartening to have unfinished food thrown away.

We ordered two of the three desserts on the menu. While the Sugar Pie sounds amazing, we were warned that it was a big pie. Instead, we tried Apples with cedar, miellat, and cashew (pictured above) and Chocolate with five different textures (pictured below).

The group consensus favoured the chocolate dessert. The chocolate cubes were surprisingly light, cold, and had quite a unique texture. Paired with a spoonful of everything else on the plate, it was delicious.

Would we go back for the fried chicken meal? Probably not. Would we go back to Daishō? Yes, we still want to try the other large format dinners like the bo ssäm, porchetta, beef short rib, and if we save up for it, the beef ribeye.

Apple Galette and Tarts

It was my mom's birthday weekend, so I asked her what kind of birthday cake she would like. She said "apple pie." Despite my attempts to persuade her towards a cake, I decided to make her pie. I guess we can be just as celebratory with pie...

Originally, I was thinking of using puff pastry, but I couldn't find any at my closest grocery store. Back home, I went online and realized that I needed to go to a grocery store with President's Choice products! Which I found amusing as I was making these birthday treats with my friend who works at said grocery store. Yes Laura, if you're reading this. I've learnt my lesson, I should always go to Loblaws.

I ended up getting Pillsbury's refrigerated pie crusts. I know, I wasn't making the crust from scratch and I'm thankful for that choice. I don't think it would have turned out well on this extremely hot day.

The store-brought pie crusts were extremely easy to use. We defrosted them for 15 minutes and rolled them out. The pie crusts come in two sheets, for the first one, we made tarts. Using a circle cookie-cutter, we placed the dough into six mini tart pans (they look like this). You can combine all the scraps and roll them out again. For the second sheet, we used it to make the galette. Place the dough on a sheet of parchment paper.

Apple Galette and Tart Filling
Recipe from Essential Pepin 
(Jacques Pépin had his own dough recipe that was omitted here.)

4 Red Delicious apples
2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F).
2. Peel, halve, and core the apples. Carefully slice the apples to 1/4-inch-thick.
3. Arranged the sliced apples on the dough. For the galette, keeping them within 1-inch of the edges and slightly overlapping. For the tarts, arrange them with the peeled side out.
4. Drizzle the honey over the sliced apples.
5. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle on top of the honeyed apples.
6. Cut the butter into tiny cubes and dot them over the apples.
7. For the galette, gently fold the edges inwards. You'll noticed that I did this before step four - oops!
8. Bake for an hour or until the crust is brown and crisp. The apples should be tender.
9. Serve the galette and tarts at room temperature. Preferably with ice cream.

Step 3 - arrange the sliced apples.

Step four - drizzling honey over the apples.

Step 5 - sprinkling the cinnamon sugar.

Looking delicious out of the oven!

Instead of vanilla, try pairing your apple tarts with maple and walnut ice cream.

Caramelized-Apple Crêpes

Ooo I love spontaneous posts! After yoga this morning, I was going to attempt an omelet in the style of Jacques Pépin for brunch. I had watched his video and thought I could practice some of his techniques.

Little did I know that when I stepped into the kitchen, there would be a huge bowl of apple slices. My mom was in her make-four-apple-pies mode! I remembered seeing the caramelized-apple crêpes recipe beside the pancake ones and decided to test it out instead.

Caramelized-Apple Crêpes
Recipe adapted from Gale Gand's Brunch!
(Makes about 4 crêpes)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup of milk

1/4 teaspoon of salt

9 teaspoons of sugar

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons of unsalted butter

1 McIntosh apple, thinly sliced

1. Whisk the eggs and milk (Gale recommends using whole milk, but I only had 2% in the fridge) together in a bowl.
2. Whisk in the salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and flour until incorporated. Set aside. (Gale recommends setting it aside for 30 minutes, I basically used the batter once my apples were caramelized.)
3. Using a nonstick 8-inch skillet, melt 1 teaspoon of the butter over medium heat. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of sugar and cook until it reaches an amber colour.
4. Add your apple slices to the pan. (Gale's recipe calls for 3 Granny Smith or Honey Crisp apples slices - a total of 2 whole apples. I only had McIntosh apples and covered the whole bottom of the skillet with the slices.) Cook the apples until they are golden brown on the edges. I also flipped my apples.
5. Pour (I used a ladle, it is approximately 1/4 cup) the batter over the apple slices. Lift and swirl the pan so that the batter covers all the apples and reaches the edges of your skillet.
6. Let it cook until the underside is brown. Use your spatula to flip the crêpe and cook the other side until it is slightly brown.
7. Transfer the crêpe to a platter (Gale recommends you keep it warm in a 200°F or 90°C oven).
8. Repeat the process from step 3 to make three more crêpes.
9. Serve with lemon juice and a dusting of confectioners' sugar. My mom and I both liked the addition of the lemon juice.

Don't you like it when the light is able to go through your thin crêpes?

I have never caramelized apples before, I highly recommend it. It was fun and it smelled so good!

Iron Cupcake: Earth - Winter Warm Up

I am back with another Iron Cupcake: Earth entry! This month's challenge is Winter Warm Up, meaning anything that warms you up during a cold winter. For me, that would be an oven baking something nostalgic like cupcakes and apple pies...

Hold on, what about apple cupcakes? I remembered seeing an apple cake on smitten kitchen that looked very "give-me-a-slice-right-now!"

This was a daring experiment for me, since Deb baked hers in a tube pan, so I learned that some things don't translate well in other formats... One more thing, I'm sorry for the poor photo quality! It was a gloomy winter day and without sunlight, my photos simply... well you can see for yourself:

Apple chunks and cinnamon!

Mmm, don't you love smooth batter?

I tried two different apple placements:
Left: Apple chunks on the bottom
Right: Apple chunks on the top

Top-half and bottom-half!

The winner! Apple chunks on the bottom make for a much neater cupcake. Plus, after cooling, the cupcakes with the apple chunks on top began to sank. But, if you like how the apple chunks look on top, I would try and put less batter in your cupcake liner?

Apple Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from smitten kitchen
(Makes about 28 regular cupcakes)

3 apples
1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
---
2 3/4 cups of sifted flour
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of vegetable oil
2 cups of brown sugar
1/4 cup of orange/passion fruit/peach juice (I didn't have plain orange juice)
2 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
4 large eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and have all ingredients at room temperature. Also have your cupcake liners ready.
   
2. Core and chop the apples into chunks. I kept the skin on the apple, but you can peel yours if you prefer to. Add in the cinnamon and brown sugar. Stir to evenly distribute the cinnamon and sugar on the apple chunks.
   
3. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl.
   
4. Using an electric mixer, whisk the oil, juice, sugar, and vanilla extract together.
   
5. Add the dry ingredients in two parts.
6. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix until the batter is combined.
7. Evenly distribute the apple chunks, place them in the bottom of your cupcake liners.
8. Pour the batter over the apple chunks, filling the liners about 3/4 full.
9. Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

I attempted a casual nutmeg buttercream. It did not turn out very well, therefore I won't be posting that bad recipe!

Iron Cupcake: Earth voting takes place HERE between January 28th to February 3rd. The winner will receive the awesome Prize-Pack:

• The Demy™ by Key Ingredient
• Hello, Cupcake by Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Bella Cupcake Couture
• Cupcake Stackers by Gourmac
• The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! by Anne Byrn
• Beautiful Baking Liners by Vestli House
• Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Bakery & Cupcakey Supply

You can also join in on the fun yourself! Click here to learn more about Iron Cupcake: Earth.

Verdict? Sweet and delicious!

How: Hedgehog Cupcake Set

How to make our little Hedgehog Cupcake Set!

1. Bake 9 cupcakes of your choice. You can do 12 or any number, but we think that the square-shaped setup is cute.
2. Gather some tools. Here, in the photo below we have: some brown jimmies/sprinkles, a stitching tool, a circle shape cutter, a veining tool, a tiny heart cutter, and leaf cutter. Not pictured, but will be needed are: rolled fondant, a roller, gel paste, toothpicks, a utility knife, a tiny circle cutter, and a practice mat.
   
   
3. Let your cupcakes cool. Make some buttercream or frosting of your choice. Dab a good amount onto your cupcake.
   
   
4. Using a metal spatula, smooth out the buttercream into a flat or dome shape. It doesn't have to be perfect, since it will be covered and smoothed again with fondant.
   
   This will do!
   
   
   
5. Next, using your gel paste, dye a small ball of fondant green, a large ball of fondant sky blue, another small piece of fondant red, a medium sized piece brown, and a tiny piece dark brown.
   Note: To dye fondant, you simply use a clean toothpick, dab it in the gel and then poke it into the fondant. Never double dip your toothpick into the gel. Always use a clean one. Next, you knead the fondant until the colour is consistent throughout. If you happen to have pre-coloured fondant, that is even easier and this part is basically done for you!
   
6. Roll the green fondant onto your practice board (or workspace). Cut out 7 little leaves. Imprint a simple line through the leaf with the veining tool.
   
   
7. Roll the red fondant and cut out 2 tiny hearts and 2 tiny circles. Use the veining tool to create a dimple at the top and bottom of the circles so that they resemble apples. Then, I pushed a brown sprinkle into the fondant to create the apple stem.
   
   
8. Roll out the brown fondant and using your utility knife, cut out 2 hedgehogs. I know this part is the trickiest part because it is hard to freehand shapes. Especially on soft fondant. I find that it becomes easier to work with if you let the fondant harden for a tiny bit, but not too hard that it crumbles! Don't forget to add the tiny fondant legs! I took tiny pieces of fondant and rolled them into small cylinder shapes.
   
9. Find a small brown sprinkle and use that for the hedgehog's eye. I simply push it in, embedding the sprinkle into the fondant.
   
   
10. Using the thinner side of the veining tool, softly press little dashes onto the hedgehog's body. This will create the spines. Let all the decorations sit on icing sugar to dry.
    
11. Next, roll the blue fondant and cut out 9 circles.
    
12. Using the stitching tool, carefully create a "path" on the fondant. Watch your turns! Try to plan out your path so that they connect when placed in a set.
    
    
13. Finally, attach all the leaves, apples, hearts, and hedgehogs onto the 9 blue circles. The last step is to place the decorated fondant pieces on top of your delicious cupcake!
    

Step back, and enjoy your handiwork!