Emeril's Apple and Cranberry Crisp

If you read our other blog, you'll have seen that there were 20 people at my Mother's house for Thanksgiving this year. With so many people expected, the dinner turned into a kind of potluck and my job was to bring a dessert.

I've never been afraid of baking, but that's probably because I have fond memories of my Mom baking all fall so that she could offer her guests a wide assortment of things once Christmas came. I saw a comment on one of my other posts that one of my five faithful readers is a bit apprehensive about baking, which seems to be a common sentiment... I don't think Rachel Ray can make it through one of her shows without telling the audience that she can't bake. There's definitely some issues that you run into with baking that don't come up in cooking... you have to be a lot more exact with your measurements and the proportions of the ingredients, and it's a lot more difficult to fix something that went wrong after it's supposedly "done".

So in order to help out my faithful readers, I'm going to post some easy baking recipes that are popular in our house...

For the filling:

Butter for the baking dish
2 1/2 to 3 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and cut into a 1/2 inch dice (I used a combination of Granny Smith and Fuji)
12 ounces cranberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest, plus 1 tablespoon orange juice

For the Crisp Topping:

6 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup rolled oats (old-fashioned)
3/4 cup light-brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and butter a 9-by-13 baking dish.

In a large bowl, combine apples, cranberries, sugar, flour, vanilla, and orange zest and juice. Set aside.

In another large bowl, combine butter cut into small pieces, flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Using an electric mixer, beat on low until coarse crumbs form.

Transfer filling to baking dish and cover with topping.

Bake until topping is browned and juices are thick and bubbling around edges, 55 to 60 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Adapted from: Everday Food, October 2009

Coming Soon: Southwest Tuna Noodle Casserole

Raspberry Chocolate Cupcakes

Cooking for me is sometimes like those choose your own adventure books from back in the day... I never seem to end up quite where I thought I was going to. I had elaborate plans to fill these cupcakes with a raspberry chocolate ganache to make them extra fancy, but due to my son I didn't really have time for all that. So, instead, I topped them with a chocolate buttercream frosting and called them good... I didn't get any complaints.

Christie's sister Heidi was in town for her birthday to do some shopping with a friend, so I thought I'd make something easy instead of a regular cake... but those that know me, know that nothing I produce in my kitchen is ever "easy". Even if it's just mac and cheese or something of that nature, it always turns out to be some big production... mac and cheese is good, but mac and cheese with three different cheeses and some nice smoked bacon is better.

Anyhow, these cupcakes turned out nicely and could easily be passed off as a muffin if served without any frosting... but I'm always looking for a reason to add some more chocolate to my diet. I'll have to make them again sometime when I've got the time to make them as I had intended, but until then the recipe is as follows...

For the Cupcakes:

1 cup butter (room temperature)
1 2/3 cups sugar
4 eggs separated (room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1 15 Oz. can of raspberries in heavy syrup (such as Oregon Fruit brand) strained and juice reserved (approx. 2/3 cup juice).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line muffin tins. Recipe makes about 3 dozen cupcakes.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy (about 4 or 5 minutes). Add two egg yolks and mix for an additional minute. Add remaining egg yolks and mix for an additional minute.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, combine milk, vanilla and raspberry juice. Alternate between adding dry ingredients and liquid ingredients to the butter mixture, a little bit at a time.

In small bowl, beat egg whites on high until stiff peaks form. With a rubber spatula, add about 1/2 cup of the egg whites to the mixture and fold in gently, to separate and lighten the batter. Add remaining egg whites and fold in gently until no white streaks are present.

Fold in raspberries.

Fill baking cups 2/3 to 3/4 full and bake for approximately 18 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test. Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes, finish cooling on a rack.

For the Frosting:

6 tbsp. butter
1 cup powered sugar
2 tsp. cocoa
2 to 3 tbsp. milk

1. Cream butter. 2. Combine sugar and cocoa. 3. Add sugar and cocoa mixture to butter 4. Add milk to and butter mixture. Start with 2 tbsp. of milk and if it's too thick add another tbsp. of milk.

Adapted from: Tofu and Cupcakes, December 2008

Coming Soon: Emeril's Apple and Cranberry Crisp