Crumb topped apple pie

A few weeks back, my mom and I rode on the annual Boland, Iowa, bike ride and we were treated to pie at the finish. I picked the crumb topped apple pie and loved it so much I wanted to make it at home.

Pie after our Boland bike ride

I clipped a recipe for crumb topped apple pie from Taste of Home a couple years ago. I loved the back story behind the pie: The 80 year old pie baker from West Des Moines makes dozens of apple pies each fall for her son's business clients. Sounds like her recipe is a keeper!

My apple pie didn't turn out as pretty as the recipe photo, but it tastes terrific. I used MacIntosh apples from Center Grove Orchard near Cambridge, Iowa.

Click here for a link to the recipe, if you want to give it a try: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Crumb-Topped-Apple-Pie

Blue-ribbon pumpkin & pecan pies

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone!  I'm still full after our Thanksgiving feasting yesterday.  My husband and I stayed home again this year, and we made Thanksgiving dinner for ourselves.  Pretty much everything turned out really well this year, except for a new sweet potato recipe I tried in the slow cooker, so I won't be sharing that recipe with you all.

Our Thanksgiving meal, clockwise from bottom left: glazed sweet potatoes, homemade stuffing, turkey & gravy, and green bean casserole (my favorite!).

I also tried out a couple new pie recipes I found in one of my old Iowa State Fair cookbooks.  They both turned out pretty good. However, once again, I didn't bake the pecan pie long enough, and it didn't set and ended up runny.  I don't blame the recipe, however.  I just didn't give it enough time in the oven, but I needed the precious oven space for all the other side dishes I was making at the time.

Here are the two blue-ribbon pie recipes I tried this Thanksgiving.  Both were super-easy and delicious.  Enjoy!

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Harvest pumpkin pie

3 eggs, beaten
16-oz. can solid pack pumpkin
3/4 C. packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
12-oz. can evaporated milk
Pastry for single-crust 9-inch pie

Beat eggs lightly. Add pumpkin, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell. Bake in 425 degree oven 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake 40 to 50 minutes more. Cook on wire rack.

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Pecan pie

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 C. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 C. dark corn syrup
• 1/2 C. butter or margarine, melted
• 1 C. pecan halves
• Pastry for single-crust 9-inch pie

Beat egg slightly. Add sugar and salt; stir until dissolved. Stir in corn syrup and melted butter; mix well. Fold in pecans. Pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Cover edge of pie with foil. Bake in 350 degree oven 25 minutes. Remove foil; bake 25 minutes more or until knife inserted off center comes out clean. Cool on rack.

Gap in apple pie crust?

OK, this isn't the prettiest pie.  You'll just have to trust me when I say it was delicious. It was so good, I ate a slice for breakfast the next day!  But as you can see, there was a gap between the pie crust and the apple pie filling.  I stacked the apple slices so high they were tumbling off the pan before I placed the final crust.  But the filling still cooked down so much that there was a gap under the crust.

At first, I thought it was the variety of apples that caused the problem.  I bought the apples at the nearby Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge.  How cute is this farm store?!

The late freeze and summer drought have cut this year's apple crop, and not all the varieties are available yet.  I asked the orchard staff what was the best for baking pie.  They recommended that I use a mix of McIntosh apples and Gala apples (since the Gala apples were on sale).

When I saw the gap in the pie crust, I searched the Internet for an answer to why it happened.  Then I got the bright idea to call the Iowa State University Extension Answerline, which is staffed by home economists. And they answered my question right away.  Turns out, I needed to cook the apple pie filling before placing it in the pie.  They also recommended that next time, I try a different variety than Gala apples, which are actually better for eating than baking.  So glad I thought to call the Answerline!

Oh, and if you're looking for a basic apple pie recipe that's similar to the one I tried, here's a good one from Pillsbury.

Do you have any apple pie baking tips?  I'm always looking for advice in the kitchen.

Fresh-picked blueberry pie

I didn't have any plans this year for the July 4 holiday, and I read on Facebook that Berry Patch Farms in Nevada would be open in the morning for berry picking.  I've always wanted to pick blueberries there, so I got up early to pick berries!

It was a hot morning, but I was surprised that quite a few families were already there, even on a holiday.  I came home with two ice cream pails full of berries.

I ended up making blueberry jam (which didn't quite turn out, so I won't be sharing the recipe), and then used the leftover berries to make my favorite -- blueberry pie! (Again, my pies aren't the prettiest, but they sure taste good!)

I didn't really have a recipe when I made this blueberry pie.  I just used the chart on the back of the Minute Tapioca box that shows how many cups of fruit, sugar and tapioca to use when making different fruit pies.  (Have you ever noticed that chart on the back of the tapioca box?)  Kraft Foods, the maker of Minute Tapioca, also has this blueberry pie recipe that's very similar. The tapioca is a great pie-filling thickener -- although my picture above might not show that. My husband put an extra spoonful of pie filling next to the pie because he thought it was more photogenic. Ha!  I love that he takes an interest in my hobbies!

What's your favorite blueberry recipe? Are you a blueberry pie fan, or do you prefer another kind of pie?  Any pie is a good pie, if you ask me!

Traverse City eats

I enjoyed one night free of meetings on my recent trip to Traverse City, Michigan. When I learned that Traverse City is one of the foodie havens of the Midwest, I decided to search for the best treats that Michigan has to offer.

I got an early introduction to Michigan's bounty in the "swag bag" I received at the meeting.  How cool is the bottle of honey from Michigan State University! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take it home with me, because I couldn't carry liquids in my carry-on bag.  So I settled for taking this picture so I could remember it.

My first stop was the famous Grand Traverse Pie Company.  These restaurants are all over Michigan, but this is the original.

I ordered a slice of blueberry-cherry crumble pie to go (sorry for the lousy photo under the hotel room lighting) and a sugar cookie with the most amazing icing!

 I also didn't want to leave Michigan without some cherries. I stopped at Cherry Republic in downtown Traverse City and bought a few bags of dried cherries, including a bag of white chocolate covered cherries. This bag didn't last long when I brought it home for my husband! (Thankfully, cherries aren't a liquid and I can pack them in my carry-on. LOL!)

I also bought a bottle of cherry root beer for the road.  Don't you love the label?

As if I didn't get enough sweets, I couldn't resist stopping at this ice cream shop on Traverse Bay for a scoop of cherry-chocolate ice cream.  It was easily the best treat I found in Traverse City.  And I loved the lakeside view!

Oh, and one more treat for the road.  I heard good things about Pop-Kie's Chicago-style popcorn, so I picked up a bag of dill pickle flavor.  Sounds strange, but I loved it!

As you can see, I packed a lot of food-related sightseeing in just a short trip!  But it was all the more memorable for it.

Iowa recipes: Strawberry pie

Here it is!   I'm sharing with you the pie recipe I used to make my first-ever strawberry pie.  I was afraid that the pie filling would turn out runny, but it actually set up near perfectly.  And the Iowa-grown strawberries were so sweet in this pie!  You know how the strawberries at the grocery store can be kind of "hard" sometimes.  Well, these U-Pick strawberries were soft and super ripe.  This strawberry pie was exactly what I was craving for a spring dessert!

The pie filling set up perfectly; it wasn't runny or liquidy.

Fresh whipped cream is a necessity with strawberries.

I found this same strawberry pie recipe in several of my Iowa church cookbooks.  Enjoy!

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Iowa Strawberry Pie

• 1 baked pie shell
• 1-1/2 pints strawberries, cleaned

Glaze: 

• 3 T. cornstarch
• 1 C. sugar
• 1 C. water
• 3 T. corn syrup
• 1 small package strawberry jello

Mix cornstarch and sugar together, then add water and syrup. Boil and then add the strawberry Jell-O. Cool. Mix with berries and put in baked pie shell. Refrigerate.

Iowa recipes: Rhubarb custard pie

As you can see, I'm not that great at making pretty pies.  But I still love to bake them from scratch.  I found this recipe for rhubarb custard pies at my favorite grocery store, which offers copies of recipes featured on a local radio program.  I also found a similar recipe in one of my favorite church cookbooks.  I decided to merge the two recipes into a pie that's closer to my taste.  You can bake this pie with one crust, but I decided to use two crusts. 

The pie turned out perfect on my first attempt, and I think it tastes even better the next day, once the rhubarb has "mellowed" and isn't so tart.  If you're looking for an easy, old-fashioned rhubarb pie recipe, then this is the one to try.  Enjoy!

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Rhubarb custard pie

Beat slightly - 3 eggs

Add 3 Tbsp. milk

Mix and stir in: 2 C. sugar, 1/4 C. flour, 3/4 tsp. nutmeg

Mix in 4 C. cut rhubarb

Pour into 9 inch pie crust.  Dot with 1 Tbsp. butter. (Top with another crust, if you choose.)  Bake at 400 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes until nicely browned.

Iowa recipes: Blue-ribbon pie crust

I'm convinced that some people have inherited a gene that makes them a natural in the kitchen.  My husband can throw together a bunch of ingredients from the cupboard and come up with a 4-star meal.  Yet almost everything I cook turns out bland and boring.  That's why I like baking.  Just follow the recipe, and it will likely turn out great.

But I've always struggled with pie crust.  I've tried all kinds of recipes -- using lard, butter, shortening or a combination of these, and I've even taken cooking classes to learn how to make pie crust.  Yet when I get home, I can never get the crust to turn out.  It's either too crumbly, or too wet.  I've tried to keep my ingredients in the freezer to keep them as cold as possible (as recommended by Martha Stewart).  I've tried pastry blenders, the food processor and the two-knife method to cut the butter or shortening into the flour.

And then there's the waiting.  Most recipes call for refrigerating the dough for a couple hours or overnight.  I don't have that kind of time to wait.  When I want pie, I want it now!

A few years ago, I visited a farm for a luncheon, and the wife served us the best apple pie.  She said it was easy to make the crust -- she just "eyeballed it" by mixing vegetable oil with flour. Vegetable oil?  I had to find that recipe.

Then I found my new favorite pie crust recipe.  It was printed in several Iowa State Fair Cookbooks. It was a recipe from Louise Piper, an Iowan who is famous for her blue-ribbon pies.  It's a four-ingredient pie crust recipe that doesn't require refrigeration.  Just mix it up, roll it out between two sheets of wax paper (no sticking to the rolling pin!) and fit it on the pie pan.  This pie crust is easier to mix up than a batch of cookies!

I've got nothing against store-bought pie crusts, by the way.  But it's fun to impress your family and friends with a pie made from scratch.  Plus, a home-baked pie always tastes better because of the work you put into it. 

Give this pie crust recipe a try for Thanksgiving or year round.  Enjoy!

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Blue-Ribbon Pie Crust

From Iowa State Fair Cookbook, submitted by Louise Piper of Rolfe

• 2 C. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 C. cold milk
• 1/2 C. vegetable oil

Stir together flour and salt.  Pour milk into oil; do not stir.  Add liquid to flour mixture; stir well.  Shape mixture into two balls.  If mixture is too dry and crumbly, add 1 to 2 Tablespoons more oil.  Roll each ball out ball out between two sheets of waxed paper.

Iowa Recipes: Classic Peach Pie

I'm so fortunate to live within a short drive of a couple apple orchards.  One of my favorites, Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge, sends out a weekly newsletter during its fall apple season.  From the orchard's email newsletter, I learned that the farm was offering home-grown peaches for the first time this August.  I couldn't resist stopping by the orchard to buy a few peaches.

Iowa-grown peaches are a bit of a rarity.  From what I've heard, peach trees grow best in southern Iowa, right along the Missouri border.  But there are a few peach varieties that can handle the cold winters better.  The peaches available at Center Grove Orchard were smaller than the grocery-store variety.  But they were very sweet and good for eating.  I decided to bake the peaches into a pie.

Pretty peaches from Center Grove Orchard

The Iowa-grown peaches were tiny, even smaller than a medium-size apple.

 I'm still trying to improve my pie-making skills.  One of my biggest challenges is trying to avoid a "runny" fruit filling.  King Arthur Flour's "Baking Sheet" newsletter, which I subscribe to, recently had a few tips on using different thickeners in pie fillings.  I actually prefer to use tapioca as a thickener.  I like the texture of the little beads of tapioca, although usually they aren't too noticeable.  King Arthur Flour recommends using 1 tablespoon of tapioca for every 1 cup of fruit.

I also followed the advice from the Kitchn and let the peaches sit in sugar for 15 minutes, then drained off some of the juice.

Well, the pie turned out great!  It definitely wasn't soggy, but I may have added too much tapioca because the pie filling was "solid."  It had a Jello-like texture, although that made it easier to slice.

Not the prettiest pie, but at least it looks homemade.

The Iowa peaches were perfect for pie.  Here's an easy recipe I found in an old Iowa State Fair cookbook.  Give it a try next summer when peaches are in season. If you can find Iowa-grown peaches, even better!

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Classic Peach Pie

• 4 to 5 C. Iowa-grown, tree-ripened peaches, sliced
• 1-1/4 C. sugar
• 3 T. tapioca or cornstarch
• Dash of salt
• 1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 T. butter or margarine
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• Pastry for double-crust 9-inch pie

Combine peaches, sugar, tapioca or cornstarch, salt and lemon juice.  Set aside 15 minutes.  Spoon into pastry-lined pie pan.  Dot with butter or margarine and sprinkle cinnamon on top.  Cover with top crust or lattice top.  Cut slits in crust for steam to escape.  Bake in 400 degree oven 15 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for an additional 40 minutes, or until golden brown and filling is bubbly.  Cool 1 hour before serving.

Iowa recipes: Cherry pie

About a month ago (Yikes! Where has the summer gone?), I visited Berry Patch Farm in Nevada, Iowa, first thing in the morning to pick pie cherries.  I wasn't sure if there would be many left.  Cherry season is short on their farm.  Usually, the cherries are gone in a little over a week's time.  I didn't have time to visit their farm until the weekend, which was about five days after their U-Pick cherry season opened.  And it turned out to be slim pickings.  I had to pick cherries from my tip-toes, since another woman was "hogging" the one ladder in the orchard, and I didn't want to be rude and bother her.  After a lot of reaching and stretching, I finally came home with enough cherries to make a pie.

Aren't these cherries beauties?

On my way home from the farm, I stopped at the Cook's Emporium in Ames (my favorite kitchen supply shop in central Iowa) and found a cherry pitter.  Last year, I pitted cherries with the tip of a knife, and it took forever!  I'm so glad I bought this little pitter for about $15.  It cut like 20 minutes off the cherry prep time!

Place the cherry like so...

And out goes the pit!  Easy!

The cherry pie turned out wonderful!  By far my favorite pie, and by far worth the effort of picking cherries on my tiptoes in the heat.  I'm still not great at making my pies "pretty," but they sure taste good!

A couple days after I baked this pie, Berry Patch Farm put a recipe on their Facebook page for freezer cherry pie filling.  I'm totally going to try this next year.  Would love to have all the ingredients ready to make sour-cherry pie for the holidays.

Here's the recipe, as it appears on their Facebook page:

Pie filling recipe: 3 cups cherries,1 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, dash of almond flavoring, mix & put in plastic freezer bag. Handy for pies later !  (Just mix the ingredients in the bag and pop in freezer.  No need to pre-cook.)

Strawberry rhubarb pie

Almost a month ago (I can't believe it's been that long), I headed out to Berry Patch Farms in Nevada on the first Saturday morning when they offered ready-to-pick strawberries.  I showed up right at their opening at 8 a.m., thinking that I was arriving way too early.  To my surprise, there were already about 30 people out in one of their strawberry patches!

At first, I was directed to a row in the field that didn't have many ripe berries for the picking.  I was a little disappointed.  But when I walked back towards the beginning rows of the patch, I discovered all these berries that other folks neglected for some reason.  (I also stepped on quite a few half-chewed up strawberry stems.  Eww! Can't people wait to eat the berries till they get home?)

Pretty soon, I filled up a box with berries.  I ended up picking 9 pounds of strawberries!  I could have stayed and picked more, but I've learned from experience that one box is enough, unless I want to be making strawberry jam for the next three days straight.

Of course, I made a couple batches of jam.  But I really wanted to make a pie, too.  And my favorite pie is strawberry-rhubarb.  Last year, I didn't have much luck with strawberry-rhubarb pie.  The pie filling was way too runny.  But this year, I followed a tip I discovered on the Kitchn website that suggested draining the juice off the berries after they've sat in sugar for 15 minutes.  It sounded a little strange, but I decided to give it a try.  And guess what?  My pie turned out perfect!  No runny filling!

(I'm still not great at making "pretty" pies. But trust me, they taste good!)

I also decided to try out one of the cute metal pie pans I found at an antique store.  I was hesitant to use them for fear I would scratch them up.  But then I pulled the pan out of cupboard and realized that it was already dinged up.  These pans were meant to be used!  And they are the perfect size.  The only pans I can find at the local stores are 10-inch or deep-dish pie pans. Most pie recipes are for a 9-inch pie.

Here's the recipe for the strawberry-rhubarb pie.  I know it's a little late to pick strawberries, but I found some beautiful California strawberries on sale this weekend.  It's the next best thing to locally grown.

Enjoy!

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Strawberry rhubarb pie
From Iowa State Fair cookbook

• 1-1/4 C. sugar
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2 T. instant tapioca
• 1 T. strawberry gelatin
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 C. fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and halved
• 3 C. fresh, chopped rhubarb
• 1 T. butter or margarine
• Pastry for double-crust 9-inch pie
• Milk
• Sugar, for sprinkling

In a large bowl, combine sugar, salt, tapioca, gelatin and cinnamon.  Add fruit and let rest 15 minutes, or until tapioca softens.  Pour all into pastry-lined pie pan.  Dot with butter.  Cover with vented top crust.  Flute edges.  Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar.  Use pie bands or foil to prevent dark edges.  Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Reduce heat to 350 degree; bake an additional 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown.