Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [65]
APPLESAUCE
Commercial applesauce is a hospital staple, good for people who are sick or toothless. Aromatic and spicy, homemade applesauce is like pie without crust.
Make it or buy it? Both. My mother used to can applesauce in the fall for us to eat year-round, and it’s the noble thing to do. But I am not so industrious. I make small batches once or twice in the fall when we have too many apples, and I buy it (or don’t eat it) the rest of the year.
Hassle: Peeling apples
Cost comparison: If you have your own apple tree, making applesauce is practically free. Making 5 cups of applesauce cost me less than $0.50. If you buy apples, it costs slightly more to make your own applesauce than to buy a jar of Mott’s.
4 pounds apples
½ to ¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1. Peel, core, and slice the apples. Place in a saucepan with enough water to just about cover. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir in ½ cup sugar.
2. Simmer the apples for about 25 minutes, until they are very soft. Stay close; if the liquid evaporates, the applesauce will quickly scorch. If necessary, add a splash more water.
3. Mash. If you want the applesauce extremely smooth, run it through a food processor or food mill. I like mine chunky. Add cinnamon and more sugar to taste. Store in the refrigerator for a week. For longer storage, freeze.
Makes 5 cups
APPLE CRISP PIE
Homemade is the point of pie. While it’s acceptable to eat pie in a café called Grand-mom’s where you can actually see an old woman in an apron—if she has a bun even better—to buy pie from a supermarket is like ordering salad in a barbecue shack. If you’re going to bring home dessert from Stop & Shop, bring home Klondike bars.
My father and sister have always contended that crisp is easier and tastes better than pie, and they’re right, but I remain staunchly pro pie. Crisp doesn’t signify the way pie does. Sukey doesn’t give Johnny Tremain a piece of apple crisp, she gives him a piece of pie. Early in her marriage, Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn’t ruin a crisp by forgetting to add sugar, she ruins a pie. Mildred Pierce doesn’t make her fortune selling crisps.
This pie is really two desserts in one, an overstuffed hybrid of crisp and pie that I bake to please everyone in my family. There’s a short bottom crust that establishes it as a pie, but the top sags under the crunchy streusel of a crisp.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Again with the apple peeling
Cost comparison: If you have an apple tree, baking this pie costs about $3.00. If you buy apples—Melrose work well, if you can find them, but so would Gala or Gravenstein—you will pay about $8.00 to bake this pie. Whether from the in-house bakery or the freezer, a streusel-topped apple pie at Safeway costs just under $9.00.
About 8 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ½-inch chunks (about 6 cups)
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (recipe follows)
STREUSEL
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar, packed
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt
12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Toss the apples with the sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Scrape into the pie shell, being sure to capture all the juices that cling to the bowl.
3. Mix the streusel ingredients with the paddle attachment of a mixer, with your fingers, or with a pastry cutter, until clumpy. Heap on top of the apples. This will seem like a lot of streusel, but try to pack it all on there. You can do it.
4. Place the pie on a cookie sheet and put the cookie sheet in the oven. Do not skip this step unless you enjoy cleaning the oven. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the pie is bubbling and the apples yield easily when pierced with the