Friday, October 25, 2013

Apple Weekend

You wouldn't think that a half bushel is very many apples...it didn't look like that many.  But I made apple everything last weekend and I still have apples left over.

It all started with a trip to Van Zandt's Orchards.  I felt like I had kind of waited late in the season and was afraid I might have missed the opportunity to get apples.  But when I got there, they still had plenty.  The ones that looked the best to me were the Blushing Wine, which I had never heard of before, but they were definitely pretty.

So when I got home, I knew that I didn't have time to do anything big with them, but I did feel like I needed to make "something" with apples for dessert.  After checking my pantry and fridge, I found a can of crescent rolls and decided that I could whip up a quick version of apple turnovers.
 I started out by peeling coring and slicing 2 apples into 8 wedges each.  I used an apple slicer, but a knife works just as well.
 Next, I put the apples in a small bowl with a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice, just to keep the apples from turning dark
 The next step was to mix 1/4 cup of Splenda with a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon in a small bowl.  After separating the crescent rolls into 8 triangles, I smeared a very light amount of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter onto the dough and then sprinkled each with 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon/Splenda mixture.
 I layed two apple slices on each triangle and rolled it up.  I sprayed a cookie sheet and set each turn over on the sheet, spacing them apart.
 Then, I sprinkled the top with an additional 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon/Splenda mixture.  I baked them for the time recommended on the crescent roll package; 375 degrees for about 12-13 minutes.








I know that I have mentioned in the past that I have not found a great powdered sugar recipe; and for things that call for large amounts of powdered sugar, that is true.  However, if you are just needing a small amount of powdered sugar, here is a recipe that you mix up and keep and in your pantry.

  • 1 c. nonfat dry milk
  • 1 c. cornstarch
  • 2/3 c. Splenda
Mix in a food processor and keep in a zip bag in your pantry.

Lastly, I just mixed up a few tablespoons of powdered sugar substitute with a teaspoon or so of milk and stirred to make a glaze consistency.  This is one of those things that is really a trial and error.  It doesn't take much liquid to turn powdered sugar into a glaze, so just add a few drops at a time.  Add more if you need to.  If it gets too runny, just add a little more powdered sugar.   Drizzle the glaze over those hot-out-of-the-oven turnovers and...ENJOY this  No Sugar Added   dessert!!

On Saturday, I put the day aside to make some apple cider and apple butter.  Some great sounding recipes had come across my Facebook page and I had decided that I wanted to give some of these a try and see how I could do them using the sugar substitutes.

The recipe for Apple Butter I had decided to try was for a recipe that you make in the crock pot.  That sounded appealing because I thought that I would haven't be standing over it all day stirring; and I was correct.  This recipe came from  skinnytaste.com  This recipe below has been adjusted for the Splenda Blend brown sugar.  Because of the blend, this is a  Low-Sugar  recipe:

12 apples; peeled, cored and chopped
1 c. Splenda
1/2 c. Splenda Blend, brown sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. allspice
1/4 t. nutmeg

First you have to peel and chop the apples.  This takes a little while, so I just turned on the TV and watched a little Food Network.


Once you have the apples chopped, add them to your crock pot along with all of the other ingredients.  Mix well.  Cover and cook on low for 10 hours, stirring occasionally.  This is going to take all day, so it's a great time to get lots of other chores done.  I did even leave it for a couple of hours and went grocery shopping.  So you don't have to stay right on top of it.  Just go by every once in a while and stir.

Uncover at the end of the 10 hours and puree it with an immersion blender.  If you don't have one, you can always put it into your regular food processor or blender; just be careful and cover the lid with a towel as hot foods may have a tendency to spew.  Once it is blended smooth, turn the temperature up to high and cook it for another hour or so.

In the meanwhile, heat up your water and sterilize your jars for a Hot Water Bath.  Spoon the apple butter into the jars and leave about a 1/4 inch headspace.  Process in a Hot Water Bath for 10 minutes.  I used 1/2 pint jars, and I got 4 jars and then had a little left over just to keep in the fridge.

Although the process was long, it was very easy and it tastes amazing!  I will definitely make this recipe again.




So, what do you do when you have a bunch of apples and you are waiting around for 10 hours for your apple butter to cook?  You make your own Apple Cider.  I was a little skeptical at first, but decided that I didn't really have anything to lose.

This recipe came from Food Network online. Of course I substituted the Splenda for the sugar, so this makes a  No Sugar Added  recipe.

  • 10 apples, quartered
  • 3/4 c. Splenda
  • 4 T. cinnamon or 4 cinnamon sticks
  • 4 T. allspice or 4 T. whole allspice
There is no need to peel or core the apples.  Quarter them and add them to a large pot.  Fill with water to just cover the apples.  Add the Splenda.  If using cinnamon sticks & whole allspice, wrap them in a doubled-up cheesecloth & tie into a bundle.


Add the spices to the pot as well.  Boil on high for 1 hour, uncovered; checking/stirring frequently.  Then, turn down the heat and simmer for 2 hours, covered.

Take off heat and cool.  This may take a while, but definitely let it cool completely, since you will need to be handling the mixture.

Remove the spice pouch, if used, and then mash the mixture with a potato masher until it gets to a pulp consistency.


Pour the pulp into a strainer over a large bowl.  Allow the juice to drain into the bowl.  You may want to "work" the pulp through the strainer with a wooden spoon or spatula.  If you only have a small strainer, you may have to do this in batches.

Once the juice has drained, put remainder of pulp into doubled up cheesecloth and squeeze over bowl.  If you want a clearer liquid, you may want to restrain the cider by putting a cheese cloth into the strainer.  You can store the cider in an airtight container in the fridge for 1 week or you can freeze it.

Just like the apple butter, this recipe wasn't really hard, it just had quite a few steps and takes several hours.  If I did it again, I might try the second straining, in order to use it to drink.  I was principally making this batch to cook with, so the thicker cider was okay with me.


 However, when I was at the grocery store this weekend, I did find  No Sugar Added  Apple Cider, so unless you are just in a mood to make apple cider, or you have a lot of apples to use up, it might be easier to just buy some.


After finishing up the cider, I was getting closer to the hot water bath stage of my apple butter.  I started thinking, that if I was going to heat up the water, I might as well make some apple jam and do the hot water bath at the same time.  After all, I still had apples left.  I remembered the spiced pear jam that I had made a month or so ago, and thought maybe I could make some "apple pie" jam, if I added the cinnamon, cloves and maybe a little nutmeg to the apples.

So, I just made the same recipe that I did for the pear jam, substituting the apples.  I used exactly the same quantities.  The only thing extra I added was just a sprinkle of nutmeg...just because I love nutmeg.  Just like all of the jams you make with Splenda, this is a  No Sugar Added  recipe, because of the natural sugars in the fruit.
 A 10 minute hot water bath and you can see that it came out beautiful in my little jam jars.  I had some the other day on my English muffin and peanut butter for breakfast and it tastes just like apple pie filling.

Well... apple turnovers, apple butter, apple cider, apple pie jam, apple cake and 2 recipes of caramel apple cupcakes... Whew!  It was quite the weekend, but I still have apples left!  The apple pie jam was awesome, so I am thinking another batch is called for; and maybe another batch of apple butter.  Hmmmm... maybe some Christmas gifts.

Caramel Apple Cupcakes


Fall is here!... and apple season just about sneaked by me.  So last weekend, I went to the local orchard and bought a 1/2 bushel of apples.  The variety that I ended up with was blushing wine.  I hadn't ever heard of that particular variety before, but they looked the best.  I have to say that I really do love them.  They have a really interesting sweetness to them.

When I was growing up, my mom often made a recipe she called "Raw Apple Cake".  It was my dad's best friend's (who ended up being my father-in-law) favorite cake.  Well, just let me say..."Like father, like son".  This is my husband's favorite cake, too and since this last week was his birthday, I simply had to make him this cake.  Now I will say that I have honestly tried, on several occasions, to reduce the amount of sugar in this very decadent cake.  So far, each one of them has been a bust.  I am afraid that this cake just cannot be anything but a full on sugar-filled decadent dessert.  So I will not include the recipe here.  I will try to get it posted at  Raw Apple Cake - Digging Through The Recipe Drawer 

Since it was obvious that this cake was not going to be a good choice for me, I decided that I would try to make some apple cupcakes as well.  I had seen several recipes come across my Facebook page and in some magazines, I had seen some other recipes for apple and caramel apple cupcakes.  They always are asking for melted caramel candies and that just puts it a little out of my reach.  So I put my thinking cap on and came up with this  No Sugar Added  recipe:

  • one yellow sugar-free cake mix
  • one cup of no-sugar-added apple cider
  • three eggs
  • 1/3 c. vegetable oil
  • 1/2 c. non-fat plain yogurt
  • 2 packets of sugar-free apple cider mix
  • 4 apples; peeled, cored and chopped
Additional ingredients:
  • one jar of sugar-free caramel ice cream topping
  • one can of sugar-free vanilla frosting
  • 2 packets of sugar-free apple cider mix
  • chopped pecans; optional



Step one is to mix the cake mix, mostly according to the directions, but substituting the apple cider for the water.  (Since I had so many apples, I made my own apple cider, but I am not sure that I would do that again.)  You also want to enhance the cake mix, by adding the yogurt and the powdered apple cider mix. 

 I mixed the cake mix up and let it sit while I peeled and chopped the apples.  It seemed to let the cake mix become lighter by the time I folded the apples in.








 Here is where I went a little unconventional.  Instead of putting the cupcake liners into my muffin tin, I just sprayed them really well, and added the batter directly in.  As you can see, I filled them almost full.  Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.
 Once the cupcakes are done, let them cool for a short time, maybe around 5 minutes, in the pan.  Use a butter knife and run around the outside edge to be sure that they are loosened.  The knife will help you to kind of turn the cupcake on its edge and you can pick it up easily.

Set out your cupcake liners on a tray and then turn your cupcakes UPSIDE DOWN in the liners.  This will expose the porous bottom.

Spoon half the jar of caramel ice cream topping into a small bowl and stir.  Add just a little apple cider to the caramel; approximately 1 tablespoon.  Stir well to get a smooth consistency.  Spoon one full spoonful over each cupcake and allow to soak in and drip down the side.  By waiting to put the cupcakes into the liner until after they are baked, it allows the caramel to drip down the side.

 Give the cupcakes a chance to cool and meanwhile mix up the frosting.  In a medium bowl, mix the can of vanilla frosting with a large spoonful of caramel ice cream topping and two packets of apple cider mix.  Stir with a spatula until caramel and powder are fully mixed in.
Put frosting in a bag with the tip of your choice and frost cooled cupcakes.

As an option, you can also top each cupcake with a pinch of chopped pecans.

These cupcakes went over great.  My husband took some to work and they were gone so quickly that he didn't even get to have one.  (Well, he did have that apple cake for his birthday party the day before!)

These are probably one of my favorite cupcakes that I have made, so I made them again a few days later for my monthly quilt guild meeting.  They disappeared just as quickly!  You really have to give them a try.

You can imagine that I did not use up that 1/2 bushel of apples just making a cake and a couple of recipes of cupcakes.  See all of the other things that I made with my apples here.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Jam Oatmeal Cookie Bars

The other day I was preparing some food to take to a colleague and his wife.  He had a knee surgery scheduled and a few days beforehand, his wife broke her leg.  So they were neither one in the position to be cooking.  I made them a couple of casseroles to put into the freezer until needed and since I had the ingredients to make these scrumptious cookie bars, I made them as well.

Unfortunately, I am not sure where I got this recipe.  The one thing I do remember is that according to the recipe you could use any flavor of cake mix and match it up with a great flavor of jam.  Since our sugar-free cake mixes only come in yellow and chocolate, I made a change to the recipe and have added a box of sugar-free Jell-o powder mix to change the flavor of the cake to coordinate with your flavor of jam.

For this recipe, I had a jar of sugar-free raspberry jam.  Smucker's makes several sugar-free flavors and you can get a few flavors in generic form.  As we have talked about before, fruit has natural sugars, but I looked on the label and this is really sugar free jam.  So this is a true  Sugar-Free  recipe.  For the whole recipe, you need the following ingredients:

  • sugar-free yellow cake mix
  • sugar-free Jell-o powder
  • 2 1/2 c. oats
  • 3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, melted
  • 1 jar sugar-free jam
So as I mentioned above, this time I had a jar of sugar-free raspberry jam and some raspberry Jell-o.  In the past, I have made peach, orange and strawberry.  So far, I have always matched my flavors.  But I think some coordinating would be good as well; lime-strawberry, orange-pineapple, strawberry-peach...well, I could go on and on.

 Heat oven to 365 degrees.  Grease or spray a 13 x 9 pan.  Stir together the cake mix, gelatin powder and oats.  Stir in melted butter until mixture is crumbly; just make sure everything is moist.  Measure out 3 cups of the mixture and press it evenly in your pan.
 Spread the entire jar of jam evenly over the mixture base.  Then, sprinkle the remaining crumbly mixture evenly over the top.  Use the palm of your hand and gently press crumbs into the jam.  Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.  Mixture will not look completely done when you remove it from the oven because the jam is so warm.
Cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.  Cut into squares.  If you have trouble waiting until it is cool...it will taste wonderful... you just won't be able to pick it up and you will have to use a fork... not that there is anything wrong with that...  just sayin'!

Note:  This recipe does make enough for a 9 x 13 pan.  Since I was making for a friend, I divided mine and made half for him and half for us.  That is why you only see a square pan in the picture.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Banana Blueberry Muffins

Several years ago, my sister, Trudi, gave me a basic muffin recipe.  This is a great flexible muffin recipe that you can add whatever kind of fruit you like or have on hand.  It doesn't have a large amount of sugar in the original recipe, so the substitution is fairly simple.  But, it is a  No Sugar Added  recipe, because there are natural sugars in the fruit and the milk.

What I have discovered as I have been making these with Splenda, is that the muffins will stay moist if you add a little more moisture in order to take the place of the moisture in the sugar.  Most of the time, a half cup of no-sugar-added applesauce is the perfect addition, since it doesn't really add any flavor to conflict with your other flavors of choice.

So in this case I had a couple of bananas that were on their way out, but plain banana muffins just didn't sound very exciting.  Then I remembered that I had frozen blueberries in my freezer that I had picked up at a local blueberry farm back in June.  Since I had two bananas and you really only need one for this recipe, I decided that I didn't need to add any applesauce.

Here's the basic recipe:

  • 1 3/4 c. flour
  • 1/3 c. Splenda
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 2 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1/2 t. nutmeg
  • 1/3 c. oil
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 c. milk (I use 2%, just because that is what I have in my fridge on a regular basis)
  • fruit and/or flavorings of your choice  (in this recipe, I used two bananas and about 3/4 c. frozen blueberries)
This is a very easy to put together batter; you just put everything in a bowl and mix with a whisk or a spatula.
 For my bananas, I just used a smaller bowl and mashed them really well before adding them into the batter.  Once they were well incorporated, I added the blueberries, straight from the freezer.  Voila....the batter is done.

In all the years that I have baked muffins, they have always come out a little on the small side.  So one morning when making muffins this last summer, I decided to do what you do in the 21st century when you want to know how to do something...I Googled it!  And I found The Prepared Pantry.  They had it layed out in three easy steps!  1)  Fill your muffin tins full; 2) Make sure that your batter is thick (this recipe does make a thick batter); and 3) Bake them at a high temp (425) for the first few minutes.  Great tips!  They work like a charm.
 So the next step is to fill the muffin tin.  Spray your cups.  Remember that we are going to fill the muffin cups full; so while this recipe would make 12 regular size muffins, depending on the amount of fruit you add, you will probably only get 9 or 10.  You may want to hold off on spraying the last few cups until you see how far your batter is going to go.  Add a little water to the empty cups.  Preheat your oven to 425.  This recipe calls to bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.  I bake it at 425 for 7 minutes and then turn the temp down to 400 for an additional 10 minutes.
And this is what your muffins will look like...high tops, moist and fresh.  They look like you could buy them in a bakery.  I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that they taste amazing hot out of the oven, with a little I Can't Believe It's Not Butter melting into those hot, bursting blueberries...enjoy!

Note: There are so many choices for these muffins; blueberries, blackberries, apples, pineapple, dried cranberries, raisins, pecans, etc.  Start to think of some combinations and you can come up with your own original flavor of muffin.