Caramel Apples

Ahhhh fall... Most people think about crisp weather, turning leaves, and Halloween. Most people think about thick sweaters, pea coats, and pumpkin spice lattes. Most people think about raking leaves, lighting the first fire of the year, drinking hot cocoa, and making s'mores. While all of this is true, my kitchen demands apples...

Our apple tree - which produced NOTHING last year - has produced a bumper crop of apples this year. Branches were so full of apples that two huge branches actually fell! While I feel safer letting little HWB play under the tree now, it was sad to see all of those apples on the ground (at least they don't go to waste - the deer LOVE them)! We were able to grab a huge basket of apples though.

So in addition to Mr. HWB's Apple Surprise Bread, I got inspired by a delicious cookie I tasted and made some oatmeal caramel apple cookies. The dough was delicious. Honestly, I probably ate 3 or 4 cookies just in snacking on the dough.

The cookies are just as you would imagine them. They are filled with oats (like an oatmeal cookie should be) but also has enough apple chunks and caramel to really taste them. I added in a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg just to boost the flavors. The combination of these flavors (and scents) just made me think about hay rides and apple picking... I had great expectations. And by the way my kitchen smelled and the dough tasted, I thought I would meet these expectations (or even exceed them).

I almost didn't want to wait for them to even cool off for a minute. I did so, just out of deference to my tongue and the roof of my mouth, but it was rather grudgingly.

But to be honest, while the cookies were tasty, I'd probably modify the recipe. The dough was a little soft and wet - probably from the apples - so next time I'll dry out the apple chunks a bit and dust them with flour and sugar as well. Also, the caramel just melted out of the cookies (which made for crunchy caramel instead of soft caramel bits), so I'll probably form a ball of dough around the caramel so that it melts inside the cookie but doesn't spread all over the pan. You can see the crispy caramel in this photo. I'm not opposed to crispy caramel; I was just going for something different. I'd also probably add more spices to them - more cinnamon and nutmeg.

They did go pretty fast though. And they tasted better the day after they were made. But, what can I say? You win some - and sometimes, the recipe turns out to be not quite a failure, but not fully a success.

More apple recipes to come...



Apple Surprise

Camera 1

Okay, I want to start off on the right foot, let's be honest, it's really only a surprise, if nobody sees you make it.

With that out of the way, this is the best breakfast bread we've ever made. We make kick-ass bagels, fantastic bialys, and cinnamon rolls you'd do something you don't normally do for. What makes this bread better than those, is the easiness of the recipe. Bagels and cinnamon rolls are both at least (for the best flavor, and doing it the correct way) a two day process. Bialys come in a distant second, with still requiring, 3'ish hours to rise. The Apple Surprise starts as batter, thus, it doesn't take (metaphorically) forever.

The apples we used come from our organic, free range, grass fed apple tree that lives happily in our back yard. The apples are a great combo of tart and sweet, they are also on the firm side, which this recipe needs. The crumb topping is the usual (best part of anything), sweet, crunchy, and delicious, so one needs apples that are strong in flavor and structure to put up with the topping.

The best part of all things, the crumble topping

The actual bread portion of the loaf, is tasty as all get out. The batter is sweet (again, a strong apple is your friend), with 3/4 a cup of sugar to only 1 1/2 cup of (sifted) cake flour. With 2 egg yolks, 1 whole egg, 1/2 cup of sour cream, this isn't light and airy.

I know, I was supposed to be honest with you, so I feel bad for not telling you the truth. Yes, the recipe does in fact call for sour cream. We didn't use any. We had Greek yogurt. So, as MacGuyver would've done, we used the Greek yogurt. It turned out just as well!

Okay, so the "surprise", plop 1/2 to a smidge over 1/2 of the batter in the pan, nicely arrange the apples on the batter, pour in some of the topping, then cover with the remaining batter. It'll be a nice cross section look when it's cut into slices.


If you count the rings, you'll find the loaf is 10 minutes old

With so much going on in this bread, it doesn't need anything when serving, however I have been told that almond butter on a warmed slice, and a hot cup of coffee, can't be beat.

Bread and Chocolate

So we thought it fitting that the first real post of this site would contain the two items after which we named the blog... which happen to be two of our favorite things as well.

It was definitely a day of baking - and not baking - for Mrs. HWB. Weekend breakfasts are always one of our favorite meals. Who doesn't love breakfast? It can be sweet - french toast, pancakes, donuts, cinnamon rolls - or savory - eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage - or both! Today we started with homemade buttermilk biscuits...

 And yes, they smelled as good as they look...

And added eggs and cheese...

Cheese makes the best better...

And devoured them with fruit, OJ, and hot coffee! The biscuits also made an appearance at dinner with butter and honey. They were warm, soft, and flaky. And little HWB thought they were delicious too.

And since it was a lazy Sunday (and unfortunately the mosquitoes were out in full force), Mrs. HWB headed back into the kitchen this afternoon. Too hot to turn on the oven for multiple batches of cookies, she whipped up a quick batch of no-bake cookie bites - with peanut butter and chocolate hazelnut spread.

A successful day of baking... and not baking... More to come...

The beginning

The name Henry Weinstein Bakery was concocted by a husband and wife back in 2012. The wife is the one that creates the sweet treats, whereas the husband is the one that rolls (pun intended) out the bread. This is the spot where we will share our triumphs in baking, and hint at our disastrous experiments.

 

More to come…