Tag Archives: what to bring to dinner

Apple Cider Caramel Slab Pie with Oat Almond Crisp Topping

If you can’t decide between apple pie or apple crisp, have both! This Apple Cider Caramel Slab Pie with Oat and Almond Crisp topping is the best of both worlds.

The apples, I used a mix of Honeycrisp and Granny Smith, get a coating of apple cider caramel before baking. The filling recipe for this dessert was created by the pie queen Erin Jeanne McDowell. She literally wrote The Book on Pie. She had the brilliant idea to reduce apple cider to a caramel-like consistency. It creates the most intense apple flavoured pie you will ever eat. It takes about 20 minutes to cook down the cider to a thin caramel.

Check out this video on how it all comes together.

I adapted Erin’s recipe and baked it in a quarter sheet pan to make a slab pie. I decided to forgo the top pie crust and finish mine with an Oat and Almond Crisp Topping.

This is my go-to crisp topping. I always have a bag of it in the freezer ready to top whatever fruit is in season. Crumbly and buttery, packed with chopped toasted almonds, oats, brown sugar and flour, it never fails to satisfy.

A scoop of salted caramel or butterscotch ice cream would be very welcome.

Click here to print recipe for Caramel Apple Cider Slab Pie with Oat and Almond Crisp Topping.

Marbled Peanut Butter Truffles

dipped 1Just in case you haven’t had enough chocolate or sugar by this point in December, I’m bringing you Marbled Peanut Butter Truffles. You’re welcome! what you'll needThis is an old recipe, from the December 1988 issue of Gourmet Magazine. It has stood the test of time. My girlfriend Marla and I would spend a weekend in my kitchen every December creating hundreds of these truffles for gifts. We kept it simple and just rolled them in cocoa powder. I have updated the recipe slightly, by dipping them in a mixture of bittersweet, milk and white chocolate to create a marbled coating.

Bittersweet chocolate, peanut butter, cream, and butter are melted together. melting_Chill for about 3-4 hours and then use a small scoop to form truffles. scoopingMelt bittersweet, milk and white chocolate. Get organized and set up the dipping station. ready to dipOnce you start, the dipping goes fairly quickly. Check it out in this video I created.

 

Click here to print recipe for Marbled Peanut Butter Chocolate Truffles.

dipped 2