12 Perfect Apple Recipes | Easy Apple Pie, Apple Cider Donuts, Chicken Apple Sausage & More!

[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with apple fritters that's right i'm not going to lie i've never been a huge fan of apple fritters i mean i just didn't understand going to a donut shop and then not getting a donut but eventually i came to realize it had nothing to do with its lack of hole i just wasn't crazy about those chunks of what were basically under cooked apple so for our first official fall recipe of the season i'm going to show you my sort of reworked version of this featuring two significant changes the first is we're actually going to cook the apple a little bit beforehand and second well i can't tell you it's a huge surprise but you'll see that soon enough so in the meantime let's go ahead and get started with the star of the show our apples and for this recipe i'm going to suggest that granny smith which is my personal favorite cooking apple and what it lacks in that traditional red apple color it more than makes up for with ideal taste and texture and to prep these what we're going to do is peel them quarter them and then core them and i'm going to be using the busy prep cook style to peel these which is to peel around the top and then peel down the sides like this since this is probably the fastest and most efficient method but if you're doing these with friends or family you'll want to do the thing where you peel around the apples seeing who can get the longest continual peel without breaking which is a lot of fun but does take longer but anyway one way or another we're going to peel that apple before cutting it in quarters and then we'll take our knife and trim out the core and then once our apple has been trimmed and quartered what we'll do is cut each of those pieces into two or three pieces and then we'll simply turn that and slice it about every quarter inch or so and of course you're going to try to be a little bit consistent but don't forget these things are going to be stuck inside a fritter so no one's going to see if you're a little off so try to relax and then what we'll do once our apples are sliced up is transfer those into a bowl and reserve those while we melt some butter because as i mentioned one major change here to the traditional apple fritter recipe is that we're going to cook these a little bit before they go in the batter so we're going to melt some butter over medium high heat but we're just not going to melt it we're actually going to toast it as sort of nutty brown and please be careful butter can go from golden brown to golden black very quickly and as soon as we have something that sort of looks like this we'll go ahead and dump in our fruit and what we want to do is cook these apples for i don't know three or four minutes stirring occasionally on medium high heat until they kind of soften up a little bit all right we certainly don't want to cook them all the way through but we do want to take that raw edge off and by the way we are going to throw in a tablespoon of sugar but i don't like to do that right at the beginning i like to give these a couple minutes first so we'll give those a little saute until they just start to soften up around the edges and at that point we'll go ahead and sprinkle in some sugar and continue on for another couple minutes until we end up with something that's starting to get a little bit golden brown and starting to soften up but they're still going to retain their shape and stay relatively firm and please keep in mind that traditionally raw apples are used in here so we'll probably want to air on not cooked enough versus overcooked so for me that is looking good right there and then what we'll do at that point is pull them off the heat and toss them in a strainer just in case we have any excess liquid which if using the granny smith you probably won't all right other apple varieties could produce more moisture and if you do have any extra it will drip down and then what we'll do is let this cool down to room temp before we add it to our batter and of course putting the components together for that batter is the next step so first up let's go ahead mix up our dry ingredients which will include to no one's surprise some all-purpose white flour as well as some baking powder and please make sure the one you're using you bought this decade we'll also want to toss in some salt and then some traditional apple fritter spices including some cinnamon some ground ginger and some freshly grated nutmeg i mean come on you're going to make apple fritters and use non freshly grated nutmeg that ain't right so we'll grate in a little nutmeg before taking a whisk and giving this a thorough mix in the olden days i used to sift the ingredients but today we just use a whisk which some folks actually refer to as millennial sifting because while it doesn't work quite as well it is easier and faster so nobody cares so we'll take a whisk and mix that for about a minute to combine those ingredients and once that's been accomplished we'll set that aside to move on to the wet ingredients so in a bowl we'll go ahead and crack one large egg to which we'll add some white sugar and then we'll take a whisk and give that a mix for about a minute and please at this point do not forget the melted butter which i did so i stopped and added it in and continued mixing okay so don't forget that tip i've given you in the past whenever you're stirring or mixing something always try to remember what you forgot but anyway we're gonna mix up our egg our sugar and our melted butter and once that's set we can move on to final assembly so assuming our apples have cooled down to room temp or at least very close to it we'll go ahead and add those to our wet ingredients which brings us to the second significant change to the traditional technique we're going to add some sparkling apple cider oh yeah and i'm using a gold medal variety if you can't find that you can substitute with silver or bronze metal and why i'm using this instead of the traditional milk or regular apple cider is because hopefully that carbonation adds a little bit of lightness to the batter and even if it doesn't it seems like it's going to plus we get to drink the rest of the bottle so we'll go ahead and pour in some sparkling apple cider and then last but not least we will dump in our dry ingredients and then we'll take a spoon and mix until it's just combined so as usual we're not going to obsess about over mixing we're just going to simply stir until we don't see any more flour and as with all batters if it looks a little wet add a little more flour and maybe if it looks a little too dry add another splash of cider and actually as i'm looking at this it probably could have used another tablespoon of flour but i really don't enjoy a dense dry fritter so i will tend to always air on the side of slightly too moist but anyway once our batter is mixed we'll set that aside while we heat up a couple inches of oil over medium-high heat to approximately 350 degrees and once that's up to temp we will fry a couple tablespoons at a time using two spoons to safely transfer it in oh and by the way those regular edges are one of the signature features of the apple fritter i mean these are supposed to look homemade not like something that came from a store so we'll transfer that battery in with complete disregard for any kind of uniform shape and what we'll want to do is we place this in and sort of flatten it out just a little bit that's gonna help it cook a little quicker and a little more evenly and we're gonna fry these for about two minutes per side and one thing i like to look for sort of like when you're making pancakes is you'll see bubbles kind of forming on the top of the batter that is generally a decent indication they're ready to flip over but like i said it's going to be about two minutes per side so i went ahead and carefully flipped those over and once those been successfully flipped we'll give the other side a couple minutes at which point our fritter should be fried and you'll know because you're going to test one if it's still wet and doughy inside go longer and if it's dry and burnt you went too far but happily these were perfect so we'll fish those out with a strainer and let them drain on some paper towels and yes those do look amazing but wait there's more we're gonna go ahead and ice these with a simple apple cider glaze so while our fritters are draining and cooling down a little bit we'll go ahead and take some powdered sugar and add a little pinch of cinnamon and then all we need to do is stir in enough of our sparkling apple cider until we have something just runny enough to drizzle over our fritters and there's two ways you can do this you can sift the sugar first and mix this up in about five seconds or the method i prefer don't sift it and stir for like 10 minutes but either way we're going to stir that until it's smooth and we've achieved a viscosity similar to what you see here and that's it our last official act will be to place these on some kind of platter and drizzle over our glaze which some people will just dip in but why the heck would anyone dip when they could drizzle so i'm going to go ahead and spoon that over slowly and provocatively until approximately 50 percent of the surface area is covered and that's it our updated reimagined new and improved apple fritters are done and who knows maybe you enjoy the apple fritters with the raw apple chunks but like i said i don't i love that when we bite into these the apple while still having some texture is kind of tender and definitely sweeter so i really do personally prefer this style and also sometimes when you use the raw apple as their cooking juice will leak out and make the inside of the fritter soggy which is generally not considered a good thing and of course it goes without saying if you're going to make these for some kind of party or halloween get together if you want to dress up the tops a little with some crushed nuts or maybe some toasted pumpkin seeds something like that go ahead it's up to you you guys are the babysitters of these apple fritters which reminds me after this video you can watch one more but then it's time for bed okay but anyway that's it apple fritters tis the season to use apples in desserts as well as hang out with friends and family in a warm kitchen and this project is a fantastic way to do both of those things so i really do hope you give these a try soon head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy apple crumble coffee cake that's right finally after all these years i've come up with a delicious solution for people that can't decide whether to make an apple crumble or a coffee cake and not only does this feature the best things about both of those recipes but i think all you fans of dutch apple pie are going to love this as well so with that let's go ahead and get started by quickly mixing up our dry ingredients which will include some all-purpose flour some salt some baking powder and some baking soda and then once we have all that in there we'll take a whisk and mix this for about half a minute at which point the first of our three very simple components is done and we will set that aside and move on to component number two which is our crumble topping slash filling and that's going to include a whole bunch of chopped walnuts that i lightly toasted in a dry pan first and then to that we will add some brown sugar and i'm using light brown but dark brown will work as well and then we'll also do some white sugar as well as a nice big pinch of salt and of course because this is a baked good that features walnuts and apples it's pretty much a requirement that we have to add a spoon of cinnamon and then last but not least we will add some melted butter and then we'll take a spoon and give this a mix until it is very very well combined and by that i mean every single piece of nut and grain of sugar is coated with that butter so keep mixing until that happens and when it does it should look a little something like this and that's it our second component is done and we can set that aside and move on to our wet ingredients which is going to start with us creaming some sugar into some room temperature butter and finally for once i remembered to take my butter out ahead of time which i normally always forget to do and then it's too hard in this step takes forever but this time it was actually relatively soft the only problem was i picked a spatula that was a little too flexible so it still ended up being kind of challenging to do but anyway one of these days everything's gonna come together and i'm gonna enjoy some butter and sugar creamy nirvana but anyway if you stay at it and keep smooshing and smearing it will eventually all cream together and become nice and soft and relatively smooth like this and once it does we're going to switch to a whisk and we're going to whip in two eggs but we're going to do so one at a time and that's because this mixture is mostly fat and an egg is mostly water and as you may have heard they do not like to mix but if we do them one at a time and we wait for that first one to get mixed in very well before adding the second they will partially emulsify as opposed to completely separating which is probably what will happen if you add both at once and by the way at any point while you're doing this if it does look like it is separating don't worry just keep whisking and eventually it will smooth out and sure this step is easier if you use an electric mixer but i don't okay by doing this by hand i'm going to burn off exactly the same amount of calories as one portion of this coffee cake or i give or take about 400 calories and besides this only takes a couple minutes but suit yourself i mean you guys are after all the snake pliskins of your coffee cake mixins but the whisk works just fine for me and then what we'll do once both eggs are incorporated is go ahead and add some vanilla and please use the real stuff right real people don't use fake vanilla and then we'll also at this point add one cup of plain yogurt and then we'll combine all this with a whisk and by the way i used a relatively runny but beautifully tangy sheep's milk yogurt but a regular plain greek yogurt will work as with some sour cream and then what we'll do once that's been mixed in is go ahead and dump in our dry ingredients which we will stir in very carefully with our whisk and please start slowly otherwise all that flour is going to fly out and then what we'll do once almost but not quite all that flour is mixed in is switch to a spatula to finish this off being careful not to over mix this okay we're just going to need to give this a few folds and it's totally fine if there's a little bit of flour here and there because we still have to add our apples diced apples to be specific and how i like to do those is by first removing the core with four cuts okay one like this and then we'll set it down on its flat side and then three more slices right next to the core like this which you can then nibble on along with any random apple shards and then what we'll do is take these four pieces and go ahead and slice them across like this into whatever thickness we eventually want our cubes to be which for me is going to be somewhere between an eighth and a quarter of an inch and yes feel free to eat any of the end pieces and then to finish these we'll go ahead and stack up a few slices and then we'll make one cut down the center before turning them and slicing across to create some relatively consistently sized cubes and yes of course you can peel these but that's a total waste of time okay as you'll see those skins completely disappear in the final product so i went ahead and diced two honey crisp apples as shown and we will add those to our batter which we will then finish off by carefully folding these in oh and the reason we're doing such a small dice is because we want these to get nice and soft and tender by the time our coffee cake is cooked and if we cut our apples too big what will happen is our cake will be done and our two big pieces of apple will still be firm which will be sad and textually inappropriate so take your time and make them small and that's it once our batter is set we'll go ahead and transfer exactly half into a generously buttered baking dish and i said exactly but just eye it i don't want you measuring and then once we've transferred in half and spread it out as evenly as we can we'll go ahead and top that with exactly half of our crumble mixture and again just going by eye and of course we will do our best to distribute that as evenly as we can and then once that's been accomplished we will go ahead and spread over the rest of our batter and to make that a little easier since we're going to be doing it over that crumble mixture i like to spoon over dollops like this first before we try to spread it okay that's going to sort of give us a head start and we should be able to spread it out a little easier without worrying that we're mixing in and messing up that center layer of crumble and then you've probably already figured out the next step which of course is topping this with the rest of our crumble getting it as even as humanly possible and once that's been applied for one final step we'll give all that a little gentle pressing down with the spoon to sort of ever so lightly press it into the batter and that's it our apple crumble coffee cake is now ready to transfer into the center of a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes or so or until it looks like this and to make sure this is baked enough we can test it by sticking a toothpick or wooden skewer into the center and if that comes out clean it's done and if it comes out with wet undercooked batter on it put it back in but this one was perfect which means all we have to do is let this cool all the way down to room temp before we slice in and serve it up and as far as the servings go i think this would make eight dessert size portions or six if you're doing them as an entree and for a first slice that actually came out pretty well all i needed was a little bit of relatively minor crumb tucking and then i went ahead and took a few pictures before i tucked in and yes that coffee cup was just a prop okay this was shot at like 5 p.m which is way too late for me to have coffee okay you have to be a lot older to drink coffee at 5 p.m but anyway that my friends was just a magnificent bite of coffee cake the taste the texture and the appearance was just perfect in every way oh and can you see any skins no neither can i nor can you feel them so do not waste your time peeling those apples not to mention we've increased the grams of fiber per serving so now besides tasting amazing this is probably good for you and right here you can get a great look at my patented layer of crumble in the center coffee cake technique and i said patented technically it's patent pending but anyway the point is that really is the secret to what makes this coffee cake so great okay it's almost like we're baking a coffee cake on top of a coffee cake and while these things are also great plain without any fruit when you combine those beautifully sweet apples with that subtle tanginess from the yogurt you really do end up with something very special which is exactly why this would be such a huge hit at your next fancy special occasion brunch like mother's day or totally casual no occasion brunch but no matter when or why you serve this i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] baked apple cider donuts that's right all the world's great donuts are fried except there are a few rare examples when they're not and this incredibly delicious and easy to make apple cider donut is one notable exception and because we're not going to fry these not only are these easier but they're going to be way way less messy and of course less time cleaning up means more time to eat donuts so with that let's go ahead and get started with the most important ingredient and the most important step and that would be our apple cider reduction and for that i'm going to transfer two cups of apple cider into a saucepan that will place over medium heat and by the way this is not the alcoholic apple cider okay this always confuses my european friends but over here apple cider and apple juice are basically the same things and generally if it's been filtered clear it's called juice and if it's kind of cloudy and fresh it's called cider but the point is there's no booze in this and then what we're going to attempt to do here is bring this up to a simmer and then very carefully reduce it down to a half a cup and back carefully i mean don't walk away and let it burn which reminds me if you want to go slower and safer you can always use lower heat or if you're in a hurry and like a little bit of danger you could do this on high so that's going to be up to you i mean you are after all the spider-man of your cider man but if you search the web i think you'll find that most of these reduction instructions call for doing it on medium which is what i recommend and i'm also recommending that you play a little bit of a game with yourself to see how accurately you can reduce this down just by looking at what's in the pan and as you're about to see i got pretty close okay i had about another tablespoon to go so i could if i want reduce that down a little more oh and if you happen to go too far and it reduces too much just simply add a little bit of cold fresh water to make exactly a half cup and that's it we will just set that aside and then we'll move on to prep our dry ingredients which will include some all-purpose flour some baking powder along with some of its good fried baking soda we will also do a pinch of salt and of course since apples are involved some cinnamon and then we'll finish up with a little touch of cardamom as well as a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg which in case you're new around here is like a hundred times better than the ground stuff and that's it we'll go ahead and take a whisk and give this a quick stir until it's combined at which point we can move on to the last component the wet ingredients which we'll begin with some white and brown sugar we will also add some whole milk preferably from a cow we will also need to add some melted butter as well as a little bit of pure real vanilla extract and then what we'll do is go ahead and take a whisk and mix this enthusiastically until everything's been combined and we're pretty sure that sugar has dissolved and then we're also going to add one large egg which i like to add at this point because i forgot to add it at an earlier point and this would be a great time to remind you that tip i like to share once in a while that whenever we're stirring or mixing something we always want to try to remember what we forgot but anyway i tossed that in and mixed it up and that's it once that's been accomplished we can go ahead and pour in our apple cider reduction along with our dry ingredients then we'll take our whisk and give this a mix until they are dry no more and we've created a relatively thick beautifully colored batter and as usual when we're talking about mixing a batter we really only want to do this until that flour disappears so as not to over mix which might cause if we did it too long some slightly tougher more rubbery donuts which nobody wants okay so once that flour disappears we can give it a few more stirs and then we should probably stop and that's now ready to spoon into some well-buttered donut pans if we want to use a spoon okay what i think works better is to transfer this into a zip top bag and then we'll be able to pipe it into the pans which i find to be a little faster and neater and easier and of course if you want to use a real piping bag go ahead and once that's been transferred in all we have to do is snip off the tip and then we can go ahead and transfer in the batter like this and when using pans like this they say we should only fill them halfway up but they say a lot of things many of which i do ignore so because i want the largest donuts possible i'm actually going to go like 75 percent and does that mean there's a chances you're gonna bake up over the edges and that the hole in the center might fill in yes yes there is but that's okay don't worry chef john's got tricks but in any event we'll go ahead and fill those as evenly as we can and then we can go ahead and clean up those pans a little bit with the tip of our finger which we will then clean off with their mouth at which point these are now ready to transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for about maybe 10 11 or 12 minutes or till they're beautifully browned and look like this oh yeah those are pretty pretty big and how you know these are baked just long enough is that if we press lightly on them with our fingertip that donut will spring back and not leave a mark which is why by the way that one in the back looks like it does that was caused by a little premature poking and then what we'll do at this point is let these cool down in the pans for about 10 minutes before we try to remove them otherwise they might fall apart and by letting them cool down a little bit we'll be able to simply flip this pan over and they should all come out easily and beautifully [Music] or if you want just to throw out another alternative method we could also just pull them out with our hands like this all right either way and for filming purposes here i'm just going to go ahead and do six and now that these are out of the pan you can see the problem we're going to have if you over fill these like i did we have closed holes and if there's no hole it's not a donut it's just a mutant muffin but don't worry like i said earlier chef john's got tricks so what i'm gonna do is take a small round pastry cutter or the cap to my bottle of olive oil and i'm simply going to punch out those centers and of course as i do i'm going to eat them and there we go now i have nice large donuts with holes so take that people that only fill those pans halfway up and then what we'll do to finish these off is go ahead and brush them very generously with melted butter and then once properly greased we'll go ahead and toss those in some cinnamon sugar to give them that classic apple cider donut appearance which by the way gets better as these sits and that sugar on the surface absorbs a little bit of moisture and sort of darkens up and had these lasted long enough i would have definitely showed you what that looks like and that's it i went ahead and plated those up and then took a whole bunch of contractually obligated pictures before grabbing one and biden in and that my friends really was amazing okay thanks to us reducing that cider these have a gorgeous relatively intense apple flavor with just the right amount of sweetness and hints of spice so i really do think these taste incredible which is not at all surprising but what is is how incredibly light and texture these actually are i mean to be honest i'm not a huge donut person because whether they're baked or fried i find them very heavy but not these these are feather light and i've heard from a very reliable source that you can easily eat three or four of these without getting all weighed down and by the way if you're not into the butter cinnamon sugar finish these would also be great brush with a light icing or just some powdered sugar with a little bit of apple cider in it or because that color is so gorgeous you could just serve them as is but regardless whether you serve these plain or you ice them or toss them in sugar i really do hope you give these a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy chicken apple sausage and biscuits and gravy that's right i'm going to show you how to make your very own homemade chicken apple sausage which you'll then hopefully place on some homemade buttermilk biscuits and then top with one of the most delicious pan sauces ever invented and by the way the ultimate compliment for a chicken apple sausage is that it doesn't taste like chicken and we are going to cheat a little bit to achieve that goal but that's okay cooking is one of the few things where cheating is acceptable and very much encouraged so with that let's go ahead and get started by cutting up some boneless skinless chicken thighs into like one inch pieces and yes you breast people can use those if you want but because thighs are more flavorful and have more connective tissue and fat they definitely work better here or at least i think so so what we'll do is go ahead and cut those into strips and then across into like one inch pieces and in case you're wondering that's about a pound and a half and then to that we're going to add one technically optional ingredient which i would consider mandatory and that would be three or four ounces of pancetta which is a cured pork very similar to bacon except it's not smoked and unlike the chicken what we're going to do here is chop this very very finely so we'll give it a rough cut first and then we'll work that over with our cleaver or another large knife until it's almost but not quite a paste and when i mentioned cheating earlier this is one of the main things i was talking about all right this stuff's going to add a tremendous amount of moisture and flavor and it is going to significantly improve the texture of our sausage and then what we're going to do once that's been pretty much pulverized is go ahead and add that to our chicken thigh and then we'll go ahead and give that a quick mix to make sure it's distributed evenly and yes if you want to you can totally use bacon it will have the same effect on the texture but not surprisingly your final product will taste like bacon which is why i prefer the pancetta but anyway of course that's up to you i mean you guys are after all the caddies of your chicken apple sausage patties but either way we'll go ahead and mix that in at which point we can proceed to the seasoning and that'll begin with some kosher salt as well as some freshly ground black pepper we'll also add a little bit of dry thyme and a few crushed fennel seeds and you do get extra credit if you toast them first then we'll also do a little bit of ground coriander and of course a little touch of cayenne as well as some freshly grated nutmeg and then last but not least a little bit of fresh sage okay just a few leaves that we sliced and cut really finely and then what we're going to want to do is give that a mix before transferring that onto a plate because what we're going to do before we grind this is cover that and pop it in the freezer for about 15 or 20 minutes until it's basically about half frozen and that's another trick that's really going to improve the texture okay if we process that meat when it's too warm it's going to get pasty and be kind of rubbery and tough in the final product so we'll go ahead and cover that and pop it in the freezer and move on to the last major ingredient our apples which to prep we're going to want to peel and quarter and as you can see i'm using some granny smith you may remember that variety from such videos as apple butter and then what we'll do once our apple's been peeled and quartered is go ahead and grate it on a very sharp grater and how you can tell whether your grade or sharp or dull is if your apples turn brown like a second after you do this your grater is too dull but if your grater is in pretty good shape or should i say great shape this stuff should not be turning brown right away and if yours do start to discolor do not worry because we're going to mix this into the meat pretty soon and please be careful these pieces of apple can be slippery and you don't want to take off a piece of knuckle which is a very real possibility so please do this thoughtfully so i went ahead and grated two relatively small apples at which point we'll transfer that onto a couple paper towels and squeeze out all the juice or as much as we can and yes you're definitely going to want to drink that stuff i'm guessing that's going to be the freshest apple juice you've ever enjoyed and then what we'll do once our shredded apples prepped is pull our now partially frozen meat out of the freezer and we'll transfer our shredded apple on top and then divide that into two portions because we're about to grind this in our food processor and you do not want to do too much at once so we'll go ahead and transfer half in and by making sure our meat is really really cold and by not doing too much at once we're going to be able to pulse this on and off to create a nice coarse grind that is not going to get all tough and chewy when we cook this so like i said we'll go ahead and pulse that on and off until it's as coarse or as fine as we want and right here i'm going to show you about how far i like to go all right maybe just a little bit finer than a coarse sausage grind but not nearly as fine as what they sell as ground chicken in the store so yes this recipe would be easier if you just bought ground chicken but unfortunately they grind that to a paste and it really does not have a very nice texture so sure this techniques a little more work but the results are infinitely better and then once that's ground we'll transfer it into a bowl and unless we're totally starving we'll go ahead and cover that and refrigerate it from anywhere between four hours and overnight and that's gonna give those flavors time to develop so i let mine sit in the fridge for about four hours at which point we'll go ahead and form our patties and you can just eye this but i like to use a large ice cream scoop so i can get these to a nice consistent size and as usual anytime we're forming ground meat dampening your hands and fingers with a little bit of cold water helps things not stick and you should be able to form some nice uniform patties and i don't think we want to make these too thin okay i usually shoot for about three quarters of an inch thick and ideally these are going to be about the same size as the biscuits we're going to serve them on and yes of course if you have the casings you can also make links but obviously the patties work better for biscuits and gravy and then once our patties have been formed they're ready to fry which i'm going to do over medium-high heat and just a little touch of olive oil and since i'm home alone i'm just going to do one portion oh by the way make sure you go find our buttermilk biscuit recipe and make up a batch of those for this so yes we're going to be multitasking here baking biscuits and frying sausage but anyway we'll give that first side about five minutes which because chicken is so sticky we don't want to touch until we're ready to turn them okay we really want to let those form a beautiful crust before we flip them over and because of the sugar in the apples you should get a really beautiful dark fond okay somewhere between a dark brown and a golden black but don't worry that's a good thing and not only is that not going to taste bad it's going to make our gravy taste even better not to mention look even better and then what we're going to do as soon as we flip those over is reduce our heat to medium and we'll toss in a nice chunk of butter along with two sage leaves and we are not adding this butter to help cook the sausage all right those patties are doing just fine but we do need that butter to make our roux which eventually is going to turn into our pan gravy and as far as our sage leaves go yes they are flavoring the butter but we'll also use those to garnish our patties at the end because if you fry sage leaves they actually turn crispy and what we're going to want to do is watch those leaves and remove them from the pan when they stop bubbling okay you see those bubbles that's water coming out and as soon as that stops and they look a little something like this we'll go ahead and remove those from the pan and then continue on medium until our sausage is cooked which is basically when it just starts to feel firm to the touch okay if it feels mushy it's raw but when it firms up and springs back you know you're probably done and at that point we will pull our patties and proceed to make the pan gravy and to do that we will whisk about a tablespoon of flour into our sage butter and pan drippings and we'll cook that for just one minute before adding about a half a cup of chicken broth and of course as we do that all that beautiful caramelized goodness is going to be released from the bottom and be infused into our sauce and it should turn into one of the most beautiful colors you've ever seen which by the way is why we're not using a non-stick pan here okay if that stuff does not caramelize onto the bottom of the pan this is not happening and then what we'll do once we've deglazed our pan is raise our heat to high and we'll bring this up to a boil and while that's happening we'll add the rest of the ingredients which includes a little touch of maple syrup just like a teaspoon or so to sweeten this up a little bit and we'll also at this point add a little bit of cream or in my case creme fraiche okay cream is fine creme fraiche is better and yes of course we have a video on how to make that yourself and if you've never actually had creme fraiche before do yourself a favor and make a batch but anyway we'll go ahead and stir that in and i'm also going to season this up with a little bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper and that is pretty much it for our pan gravy we're simply going to cook that until it's as thick as we want which for me was right here okay as you can see here i like mine pretty thick but still spoonable oh yeah it's got to be spoonable and if yours goes too far just add another splash of stock or broth but anyway once our pan gravy is done we're ready for final assembly so i'm going to go ahead and split one of our famous buttermilk biscuits and place that next to a nice arugula and apple salad which should pair perfectly with our sausage and we'll place down our patties and spoon over plenty of that gorgeous gravy and then for a final and very beautiful touch we'll go ahead and garnish with our crispy fried sage leaves and that's it our homemade chicken apple sausage and biscuits and gravy is ready to enjoy and man did i enjoy this that my friends was one of the most delicious things i've eaten in a long time and because we followed a few simple techniques and ground our own chicken we have a beautifully moist and tender texture that was so sausage-like if you didn't tell someone they probably would not know you used chicken for this okay that is how juicy and flavorful this was so yes a little bit of extra work but totally totally worth it so i could not have been happier with how this came out although i did decide i should spoon on the rest of the gravy because if you are making one serving of something you're going to want to serve it at once so i went ahead and spooned over the rest and i continued on experiencing the magic that is homemade sausage on homemade biscuit with homemade gravy oh and one last thing to mention before we sign off here you actually don't have to make links or patties you can if you want just toss that sausage meat into the pan and crumble it up as you cook it and make what we call in the business a country gravy so that's another way to go if you want and i will give you a little more info about how to do that in the blog post but no matter what form it eventually takes i really do hope you give this amazing chicken apple sausage a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of rfo as usual and as always enjoy [Music] apple crisp and not just any apple crisp the world's crispiest apple crisp and how does it get so crispy secret ingredient that you're going to see in a minute i don't want to spoil the surprise so anyway we're going to get started here with the topping which is very very simple to make so into a mixing bowl we're going to add some flour just regular all-purpose flour we're also going to need some sugar to help caramelize this all together so we're going to use white and brown sugar we're going to put in some rolled oats very traditional ingredient in fruit crisps and then this secret ingredient do you recognize it what is it what is it it's grape nuts that's right and by the way if you're not from here and you have no idea what grape nuts are feel free to google it it's very interesting but basically grape nuts are a very crispy crunchy breakfast cereal and they're really really great for these kinds of toppings and i bet you didn't even know grapes had nuts oh they have nuts all right so some grape nuts and then last but not least melted butter we're going to pour that in and we're going to stir that together all right so once that's thoroughly combined you're just going to set that aside until our apples are prepped which is the next step all right first up with the apples we're going to peel them i'm using a mixture of green and red i have some granny smith and some pink lady i tend to stick with the feminine apples for this but you can use the more masculine varieties like some nice hairy gems or golden lusters pretty much anything will work so you're going to peel your apples and then we're going to slice them and here's my method i want you to take the apple and cut it in quarters and then you're just going to remove the core from each quarter so slice it down slice it that way all right looks good now there's several ways you can core them you can just flip it over on the cutting board and just make a diagonal cut like that all right that totally works you can also do it in your hand like this just pulling the knife towards you all right once your apples are peeled and cored take your knife and just slice them up what are those eighth inch slices quarter inch slices i don't know i'm not measuring them just slice them sort of the same size go ahead and toss those in a mixing bowl we're going to use the juice of half a lemon in this so you might as well get it in there right now not only will it taste good it will keep the apples from browning all right so i'm going to squeeze the juice of half a lemon in there give it a little toss and then continue with my apple prep and every time i toss an apple in i'll just give it a little mix to make sure it gets coated with a little bit of that lemon juice after that we're going to head over to the stove where i'm gonna melt some butter in a large skillet over medium heat to which i'm gonna add some brown sugar and some white sugar and i'm gonna give that a stir and we're just gonna let that sugar melt into the butter all right while i'm waiting for that i'm gonna add a little bit of cinnamon be careful with your heat mine was too high check it out all right starting to caramelize a little bit there no big deal but you don't really need for that to happen all right so once the sugar's kind of melted into the butter and looks kind of like a caramel sauce we're going to go ahead and throw in your apples and just a little splash of water about a tablespoon and we're just gonna keep cooking that on medium heat stirring the whole time until the apples just soften a little bit and sort of get coated with that caramel sauce so most apple crisp recipes start with raw apples and the apples cook all the way in the oven i don't really like that for me i always want to give the apples a little bit of a head start because that topping is going to be perfect in a half hour and i don't know if the apples are going to be totally tender and sweet and amazing after 30 minutes so for me this works a lot better and in a few minutes you're gonna have something that looks like that and you're ready for the final assembly all right i'm gonna dump the apples in your standard size casserole dish what is that like a two quart two and a half quarts something like that dump the apples in even them out a little bit and by the way i mentioned earlier that i accidentally candied a little bit of that sugar and i can tell because there's a little piece of what looks like hard candy right there which i'm totally going to grab now and eat accidental apple candy after that we're going to go ahead and dump on the topping and you can just dump it all on at once and smooth it out but for whatever reason it actually is more fun if you sprinkle a little at a time i can't explain all right so sprinkle on the topping do not press it down and that is ready for the oven which has been preheated to 3 75 that's going to go in there for about 25 to 30 minutes until the top is beautifully browned and you'll see what looks to be a caramel sauce bubbling around the outside of course by the time i get the shot it stopped bubbling but you know what i mean it'll look all hot and bubbly and you're done alright you're going to definitely want to let this cool a little bit i mean that's really between you and the first two or three layers of skin on the roof of your mouth but i would suggest a cooling period of at least 15 minutes and then dig in you could serve as is you could serve with ice cream you could serve with whipped cream although i'm not a big fan of the whipped cream people seem to like it all right let me try some of this okay so the fruit mixture is really just like a super delicious apple pie filling and then the topping as advertised very crisp very crunchy and texturally those grape nuts really really do a great job so i hope you give this a try all the ingredients are on food wishes.com and more information of course and as always enjoy apple and cheddar cheese souffles that's right people have been adding sharp cheddar to apple recipes for centuries so i thought this time we'd flip the script and add apple to a cheese recipe instead and despite one major mishap which i'll explain later this came out incredibly delicious so here we go step one we gotta prep some apples so i have one granny smith apple that i peeled and quartered and once that apple is quartered we're going to cut that in like three pieces and then we'll just turn it and slice it across like this the exact size is not that big of a deal you can go a little smaller if you want but i wouldn't make them any bigger if those are too too big they might disrupt the souffles inflation later but anyway we're going to dice up one apple like that and at that point we're going to go over to the stove where i have a skillet on medium-high heat we're going to put some butter in there and as soon as we see the edges start to want to brown we're gonna go ahead and toss in our apples and we're gonna cook those on medium high for about two minutes until they just start to soften all right so give them a stir keep them moving and after about two minutes we're gonna go ahead and sprinkle in a tablespoon of sugar and we'll stir that in and all we're gonna do is continue to cook this until the apples are soft and the outside gets a little caramelized i can't really give you an exact time which is the bad news the good news is you're simply going to cook them until they look like this at which point you're going to transfer those to a plate to cool and it's on to the souffle batter but before we start that do yourself a favor and prep your ramekins and all that means is put them on a sheet pan and grease them lightly with butter and yes that fingering was totally fake those are already buttered and then we're heading back over to the stove where we're going to make a roux so in a small pan over medium heat i'm going to melt a couple tablespoons of butter and as soon as it melts we're going to add an equal amount of flour and we're going to stir that in and we're going to cook that for about three minutes all right we're just trying to cook out that raw starchy taste from the flour and by the way you people emailing me that you can't make a decent roux i don't understand it's simply equal parts butter and flour there's no way for it not to work i mean if yours is all dry and hard to work with you have too much flour in it add a little more butter it should look like this and then once our roux has cooked for a few minutes we're going to go ahead and turn off the heat and then we're supposed to slowly whisk in the cold milk into the hot roux except we're not going to i want to prove something to you people that are afraid to make a lumpy white sauce i'm going to dump in the milk and not only am i not going to whisk i'm not even going to add a little bit at a time i'm going to dump the whole cup in and despite this huge breech and roux-based sauce-making technique it's still totally going to work i'm going to start whisking and as soon as i think it's mixed in fairly well and it kind of looks like that i'm going to turn the heat back on to medium and i'm going to continue whisking while that comes up to temperature and you're going to see it's going to thicken up perfectly with absolutely no lumps so if you want to whisk it in gradually like the textbooks say and like i've said many other videos go ahead but i just wanted to show you it really is not that temperamental okay so once our milk is whisked in and it starts to simmer like that i'm gonna let that cook for like one more minute and then we're gonna turn off the heat because we don't want to use this hot we want to let this cool down to just warm and as it cools it's going to thicken up and once it's cooled down let's go ahead and transfer that into a mixing bowl so we can continue the souffle batter so to this white sauce we're going to add some salt a little black pepper some cayenne and just a little pinch of freshly grated nutmeg oh you know we grate it fresh here and then once we've seasoned that up we're gonna add a couple eggs but we're gonna separate them we're gonna put the whites in one bowl and we're gonna add the yolks to our white sauce all right so to recap two yolks go in there and we got the two whites in a separate bowl ready to whisk so we'll just set those whites aside and then the last major ingredient is the cheese i'm using a sharp white cabbage cheddar from vermont which is amazing and i should know i check cheddar like a food inspector and then once our grated cheese has been added just go ahead and stir that together thoroughly and that base is now ready for the whites so let's go ahead and take our reserved whites and a balloon whisk and just start whisking and since whipping egg whites is all about introducing air into there you want to use long deep strokes and what we're trying to get to is nice soft peaks it should look like shaving cream you know when you go to the old time barber and they put the towel on your face and then they slather on that thick shaving cream well it's basically the texture we're looking for ooh that reminds me i gotta call my blacksmith later but anyway we're gonna whip those egg whites into soft peaks like that and then we'll take half of those and add it to the other bowl this is standard souffle procedure you add half you fold that in just to lighten the mixture you don't have to be that gentle just kind of fold it in and as soon as that first edition of whites kind of just barely disappears go ahead and add in the rest and then this half you want to fold in and be a little more careful and you know folding right you slide the spatula underneath and you fold everything over the top and then you turn the bowl and then you do it again and you keep doing that until those egg whites are just barely incorporated and then last but not least we're going to gently fold in our now cooled apple pieces and as i do that some of you keen observers are noticing hey that mixture doesn't look as light and airy as that last shot we saw well that's because of the major mishap i mentioned earlier i dropped a measuring cup in the bowl and by the time i cleaned it up and scraped the sides down i'd lost a lot of air and by the way these came out so good i almost didn't say anything but i did want to mention something because yours are probably going to come out even better because you're not going to drop a measuring cup into your batter all right and then we're going to fill up our four ramekins evenly of course why you'd want to fill them unevenly i don't know but i always feel like i should mention that and then those are going to go in the center of a preheated 400 degree oven for 22 minutes approximately it'll depend on the exact size and shape of your ramekin but you're gonna cook those until they're browned and puffed and they're going to look like this and i'm sorry this front lighting is not working for me let's switch to light coming from the side oh that's much better and of course like all souffles those are going to fall pretty much immediately so if you want the use and oz make sure your guests are like right there when you take them out but like i said they are going to deflate almost instantaneously which is fine these simply do not taste as good piping hot so suit yourself but i'm going to suggest you eat these warm and when you do i think you're going to be quite impressed i mean even a regular sharp cheddar souffle is a fairly amazing thing but when you add in those little pieces of caramelized apple you're talking about taking it up to a whole other level of awesomeness and by the way i like to use much less egg whites in my souffles than a lot of recipes okay i'll take flavor over extra foam any day of the week so for something like this i really do prefer the texture with a little less egg white so anyway there you go apple cheddar cheese souffles hopefully we've shown that this is not a very difficult technique it is really not as temperamental as people think and the amazing looking and tasting results totally make it worth trying which i really hope you do so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy apple hand pies that's right i'm going to show you my patented method for making perfect hand pies also known as turnovers and i know you're thinking those look too perfect to be homemade i bet those are store-bought well thank you that is the best compliment you can get for these things it means you made them so real they look fake and even though i'm gonna fill mine with apple this technique's gonna work with any filling you like so let me show you how this works it's surprisingly easy so like i said i went with an apple filling so i'm going to peel some apples i know some of you prefer the perry knife method i really think a peeler works better for these i go around the top like that and then i make nice big wide peels around the side and for me that's the easiest way to peel an apple unless you're going to do a ton then you need one of those cool turny things okay so once the apple's peeled we're going to go ahead and quarter that and then we're going to take the core out which is pretty easy you can do it this way just hold the apple and pull the paring knife towards your thumb like that being very careful to stop before it goes into your thumb and if you're slightly less coordinated this is a good method just put it on its side and make a little 45 degree cut like that and that works too so once you take the core out we're going to take each quarter cut it into three pieces and then cut it into chunks for four hand pies two large apples should be enough mine were kind of smaller i did three so i had a little extra filling but that's fine at that point i put a couple tablespoons of butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat until it got a beautiful toasty brown so just keep an eye on it and when that foam gets a nice little golden nutty brown color go ahead and throw in your apples we're going to give them a little pinch of salt give a little stir in that hot butter i'm also going to add some white sugar and just a little touch of brown sugar and then at this point i made a conscious decision to go with a soft filling some people like to make their pies and turnovers with raw apples just tossing it with the sugar and just relying on the baking time to cook the apple here i was going for something much softer almost like an apple jam or an apple butter okay so i cook mine nice and soft those little chunks of apple will kind of swell up and break down swell up swell up and break down and once they got to that point i dumped in a nice healthy dose of cinnamon i'm gonna mix that in and by the way i wish you could smell the aroma just such an incredible bonus you get to smell this stuff as it cooks it's really half the fun and then last but not least i put in a little tiny splash of water just to deglaze the pan a little bit soften these apples up just a little more because like i said i really want an apple buttery jammy applesauce type filling not a firm piece of apple we're going to bite into all right just personal preference you only want to cook yours for a minute or not at all go ahead that's perfectly legit but anyway to summarize you're going to cook your apples in butter sugar and cinnamon until they're as soft as you like so i went all the way to the soft and sticky stage so once that's done i'm going to transfer that onto a plate to cool while we roll out our dough speaking of which here it is you're going to need some pie dough and i will tell you at this point that the one i'm using here is a new secret recipe called butter crust that i'm going to unveil next week so you're going to stay tuned for that it was unbelievable so we're going to take about four ounces of whatever dough you're using enough to make about an eight inch round doesn't have to be exact these are hand pies nobody's going to measure your hand pie okay and also don't worry about perfect circles perfect circles are annoying get it close it just needs to be circle-ish and once you do have an eight inch circle shaped piece of dough we're gonna go ahead and spoon in about a third to a half a cup of filling all right right near the center we're gonna fold over the dough but we're gonna fold it over about an inch short just like that we're gonna tap it down around the filling with our fingertips nice and firmly that is the first of three levels of crust security the second is going to be this i want you to go around and just fold over the overlap just like that all right nice and tight all the way around and once that's been folded over and pressed down we're going to go to the third phase which is the crimping and i know they say crimping ain't easy but that's so not true crimping is easy all right take the thumb and forefinger of one hand press it in and push in between with the forefinger of your other hand and you will have a perfect so good it looks fake crimped crust so you're pushing with two fingers and you're pressing in between with the other your thumb is moving into the indentation that your forefinger just made and it really is that easy so once you're folded and fully crimped we're going to transfer these onto a lined baking sheet and then we're ready for the egg wash some beaten egg with a little bit of milk i'm going to paint it on generously and then we're also going to sprinkle these with sugar if you're feeling savory of course you'll skip this step or you'll substitute something like a finely grated parmesan cheese or maybe some herbs and spices something like that and then once they are sugared we're going to go ahead and put three ventilation holes in the top and this is key if you don't make those holes the steam will not be able to escape your pie will rupture you'll lose all those delicious caramel juices from the middle and your oven could possibly explode all right once we've achieved proper ventilation we're going to go ahead and pop those in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes to a half hour until they look browned crispy and gorgeous look at those just a beautiful specimen of a hand pie i really want to eat one right now but they're so molten hot inside do not try it let them sit for 15 minutes you will enjoy it much much more and after that though all bets are off i bit into that thing and i was so happy like i said i went with a very soft almost like an apple jam or apple butter filling but again if you want the chunks of apple like a traditional apple pie filling go for it and you can see here the extreme flakiness of that dough that is the new butter crust pie dough i'm going to show you next week but like i said no matter what dough you use no matter what fillings you use this technique should work perfectly alright so i really hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] apple dumplings that's right i'm very excited to be showing you one of america's oldest desserts which i love everything about except the name since when i think of dumplings i don't think of something like this okay what this really should be called is baked whole apple pie ball but anyways too late to change the name now so we will just stick with apple dumplings and to get started the first thing we're going to do is make a very simple sauce as in three ingredients simple and those will be some brown sugar some butter and a splash of nice cold fresh water and what we'll do is bring that up to a boil stirring occasionally over medium-high heat and the reason i'm using a ladle is that eventually this stuff's going to get ladled over our apples before they go in the oven but anyway like i said we'll go ahead and bring that up to a boil and as soon as that's boiling and we're sure all that sugar has been dissolved we can go ahead and turn off the heat and reserve it until needed and as i carefully swirl this around i can see that my sauce is clear and there's no sugar at the bottom so we'll simply turn that off and that is now ready to ladle over our apples and then once that's set we can move on to make a little bit of cinnamon sugar which not surprisingly is made by stirring some cinnamon into sugar oh by the way as i stir this let me ask you when was the last time you had a nice piece of cinnamon toast that was one of my favorite things ever and then once that's mixed we can move on to prep our apples and by prep i simply mean core which is super easy to do if you have one of these apple corers but if you don't you can do the same thing with a small thin pointy knife just be careful oh and as far as the apple varieties go personally i think a honey crisp apple works best for this but something like a granny smith would also work beautifully so that choice is going to be up to you i mean you are after all the king of your apple dumpling and as long as your highness chooses a baking variety this is going to work fine and then besides cording this we'll also want to check for little stickers since that is not something you want to bake into your apple dumpling and that's it once our apples are prepped we can move on to rolling out some pie dough and what i have here is half a batch of our butter crust dough which i've divided in half since we're doing two okay so if you're keeping score at home one full batch of butter crust should give you enough dough to make four of these apple dumplings and then what we'll do is form that into a disc and then using just enough flour so it doesn't stick we will roll that out to about an eighth of an inch thick which is going to make it about seven inches across but forget that measurement the bottom line here is we need enough dough to wrap our apple completely so depending on the size of your apple you might have to adjust and sure i was kind of sort of trying to get it round which i really didn't not even close but it really doesn't matter as long as we're able to wrap our apple and then what we'll do once our pie dough is rolled out is place our apple right in the center and then we will take our cinnamon sugar and we'll go ahead and spoon in about three teaspoons or so and then once that's been transferred in we'll go ahead and plug that hole with a nice chunk of butter or as my british friends call it a knob of butter which is never not amusing and then once our apple has been cinnamon sugared and buttered we will go ahead and bring up our sides of dough wrapping that as evenly as we can and one huge tip here make sure you're doing this with enough dough okay we do not want to stretch and pull this dough too tight otherwise once it bakes it's going to contract and fall apart so no excessive pulling and stretching please and wherever that dough pleats and we have extra what we'll do is just simply press that with our palms to kind of even it out so that one area isn't super super thick and another area isn't super thin and if everything goes according to plan we're going to have enough to seal everything at the top by simply pressing it all together like you see me doing here and if we do end up with a little excess on the top we will simply trim that off and then use that if we want for one optional step and that would be to roll those trimmings out nice and thin and make a few leaves with which to decorate our dumpling i mean do you want an undecorated dumpling i don't so i went ahead and rolled that out nice and thin and then use my knife to cut out three leaf shapes or at least something remotely close to a leaf and then using the edge of our knife we can make one line in the middle and then on either side of that we'll make some little lines like at a 45 degree angle to give it that classic leaf look and by the way we're just making marks do not cut all the way through and that's it to attach these we'll just brush or rub a little bit of water on the surface and those leaves are going to stick on nicely so i did three leaves all together and then i made a little depression in the center since i still had enough dough left over to make a stem oh and one more tip for you do not spend too much time on this stem okay since once these bake it ends up being virtually unidentifiable but anyway once you're happy with your design we can go ahead and transfer that into a lightly buttered baking dish and then i really wish i would have taken my own advice and not worried about the stem because i wasn't really happy with how it looked so i pulled it out and reshaped it and made it much much worse but anyway moving along i went ahead and made one more dumpling and as you can see i spent a little more time on the leaves and then what we'll do once all our dumplings have been placed in the dish is go ahead and ladle over our sauce making sure the surface of each dumpling is completely coated and yes it might seem like that sauce is a little thin but that's okay because that's going to thicken up as this bakes so we don't want to start off with it thick and that's it once sauced these are ready to transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for about 50 to 60 minutes or until our pastry is cooked and beautifully browned and our apples are tender and while those are baking it is not a bad idea to give them a couple bastings with the sauce which i'm doing here after about a half hour and by the way feel free to do this while they're in the oven right just open the door and pull out the rack and give them a quick base and pop them back in okay i'm just doing them here on the table because it's easier to film but the point is you're going to want to base these a couple times while they bake but anyway basting aside like i said we'll bake these for about an hour total or until they look like this actually let me rephrase that or until one of them looks like this so yes as you can see one of these completely exploded and that's because of one reason and one reason only it's because i didn't have quite enough dough so when i wrapped that one i pulled and stretched it too tight so this is what we call in the recipe video business a teaching moment but regardless of their appearance once he's come out we'll ladle over some more of that sauce which is going to make that crust even shinier and more beautiful unless of course it exploded like mine so anyway that was unfortunate and what made me feel even worse is the one on the right was the one i made for michelle so that was a bummer but anyway on the bright side mine was fine so i went ahead and plate it up while it was still warm and you should have plenty of that sauce so we'll be sure to spoon some more over and then i highly recommend this gets served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream oh and i should mention this is one of the few rare dishes i know that we serve with a spoon and a steak knife but anyway once that was properly garnished i grabbed that spoon and knife and went in for the official taste and catastrophic ruptures to the other one aside this really is an amazing thing to eat right the flavor profile is almost identical to an apple pie but instead of having a bunch of slices of apple we have one beautifully roasted tender sweet apple inside which while covered in the same crust we use for a pie is far superior because we basted it and baked it with that sugar sauce so you know on a regular pie those edges of the crust that get soaked with those syrupy juices and they're extra sticky and crunchy and caramelized and amazing that's what all this crust is like oh and by the way a whole apple is a big portion so i think you can easily serve two people from one dumpling so i'm just gonna go ahead and eat half of this and then i'll save the rest for michelle since that one i made for her didn't work out and of course i'm half kidding here about giving her half i didn't film it but if you transferred that exploded apple into a bowl and then just simply place those pieces of fractured crust over the top and put a scoop of ice cream next to it you really would be experiencing pretty much the same thing just in a much much more unattractive form so use plenty of dough and do not stretch and pull it too thin but anyway that's it what they call apple dumplings even though what they really should call these is whole baked apple pie balls but no matter what you call them they're truly amazing which is why i really do hope you give them a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] baked apple roses that's right we've all been there before you bite into an apple and you think to yourself this is good but i wish it was like 75 pastry and shaped like a rose well i think we've come up with something perfect for that exact situation and the good news is it's way way easier than it looks because you do have to admit it looks pretty complicated but as you're about to see it's actually quite simple so let's go ahead and get started and first up we're going to need to slice and soften some apple so i'm going to take a red apple anything that would work in an apple pie is going to work here and i'm going to cut it in half and then we'll trim off the end and using a very very sharp knife we'll make some beautifully even thin slices all right that one was a little thick that's better so as you can see here we want these nice and thin and by the way we're definitely leaving the skin on as you'll see that adds a very important visual element later so we'll slice our halved apple nice and thin and i guess we could have cored the apple before we started slicing but actually prefer to do it afterward so i'm just removing the bare minimum and i just like using one of these little round pastry cutters and by the way from what i've heard as long as you remove the seeds you can eat everything else so this could be unnecessary but i did it anyway and then once our apples are sliced and possibly cored we're going to transfer those onto a plate because these apples have to be softened a little bit before we start rolling the pastry otherwise they'll break so we'll throw those on a plate and it's okay if they overlap a little bit and then all we need to do is microwave these for about 45 seconds or so or until they just go limp and by the way if you don't have a microwave i will give you some alternatives on the blog post so to test give them a little wiggle and if they kind of flap around a little bit like that they're done okay we don't want mushy like i said we just want to be able to work with these without them breaking so to hedge my bets what i like to do is put over a piece of plastic and then a towel to kind of keep that heat in there and i'll just let those sit continuing to soften a little bit while i move on to prep the pastry so what we want to use for this ideally is a couple pieces of puff pastry which is sort of what i have here truth be told this is actually some trimmings from a very very exciting experiment i just did where i tried to create a puff pastry using biscuit dough so stay tuned for that at some point in the future but for the sake of this video we're gonna pretend it's puff pastry and on a floured surface what we need to do is somehow someway roll this out nice and thin into something roughly i don't know three inches or so by maybe 12 to 15 inches and the final thickness should probably be just under an eighth of an inch so i try to get it as close as i could with the rolling pin before switching to the trusty old pizza cutter for the final trimming and you've probably figured out i'm just making two here but this is not a recipe it's a technique so depending on how much pastry and apples you have around you can scale this up to as many as you want and then once our paster has been rolled and trimmed to the appropriate size we're going to take a little bit of melted butter and spread it all over the surface and yes we usually do use a pastry brush for this but i felt like spooning which works just as good and easier to clean by the way and then once our dough has been buttered we're going to sprinkle on a very generous application of cinnamon sugar which of course is just sugar that has cinnamon stirred into it and of course you could sprinkle the cinnamon and the sugar separately but this method will ensure a complete and perfect distribution then once that's mixed up we will sprinkle that over our butter and by the way how much you put on is totally up to you okay i went fairly light here because as you know i'm very health conscious but if you want something a little stickier a little sweeter a little more decadent you could easily put down twice as much as you see me doing here i mean you guys are the jeremiah towers of your baked apples shaped like flowers so that's totally up to you and at this point we can go ahead and start laying down our apple slices so we'll start placing those down along the edge and by the way you want to start probably about an inch in from the end so that we have a little bit of plain dough left when we finish our rolling so we'll place those down overlapping partially as you can see and what we want is for the top of the apple to extend about an eighth or a quarter inch past the edge of the dough but of course having said that a little variance is fine if some are a little higher some are a little lower that's all going to add to what we hope is a very realistic look and then once our apples are in position we'll simply fold the bottom half of the dough up over just like this and we'll kind of press down and seal the ends and you should end up with something resembling this and then what we want to do next is paint the surface of the dough with a little bit of egg wash which is nothing more than an egg bean with a couple teaspoons of water and we'll brush that on after which we will do one more application of our cinnamon sugar and again totally up to you with how heavy-handed to be and at that point we are finally ready to roll so we'll start at one end and roll it up towards the other keeping it as even as possible and of course that pastry is going to expand a little when it cooks so do not roll this super tight just roll it up like this and you should end up with something that looks very similar to a rose check it out and then we'll want to take that little extra piece of dough and kind of stretch it around like this to keep everything together so like i said a fairly simple procedure so i'll go ahead and roll up my second rows the exact same way and apparently this one had a little less dough or less apples because it did come out a little smaller but that didn't bother me i'm chef john not chef robot so you have to expect some variations and then once our roses are rolled we're going to transfer those into some buttered and sugared ramekins so just brush a couple appropriately sized ramekins with butter and then dust them with some white sugar shaking out any excess and then like i said we will transfer the roses into the ramekins and yes by the way you can use muffin tins for this although the cooking times might vary but we'll talk about that in the blog as well and then once those are placed in last but not least one last little dusting on top with the cinnamon sugar at which point these are ready for the oven so let's go ahead and transfer those into the center of a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes and we're going to want to place these right on the rack so be careful okay the bottoms aren't going to cook as well as if you put them on a pan so we'll place them just like that and we will bake those for about 45 minutes or until well browned and looking absolutely gorgeous which i'll show you in a second but first one tip when you take these out of the oven plate safe and use some tongs with a pan underneath in case they slip but anyway like i said we're going to cook those about 45 minutes or until they look like this and then what we want to do is let these cool for about 5 or 10 minutes in the ramekin before unmolding these while they're still warm and in case you're interested while they are still warm you could take your tongs and kind of pull up and or move around those apple slice rose petals to make them look even more perfect but anyway like i said we'll let those sit for about five or ten minutes before removing them from the ramekin and if necessary you could just use a parry knife to loosen it up but as long as these are still pretty hot they should come out relatively easy which mine did and as you can see that pastry got nice and golden brown so if yours don't look like that when you unmold them put them back in and at this point all we have to do is let them cool so i did transfer mine onto a rack to cool completely and once that happened i was ready for the official final touch a little dusting of powdered sugar which as you know i don't like i'm really not a fan of the powdered sugar but the consultants tell me that if i use it i have a 45 better chance of someone sharing this on pinterest so sometimes you got to do what you got to do so a little powdered sugar and at that point those baked apple roses are done and just looking absolutely beautiful and i'll admit even if these tasted terrible i would still make them because they just look so amazing but i'm happy to report they don't taste terrible they taste incredible and sound incredible alright that crispy flaky pastry surrounding those sweet perfectly cooked apples this is like an entire handful of the best parts of an apple pie so i just love everything about these in fact the only real problem i have with this is what to actually call it since it's a little hard to categorize i mean when people hear apple rose they think of an apple carved into a rose but what other name would work it's not a tart it's not a turnover it's not a danish although it's kind of rolled up like one but not a danish so that's the only minor issue here but you know what it really is much to do about nothing because to paraphrase the late great william shakespeare an apple rose by any other name would taste and look as sweet so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] honey crisp apple tart for one that's right i'm going to show you how to make a fun size apple tart it looks like something that would come out of a professional pastry shop yet it's so simple and so easy it could be made by someone who's never baked before and we're gonna do all this with just a few ingredients and no special equipment unless you consider a potato peel or special equipment which believe it or not is our secret weapon to make this recipe but first things first and before we get to that we have to prep our crust which is going to be super easy since we're using a sheet of frozen puff pastry and what we'll do is take a cutter the exact same size as the ramekins we're going to bake these in and we'll go ahead and punch out two pieces oh and if you don't have a set of these round pastry cutters don't feel bad just simply place the ramekin you're using over the dough and trace around with the tip of a knife and then what we'll do once those have been cut and placed on a parchment-lined pan is take a fork and dock the dough and docking is just a culinary term so we don't have to say pricking the dough and by making a bunch of holes in the dough with a fork like this that's going to help prevent it from puffing up too much and also allow steam to escape and then later on when we bake this with our apple it's going to help us produce a beautiful crisp crust and that's it once we finish docking we can move to baking as we're going to pop these into a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until they look like this and then what we'll do is slide these off the pan so they cool down faster and by the way i would love for someone to tell me why these turned out oval i mean weren't those around when we put them in the oven so i was a little confused by that anyway while these are still warm we'll give them a little pressing with the fork to sort of deflate them a bit which is going to help give us a little bit of a crispier texture later and then what we'll do is let those cool down while we move on to our sugar mixture which will include some brown sugar some white sugar a small pinch of cinnamon and an even smaller pinch of salt or just a little bit and once all that's in there we'll give it a mix and simply set it aside while we move on to butter our ramekins which is an easy but crucial step since we really do want to be fairly generous here because butter is a key ingredient in any successful apple pie or tart ok so don't be shy and we really do want to make sure these are very very well buttered and then once those are set we'll take our sugar mixture and we will evenly distribute it between the two ramekins but we don't want to put every last bit of it in at this point okay i want you to save about a teaspoon and a half so we can apply that to the top of our apple later and that's it once those have been sugared we'll go ahead and give those the old shake a shaker and then we can set those aside while we move on to proper apples and by prep i mostly mean peel but before we do that we'll go ahead and trim a little bit off each end which may or may not be necessary but for me i think it helps square this off and also helps me cut this right in half a little more evenly which is the next thing we need to do at which point we'll grab those two halves in our pull down style potato peeler and we'll head over to a nice cold fresh bowl of water into which we're going to squeeze about a teaspoon of lemon juice which will help prevent our apples from oxidizing but also maybe give a little tiny hint of flavor and then what we'll do here is take our peeler and go ahead and peel each of these halves into as long ribbons as we can at least when we start out you know we're probably not going to use those first few inches of the peel since it's mostly skin but as we go around we're going to get into the flesh which as you'll see we're eventually going to roll up to form what's basically going to be our apple filling and while it's nice that the first few pieces end up kind of long as long as these ribbons are like three or four inches long we're good and even if you do end up with a few really short pieces those can get stuck in here and there and still be used and basically we're going to keep peeling like this until we get all the way down to the core and then what we'll do once we peeled as much as we can is pull out three or four of our longest ribbons and we'll go ahead and line those up as straight as we can and then we will start rolling from one end as tight as we can without it breaking to form what's basically going to look like a rose and as far as portioning goes depending on the size probably one apple per tart is a good guess although who knows you might need one and a half and if you have to peel some more you'll peel some more no big deal and then once we have that center formed we can go ahead and turn it up on its end and then we'll simply take ribbons out of the bowl and we will coil them around the center and by overlapping the next piece that will hold the previous piece in place and we will simply continue on repeating that process until we have a coil of peeled apple exactly the same size as our ramekin and i'm sure you've heard me say many times the surface area equals flavor so by making our filling out of these rolled apple peels we are utilizing a ton of surface area which is going to give us a ton of apple flavor okay this is why deli sandwiches always taste better since they're cutting their meat paper thin on a slicer as opposed to us at home with the exact same piece of meat and we're hacking off like quarter inch thick slices right same meat totally different sandwich experience so it's not a perfect analogy but that's basically what's going on here but anyway once we have this built up to the same diameter as our ramekin we'll go ahead and pick it up and transfer it into our ramekin on top of the sugar but we'll do that with the flat side the side that was on the table facing the sugar because eventually once this bakes and gets turned out that's going to be the top so i went ahead and did one more and yes as a recipe name would indicate this is a honey crisp apple but any baking apple like a granny smith will work and then what we'll do before we add our crust is go ahead and place over a little bit of butter right not too much maybe half a teaspoon or so followed by that little bit of sugar mixture we saved which i said was going to be like a teaspoon and a half so we'll go ahead and sprinkle that over each one which if my math is correct is going to be about three quarters of a teaspoon and that's it once our apples have been buttered and sugared we'll go ahead and place over our puff pastry rounds with that golden brown side up and buy rounds i mean ovals and i use that time-tested technique where if it doesn't fit just force it oh yeah i learned that putting ikea furniture together and since these were pretty close around it wasn't a major deal but it was still a little bit annoying mostly because i'm not sure why it happened but hey that's why i like cooking so much so many mysteries and that's it once i had my oval pegs placed in my round holes those were ready to transfer into the upper center of a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the tops were browned and the serps were bubbling and they looked like this and then what we'll do while these are still piping hot is take our fork and give them a little pressing just to sort of compact everything down a bit at which point we'll let these cool for about 10 minutes before turning them out on a plate but before we do that i like to go around with a knife just to make sure our pastry's not sticking to the edges so we'll go around with the tip of a knife to make sure that's not happening and that's it as far as the dismount goes we will simply tip that over onto a plate and hope for the best and as you can see mine came out beautifully except for that one little peel in the back which i simply pushed back in place so yes while these are still warm you can go ahead and take your fingers and fix any imperfections although like i said i was very happy with how this came out but why just be happy with something when we can possibly make it look even better so if we want at this point we can take a spoon and just sort of go around in between those layers just separating those a little bit and give that top surface a little more definition and that's it we could serve it like this since it is absolutely gorgeous but if we want it to look even more professional we could if we want brush a little bit of simple syrup over the top which as you know is two parts sugar to one part water brought to a boil or in the bakery we would brush over some melted apricot jam and that's just to give the top a little bit of a shine and then last but certainly not least i'm going to finish up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or instead if you want you could use a scoop of whipped cream or michelle's recommendation some whipped cream fresh but of course that's going to be up to you i mean you guys after all the kenji's of how to present these but no matter what you serve alongside once you grab a fork and dig in i think you'll agree this is not just one of the most beautiful apple tarts you've ever seen it's going to be one of the most delicious and that's because we hardly did anything to it i mean we don't need to we have buttery crispy pastry just a massive amount of apple flavor with it being sweetened just enough with that little touch of sugar and cinnamon and what's really interesting here even though those pieces of apple were super thin the texture in the final product is not soft and mushy right somehow someway the apple actually retains a little bit of firmness just a little bit and what i really love so much about this little tartlet besides all that stuff i just said about the taste and texture is that pretty much anyone whether they've ever baked anything before in their life or not will be able to produce something that looks like it was made by a professional pastry chef and believe you me they are not happy about it all right they want everyone to think this stuff is super hard but we're on to you pastry chefs but anyway that's it what i'm calling honey crisp apple tart 4-1 whether you're looking for something to make for that special someone on date night or you just want to trick your guests into thinking you have professional pastry skills or and this might be the most popular reason you just wanted one portion of what's basically a perfect apple pie but no matter what your motivation is i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] apple butter that's right have you ever been eating applesauce and thought to yourself this is good but i wish it was like a thousand times better well my friends that is a very good way to describe apple butter and there's more good news the technique for making this stuff is very very easy except please don't confuse easy with fast okay while super super simple this takes many many many many hours but the results are so well worth it as hopefully you're gonna find out so with that let's go ahead and get started and first up we're gonna cut up about five pounds of apples and my favorite variety for this would be granny smith but any classic cooking apple will work and what we'll do before we start cutting is go ahead and take out the core which if you have one of these cores is pretty easy since all you got to do is sort of plunge that down through the middle and then once that core has been removed with hopefully all the seeds we will simply cut this into quarters and then you could if you want just start slicing these but i like to give them one more cut and then slice them into about one inch pieces all right so that's one way you can do these but let's say for the sake of argument you don't have an apple corer you could also do it this way okay we'll make one cut straight down next to the core right about where you think the seeds would start and then once that first slice is taken off we'll set it down on the flat side and then we'll make another cut straight down again close but not too close to the core and then we'll simply do that two more times and while you will lose a little more apple than the first method it is still a pretty fast and effective way to do this and you may remember this technique from such videos as ben franklin breakfast bowl oh and as you may have noticed we did not peel these so that's going to save us a bunch of time but that's not the only reason i also think this comes out tasting better and looking better and feeling better since it's going to actually get thicker if we don't peel them so if you've been peeling apples all your life for apple butter i'm sorry but you really did waste all that time but hey now you know and then what we're going to do once we have our five pounds of apples prepped is go ahead and transfer them into whatever we're going to cook this in which could be a roasting pan for the oven or a heavy bottom stockpot for the stovetop or as in my case into a large slow cooker which i think is by far the best and easiest method and once those have been transferred in we'll go ahead and add the rest of the ingredients which will include a little touch of white sugar just a mere cup and a half as well as a half a cup of brown sugar and i know that looks like a lot but it's roughly half of what most people use in case that makes you feel any better and then to that we're also going to need a little bit of salt as well as of course some cinnamon and then we'll finish up with some freshly grated nutmeg which i took the liberty of freshly grating earlier and then last but not least for our spices we'll do a little pinch of allspice which apparently tastes like all the spices put together and then in a little plot twist for some acidity we're going to do some apple cider vinegar okay a lot of people like to use lemon juice in this but personally i think the cider vinegar works out better and then we'll finish up with a splash of cold fresh water and that's it we'll go ahead and take a spoon and give this a mix and once all that's been stirred together it is now ready to cook and cook and cook for a really really a really long time and if we are using a slow cooker what i like to do is start it covered on the highest setting until it starts giving up its liquid and starts getting a little bit soupy which is going to take a little while i mean it's called a slow cooker for a reason so even on the higher setting this did take a good while to get to this point and then what we'll do once this mixture does come up to temperature and start to soften up and get nice and juicy is turn it down to the lower setting and let it cook uncovered for many many many many hours and exactly how many is going to depend on your slow cooker and other variables but as usual we're not going to go by time we are going to go by appearance but anyway what we want to do is cook this on low for as long as it takes until it looks like this at which point i'm going to grab an immersion blender and blend this smooth which really is quite a simple step if you have one of these stick blenders but if you don't don't worry you can just transfer it into a blender and then transfer it back of course being very careful it's hot all right we never want you burning yourself especially if you're going to blame me and we do want to get this pretty smooth but we are going to pass this through a strainer later or at least i am you do what you want but like i said i do want to puree this pretty smooth and that's it we're still not even close to being done since once pureed we're going to continue cooking this uncovered on low until it reduces even further and gets thicker and darker and even more intensely delicious and other than stirring it once in a while there's really nothing to do except wait and wait and wait some more okay so the only way to screw this up is in patience let it cook let it cook let it cook until it's at least as thick and dark as this and then what we'll do once we've determined it's cooked long enough is go ahead and pass that through a fine mesh strainer and while this step is technically optional it's only going to take a couple minutes and since you just spent like 10 hours getting up to this point that doesn't seem like that big of a deal but anyway you decide i mean you are after all the john sutter of your apple butter that's not really a butter raise your hand if you're disappointed there's no butter in this i know me too but it's fine don't worry we're gonna put butter on whatever we put this on first but anyway we'll go ahead and pass that through a strainer at which point we go ahead and transfer that into whatever we're gonna store it in and please note you're not going to be able to see the final appearance until it's fully cooled okay that color is going to deepen and it's going to thicken up and hopefully once fully cooled it should look something like this which i think is just absolutely gorgeous and at this point it's ready to serve on so many things or it may be a cheese biscuit or a piece of butter toast or my case english muffin but no matter what you serve this on prepare to be blown away by its intense appley flavor alright you know those sticky brown juices that sort of bubble out of an apple pie that is this in a spread form all right when you make a batch of this it's basically like being able to have apple pie anytime you want and by the way if you stopped watching this video because you don't have a slow cooker you shouldn't have because in the blog post i'm going to tell you how you can do this without one but anyway that's it how i do apple butter it's always been a little shocking that applesauce is so popular in stores but you almost never see this stuff i mean who knows maybe it's too flavorful and they're afraid people can't handle it but anyway thanks to this video it doesn't matter because now you have the technology to make your own so i really do hope you give this a try soon head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy apple pie well actually not really apple pie because i'm not making the crust so i guess it's apple filling but it's still a great thing to learn great thing to know and by the way i apologize for the horse voice this weekend was the food buzz food blogger awards where yes food wishes won best video blog thank you very much so back to the pie all right i'm going to take my apples and i'm going to peel them with a parry knife very basic i don't have any tricks for that you can use a peeler if you want i just use a paring knife once they're peeled i cut them in quarters i take out the core i'm not a big quarter i don't have one of those things you push through actually i think i do have one but it's rusty so i just use a knife once the quarters are cut and the center's taken out i just cut them in like fifths but i think that's a good size there i'm using three different kinds of apples that's a trick my mom taught me pauline says you want at least three kinds of apples in your pie so check the ingredient list on food wishes to see which three i used the flavorings for my pie filling very very simple some fresh lemon juice i put that in first toss everything around so after we toss with the lemon i'm going to add my sugar a little pinch of nutmeg very small pinch of nutmeg cinnamon and the tiniest tiniest just a couple grains of salt toss that up and as soon as the sugar is dissolved and the apples look kind of wet i'm going to add my corn starch i'm going to mix that until everything looks dissolved and there's no visible cornstarch and that is your basic pie filling all right to build the pie we're gonna take a nine inch pie dish you know deeper the better and i'm using a pre-made pie crust and one of these days yes i will show you my secret and by secret i mean my aunt's pie crust recipe all right i'm gonna roll that out and place that in the bottom make sure it's nice and even if this is frozen make sure it's completely thawed so it doesn't crack put in your apples make sure they're packed down and try to really get them in nice and tight pour over your juices which there will be significant juices that sugar really draws out the water in the apple we're gonna dot that with butter unsalted butter and then the top pie crust we're gonna unroll that and we're gonna put that on top and we want the top to fit inside the bottom crust so you see how i'm going around i'm just tucking the top crust inside the bottom crust and then what i'm going to do is i'm going to go around and roll the bottom crust over the top crust to seal it so just like that so once you roll the bottom crust over the top just keep going around with your fingers and just press it down no need to get all fancy some people use a fork or they crimp it or they make these fancy designs i'm more of a naturalist i'm not doing anything too high tech just keep pressing it with your fingertips it looks good when it bakes it looks great all right now for the traditional cut we need some air vents the moisture in the apple has to evaporate out of the pie somewhere so i'm gonna put a little x on top then i put four long slashes and then in between those four smaller slashes that's just my apple pie mark everyone should have their own mark so come up with your own design that's mine all right on a pan with foil because this will bubble over sometimes and usually does with the apple syrup as it bakes you want to definitely put a pan underneath to finish a little egg wash which is just a beaten egg so take an egg beat it and just brush it over the top crust with a nice dusting of white sugar that's going to go in a 375 degree oven for an hour approximately could be an hour 10 minutes could be 55 minutes you want the crust nice and brown it's not really something you're going to be able to overcook the inside of a pie so as long as the crust is not getting too brown let it cook but in about an hour it's going to look like that the apples inside are going to be tender the crust is going to be flaky golden and delicious you're gonna let this cool completely or at least to warm and then serve it 1000 times better than any kind of canned pie filling don't buy those so american apple pie it's as american as chinese takeout so again i apologize for the voice but did i mention food wishes won best video blog 2009 food buzz blog awards thank you very much anyway go to the site to get all the ingredients and as always enjoy [Music]

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 538,657

Keywords: apples, apple, green apple, apple recipes, apple pie, best apple pie, easy apple pie, apple sausage, baked apples, apple dumplings, apple tart, apple turnovers, apple souffle, apple fritters, apple coffee cake, chef john, food wishes

Id: V3hKciyGBCY

Length: 92min 22sec (5542 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 18 2022