Building a Better Apple (for Pie)

Easier than you might think.
But the inside is the important part.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a cooking post. I’ve been cooking; I just haven’t been writing about it. Now I’m trying to make up for that. I’ve been meaning to write this one up for a while.

It’s fall and that means apple pie, right? I mean, who makes apple pie in March when the apple trees are (presumably) in bloom. I think you can find some apples at the supermarket year-round, but no one is convincing me that apple pie season extends much beyond the boundaries of Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

It’s almost obvious to say that there are two main players in apple pie: the crust and the apples. The crust part is easy. Either you find a reliable pie dough recipe or you go to the supermarket and buy some pie dough. I’m a fan of making my own dough, but let’s face it: the pastry shell is just a case for baking the pie in; people eat it, but the compliments come for the filling.

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The experiment was a failure, but the cake was a success

Butter and chocolate

I decided to make a torta caprese for Mother's Day; my mother-in-law likes chocolate. I've been making this for a number of years, but today decided to try something slightly different. Since it is a cake based on beaten egg whites, I thought I'd vary the recipe I've been using to see if I could get a bit more loft. This is not a lofty cake.

The recipe I've been using calls for chopping up chocolate and almonds in a food processor. Ground together, they form a sort of dark, sandy mix. This is added to egg yolks beaten with sugar, to which melted butter has been added. This is not a lo-cal dessert.

Lately, instead of grinding the almonds, I've been using almond meal. It's a lot easier, and the stuff that comes in a bag is a lot more finely ground than I can do in the food processor. But that left me grinding the chocolate still. This time, I wanted to see if melting the chocolate with the butter would improve the cake any.

Melted

I measured out my butter (there's a lot of butter in this cake), and then added the broken up bits of chocolate bar. I used the microwave to melt it all. A few 30-second cycles and the everything was melted. I stirred it together. Mmm. Chocolate butter.

I then made the rest of my cake as usual, beating the egg yolks with sugar, adding the butter/chocolate mixture, and then the almond flour. Finally, I folded in the egg white. It looked pretty good in the pan. The question was, would it bake up any higher?

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You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

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This blog runs solely on ego! Follow this blog! Comment on this post! Let me know that you want to read more of it!