Culinary Time-Travel: Heirloom Apples

Last week, James and I made our annual pilgrimage to Belltown Hill Orchards in Glastonbury for apples, donuts, and more. I was thrilled to see that they had a variety of heirloom apples for sale and picked up a few.

Clockwise from top: Cox's Orange Pippin, a dessert apple that originated in England in 1825 and perfect for pie-making, the lovely, sweet, red Honeycrisp developed in 1960, and the tart, green Newtown Pippin, allegedly Thomas Jefferson's favorite apple.  

I first learned about heirloom apples last year while doing research for the book and loved the idea of cooking heirloom recipes WITH heirloom ingredients. It's culinary time travel! Luckily, heirloom fruits of all kinds seem to be having a moment right now, if NYT trend pieces are to be believed.  And really, considering that most grocery stores only stock around three varieties of apples out of the 7,500 available, one of which includes the abhorent Red Delicious, we could all benefit from a little more apple variety.

I first made a pie using a mixture of heirloom apples and a recipe for Blue Ribbon Apple Pie from my Cook's Country cookbook, which is filled with lots of old-fashioned, classic, "heirloom" American recipes.

Mmmm tastes like history!

Then on Saturday I made yummy vegan pancakes with warm apple topping from the Post Punk Kitchen. Not quite culinary time travel, but delicious all the same. So whether you're making an old fashioned apple pie, or just looking to spruce up an old recipe, heirloom apples are a great addition. Keep an eye out at the farmer's market or, if you're lucky, your grocery store for heirlooms.

 

French Yogurt Cake

I know what you're thinking: "Yogurt? Cake? That's gross! I'm not clicking on that link!" But hear me out! I feel like yogurt gets a bad rap in the states and given some of the offerings (I'm looking at you, Dannon) I completely understand. We seem to equate yogurt with 'healthy' food, which we all know = bleh. But, if you've spent any time in Europe or even Whole Foods, you know there's a great big world of yummy yogurt out there! Even still, it can be hard to associate yogurt with anything remotely fun and non-yogurt tasting. 

I myself was guilty of prejudging this recipe when my step grandmother Fran made it during a recent stay at her home. It didn't really help that she then described it as moist, but I wanted to be polite so I tried some. It didn't taste like yogurt at all, just really yummy, moist cake.  She sent me home with the recipe, since I ate the remaining cake, and I finally got around to making it earlier this week. Not only is it delicious, it's also super easy. I've been eating a slice in the morning for breakfast (and maybe another at lunch or dinner) and it goes perfectly with a cup of coffee or tea.

Fran found this recipe in the book Lunch In Paris, which was an adaptation of Clotilde Dusoulier's original recipe--though they both state that this is a very popular cake in France that is usually the first thing children learn to make themselves. This tidbit will also serve to make you feel bad about yourself if you screw it up. Little French children can make this! What the hell is wrong with you? Additionally, Clotilde's has slightly different measurements that I plan on trying out next time I make this cake, which will probably be this weekend since I can't get enough.

I enjoyed the mixture of berries in Fran's cake so much that I stuck with that this time, but this cake is really adaptable to whatever fruit, nuts, or other seasoning you'd like to include. I feel like it would be perfect with some chopped apples, nutmeg, and cinnamon with a little streusel topping.

Gâteau au Yaourt

2 eggs
1 cup whole milk plain unsweetened yogurt (I used 1% here)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
a good pinch of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of one lemon
1-2 C mix of frozen raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries

Preheat the oven to 350° F, line the bottom of a round 10-inch cake pan with parchment paper and grease the sides. In a large mixing-bowl, gently combine the yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and oil. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture, and blend together -- don't overwork the dough. Stir in lemon zest. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan, top with frozen fruit, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Let stand for ten minutes, and transfer onto a rack to cool.

Euro Cuisine 2-Qt. Yog...$50.99 Kohl's

Fall Favorites: Poached Quince

                         No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
                                  As I have seen in one Autumnal face.
                                                    John Donne

There is a lot of things that I love about fall: my birthday, Halloween, apple picking, cute jacket weather, pumpkin everything. It is also a wonderful time for cooking, baking, and, of course, enjoying seasonal treats. After learning about quince last year during research for my book, it quickly became one of my fall favorites. Thus, I happily took a few off of James' dad's hands when his quince tree was overloaded with fruit a couple weeks ago. 

James' parents are from Greece and quince trees abound there, but James had only ever eaten the fruit raw, which is really hard and tart. Naturally, he was rather skeptical when I told him how delicious quince can be. However, I think I've finally converted him this past week when I made poached quince and quince jelly. 

I followed David Lebovitz's simple recipe for rosy poached quince, though I find that mine never gets as rosy as his. I have quince envy. I also followed his suggestion to reduce the leftover poaching liquid to create a nice quince-infused syrup. 

However, I ended up boiling mine a bit too long and ended up with quince jelly. Not to worry though, it was delicious. I almost skimped on the vanilla bean because they're pretty pricey, but I'm so glad I didn't. Quince jelly dotted with flecks of vanilla bean smeared on toast is a new obsession.