Snowy and cold (and will soon be colder!) weekend in Maine visiting my mom, so I decided to raid the pantry to see what type of combination that I would bake with and as usual, I ended up with a crumble bar combo. As you know, they are my “go to” treat. This time with hazelnuts and apricot jam… a little bit of sunshine with the golden color and tartness of the apricots.
I’ve got an event or two coming up this week where dessert may be called for so I started off by baking this Sea Salt Caramel Apple Pie. Went a little overboard with the lattice work, but that’s ok I have a tendency to do that with pie. It’s sweet, it’s salty and I can’t wit to try it with some cinnamon or vanilla bean ice cream. Fun fact, I used Ludacrisp apples, which I had never used before, much less even hear of before. The Ludacrisp apple is a new variety and is described as “sweet, juicy, tropical-flavored hybrid (Honeycrisp/Fuji hybrid) known for its crisp texture, bold scarlet color, and unique taste reminiscent of pineapple and Juicy Fruit gum”. Really? It’s apparently a good all-around apple, great for snacking, salads, and baking, and named playfully after the rapper Ludacris, because who wouldn’t want an apple sort named after them. I wonder if there is a Katja apple.
I didn’t think that I would be a mincemeat person. I mean, I like raisins and dried fruit on the whole — and my recipe has raisins, sultanas, dates, apples and even a bit of dried apricot in addition to the candied lemon and orange — but I didn’t think that I would like it as much as I do. The reasons are two fold: I added candied pecans (crushed to powder in the MagiMix) to add a amazing nutty note to the crust, but 2. most importantly, serving it was gingerbread ice cream. That definitely cut the sweetness and made this the perfect Christmas dessert.
Thought that I would try something a little different today and decided to make cookies using hot honey. What is “hot honey”, you ask? Well, apparently it is becoming all the rage to serve with such things as cheese and on charcuterie boards. It’s chili-infused honey. I’ve seen a number of brands, and the one that I have comes from Italy. It is quite spicy when served with cheese and such, but the cookies just taste more like “cinnamon with a kick”. Still delicious though.