Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we bake ALL the apples, and also eat ice cream (also apple flavored). Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.
All purpose apple pie filling at your kitchen
Recipe adapted from Spend with Pennies.
Last Friday I picked half a bushel of apples— which you would think should last all winter, but I’m nearly through all of them in a week. I just love fresh fall apples that much. They’re my favorite fruit to bake with, too. If you have too many apples on hand (although there is no such thing!) all you have to do is make a double batch of apple pie filling, which you can then use for just about anything: as a pie filling, on top of oatmeal, or with yogurt, or in a cake. I followed this basic recipe from Spend with Pennies but cut the sugar in half, added raisins, and used apple cider instead of water for an extra apple kick.
Apples baked in apple cider with oatmeal crisp and apple pie filling at home
An amalgamation of several different recipes including this one from the Food Network.
Baked apples are a kind of old-fashioned, homey treat that I don’t really see that often. I nearly forgot about them until I had them at a dinner party and remembered how nice they are. The reason I love baked apples is that a) the presentation is naturally adorable, and edible and b) if you *love* apple pie filling, this is essentially an apple pie baked in an apple which means you get 110% apple flavor! I prefer apples like macoun or empire, the white, crisp-airy kind, however they do have the tendency to explode into applesauce, so you can use firmer ones if that bothers you. To make baked apples, follow the instructions here, except replace the strawberry jelly with homemade apple pie filling (above), and fill the baking dish with apple cider instead of water. Serve warm topped with apple spice ice cream (below), and now you have a quadruple apple dessert!
Apple cobbler with raisins and maple yogurt biscuits
Adapted from Vintage Kitchen Note’s peach cobbler.
Everybody likes using peaches for cobbler, but gently cooked apples pair just as well with soft, fluffy biscuits. I like to bake an apple cobbler when I’m in the mood for a Not Too Sweet dessert; otherwise I’ll go for a more sugary and buttery streusel-topped crumble. There are many ways to make cobblers but I prefer to make really soft, fluffy and light drop biscuits instead of more rich and buttery ones. This recipe from Vintage Kitchen is simple and uses yogurt instead of buttermilk. I used maple vanilla yogurt (never Greek!) for the biscuits and it resulted in a lovely slightly-tangy cakey topping. For the filling, I simply used a single batch of the pre-cooked pie filling above. Perfect paired with the apple pie filling and a dollop of ice cream, the essential pairing for all apple desserts.
Apple spice ice cream at Moo Moo’s Creamery
32 West St, Cold Spring, NY 10516
If you look Moo Moo’s Creamery up on Google Maps, it shows up with “The World’s Best Ice Cream Shop” in its name. That means the ice cream better be good, and worth all the bragging. Thankfully, the scoop shop serves pretty solid classic hard ice cream. (A side note: A “small” or “single” scoop of ice cream at Moo Moo’s is massive – it’s at least a New York City medium, so definitely keep that in mind). I wouldn’t say it’s the World’s Best Ice Cream (that title is still up for debate for me personally), but it’s very very solid. My favorite flavors of ice cream are ones that are nutty and creamy rather than chocolatey or fruity – think hazelnut, maple walnut, sweet cream, and caramel, and Moo Moo’s has a nice fall palette going on that suits my flavor profile well. The apple spice flavor (which I’m guessing is seasonal!) has pieces of caramelized apples in it and tastes like vanilla ice cream on apple crumble in a single scoop. You’d think it might be too much to pair with apple baked goods, but it’s absolutely delicious.
Tres leches cake at Rincon Argentinian cafe
21 Main St, Cold Spring, NY 10516
A good tres leches cake transcends boundaries. Is it a cake? Is it a pudding? Is it something better than both things and in its own category? I often think that tres leches is a cake with ice cream energy. What I mean is that it is a delightful creamy and milky sweet substance that has a great texture to eat, only tres leches is not frozen. I love that about tres leches and I wish I had a good recipe for it (please send me one if you do!) or a good bakery near me. I don’t, which is why I enjoyed this slice of Weekend Tourist cake so much. It’s super milky without ever falling apart which feels kind of magical.
Eat lots of apples,
Soph
P.S. Next week FTIA will be publishing a super special guest post – a halal friendly guide to eating in London! If you enjoyed this post, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Five Things I Ate. Paid subscriptions are currently only $30 per year, and you gain access to all recipes in the archives, including my famous Pineapple Buns and Mama’s Scallion Pancakes.