Apple Pie Baked Inside an Apple!

We're coming up on the 4th of July and nothing is more 'Murican than apple pie, right? Well, when I saw this post by DomesticDilettante, I thought these apple pies baked in apples were too good to be true. Look how perfect they are! Ahhh but there's a catch... wanna know what they forgot to mention? I'm not saying these aren't good but you might want to know the whole story before venturing to the apple orchards...


To make these mini apple pies, you'll need:

* 5 Granny Apples (4 whole apples and 1 to chop up for the filling)
* 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
* 1/4 cup of sugar
* 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
* Pie Crust (mine was store-bought and you only need 1)





To start off, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and cut off the top of an apple.

Using a knife and/or a spoon, core out the inside of the apple. If you're able to save any of the insides, keep them in a bowl for later. Chances are, though, you'll mainly be pulling out the core and a bunch of seeds, which aren't worth saving.

Do this for all four apples. Do not puncture a hole in the side or the bottom or you will have juices running everywhere. Trust me on this one.

Once your apples are hollowed out, it's time to make the filling. Peel and chop up your extra apple (which will fill almost 4 apples perfectly). Place the pieces in a bowl.

Next, add your cinnamon, brown sugar, and sugar and stir together until your apple pieces are coated in yummy deliciousness.... mmmm... yummy deliciousness...

Spoon your filling into each of your apples without overflowing.

Next, the "crust". Take your pie crust and cut it into slices. Now mine were pretty thin - about 1/4" thick - so you might want to make yours thicker but it's totally up to you. Fold each row and column under and over so as to make your woven lattice pie crust.

If you have an 8"x8" pan, place the apples in there, pour enough water to cover the bottom, wrap foil on top and stick in the oven for 20 minutes. If you don't have an 8"x8" pan and you just skipped the last sentence entirely, two 5"x8" bread pans work and just put two apples in each pan, pour in water to fill the bottom, cover with foil, and stick in the oven.

After the 20 minutes are up, take off the foil and stick the pans back in the oven. Be very careful, as hot steam will come up from under the foil and bad words you didn't know existed will flow from your mouth. So... be careful.

Now you can either let them bake another 20 minutes and they'll look like the ones on the right or 25 minutes and you get the ones on the left. As long as the apple filling is soft, you're good to go.

And now, ladies and gentleman, the part you've all been waiting for... what did the original post forget to mention or show? How the apples look from the side.

Warning: might not be appropriate for people who like their applies to be perky, green, and perfect.

Aiiiiiiiee!!! What IS that?! Well folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but any photo you see of these will always from the top and never from the sides because of this exact reason. It ain't pretty. The apples kind of collapse on themselves. However, the filling inside is delicious, the crust tastes good, and the lining of the apples taste like applesauce so what's a little wrinkle here and there, right?

TOTAL COSTS: About $15 to make 4 apple "pies" (prices from Vons)
$1.99/lb for Granny Smith apples
$4.79 for cinnamon
$2.69 for sugar
$2.70 for pie crust
Made my own homemade brown sugar

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: About 1 hour, 35-40 minutes
20 minutes to cut and hollow out apples
20 minutes to make the filling
15 minutes to make the lattice crust on all 4 apples
20 minutes to bake with foil
20-25 minutes to bake without foil

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
Trying to make sure the filling is done while not burning the top is easier than it sounds. Just keep an eye on the oven and you'll do just fine!

Apple & Applesauce Whole Wheat Bread

I can't tell you how many times I screwed up this recipe... ok, four times. FOUR different mistakes I made throughout and believe it or not, it still came out delicious. So if I can make error after error and still have this come out moist and delectable, then you certainly can too if you heed my advice! I found this recipe on HungryHealthyGirl and some of the mistakes I made were due to her lack of detail in the instructions so I'll try to go into more detail than she did.

So first, grab the following for your...

Apple mixture:

1 cup (1 large of 2 medium apples) - peeled, cored, and grated

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 Tablespoon of honey

1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice

Dry ingredients:

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

Pinch of allspice

1/4 teaspoon of salt

Wet ingredients:

1/4 cup of honey

1 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup of brown sugar (I know brown sugar isn't wet but you'll be adding this with your wet ingredients. I used my homemade brown sugar recipe)

2 Tablespoons of coconut oil

1 egg

2 teaspoons of vanilla (another homemade recipe)

First, preheat your oven to 350 and grease a 9x5 bread pan. So far, I didn't make any mistakes!

Next, prepare your apples. The original post recommends peeling, coring, and grating the apples. Well, don't use one of these machines and peels, cores, and slices. Why? Because then you're stuck trying to grate a bunch of sliced apples, you end up getting chunks instead, and you'll probably scrape the back of your fingers against the grater which hurts. A lot. So what I recommend is peeling your apples and then grating. Don't worry about coring because you'll know when to stop grating. Trust me, it'll be a lot easier!

Add your cinnamon, honey, and lemon juice to the apples in a small bowl and set aside.

Next, combine all of your dry ingredients (cinnamon, whole wheat flour, baking soda, nutmeg, allspice, and salt) in a medium bowl. I added the brown sugar to the dry ingredients instead of the wet but eh, what can ya do?

Finally, combine all of your wet ingredients (honey, applesauce, brown sugar, coconut oil, egg, and vanilla) in your stand mixer. I don't know what I was thinking but I forgot to add both the vanilla and the egg until it was already in the oven (at which point I immediately pulled it out = twice = and added them in!)

Add your dry ingredients slowly in with your wet ingredients and blend on low without over mixing (which I also didn't do... I had that mixer on high, just goin' to town!)

Fold in your apples and once they're combined, transfer to your bread pan.

Bake for 55 minutes and enjoy the aroma that will transfer from your kitchen to the rest of your house. It will smell ah-may-zing.

Once it's out of the oven, let it cool for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Even though mine did have chunks of apple in it, I didn't mind. It was really moist, and I could definitely taste the cinnamon, but I felt like it needed something else. More nutmeg maybe? More allspice? Maybe more salt? I'm not an expert taste-tester so I can't say, but it still tasted good nonetheless, despite my best efforts to ruin it!

TOTAL COSTS: About $49 (but that's if you don't have any of the ingredients - most prices from Vons)

$1.99/lb. for apples

$4.79 for cinnamon

$4.29 for honey

$2.29 for lemon juice

$4.39 for whole wheat flour

$1.59 for baking soda

$3.98 for nutmeg

$6.69 for allspice

$.99 for salt

$2.59 for unsweetened applesauce

$1.99 for store-bought brown sugar

$5.99 for coconut oil at Whole Foods

$2.49 for eggs

$4.99 for store-bought vanilla 

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 1 hour, 40 minutes

30 minutes of prep work (original site says 10 minutes! Ha!)
50 minutes to bake
20 minutes to cool

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 2 out of 5
It's not easy to peel, core, and grate apples and her instructions weren't very clear at times, but overall it's a piece of cake... errr... bread... Just break the recipe up into three sections -- apple mixture, dry ingredients, and wet ingredients -- and I guarantee you'll do just fine!

Apple Swans

Having a hard time getting your kid to eat their fruits? Or maybe you really want to wow your dinner party guests? This is a perfect solution to both those situations - an apple cut to look like a swan (or duck, depending on how long you choose to make the neck). I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it was but this video helped break down the steps, which I've also provided below. The first time took me 20 minutes to knock out, the second time took me 10 minutes. So the more practice you have, the easier and faster it'll go!

Very simply, all you need is:

1. An apple
2. 1 sharp knife
3. 2 butter knives
4. A cutting board
5. (optional) Lemon juice to help from browning

First, let me say be very careful when working with sharp knives. As the apple juices start to flow, you may lose your grip and accidentally cut or stab your hand, fingers, etc. So please be very careful and go slow, even if you're frustrated!

Ok, now that you've been properly warned, take your apple and with the stem (top) facing away from you, cut at a diagonal so the bottom will be on one half and the stem will be on another half.

Pick out any two seeds you think would make for great eyes!

Put the stem piece aside and work with the bottom piece first. Place it face-down on the cutting board and using two butter knives as guides, cut to the right of the calyx (that star-shaped mark on the bottom of apples) until you hit the butter knives.

Then cutting from right to left on the side of the apple, saw your way in until you hit the first cut, at which point, you'll be able to take the entire piece out.

Do the same thing on the other side of the calyx. Cut from the top until you hit the knives, then cut from the side until you can pop the piece of apple out.

Next, take one of the pieces you popped out and using the butter knives as guides again, cut 1/4" from the top until you hit the knives.

Now instead of trying to cut from the side, just turn the apple on its left side and cut from the top so you can take another chunk out. Do the same thing for the piece you just cut out. And the same thing to that piece!

Stack all the pieces on top of the original apple and you form a wing!

Do the same thing for the other piece you originally cut out and stack so there's wings on both sides of the base apple.

Now here's what I found to be the hardest part. Cut out a rectangle in the middle, so you'll have a place to put the neck/head. This is easier than it looks, so be patient.

Remember the top half of the apple you set aside? The one with the stem on it? Bring it back to the cutting board and using the butter knives and guides again, cut all the way through the apple.

If you cut all the way through each piece, you'll end up with something like this.

Find a piece that most resembles a heart and make a diagonal cut to the center of the apple.

Then make a horizontal cut to that point, so you can remove that section.

Make a diagonal cut across the bottom and you've got your head and neck!

Put in your seeds for eyes, stick it in the rectangular slot you created on the body, and you're set!

I do recommend making adjustments as you see fit, like rounding out corners, adjusting the thickness of the neck, etc. Trust me, the more you do it, the easier it'll be!

TOTAL COSTS: Depends on the apples you choose. At Vons the prices are:
$1.49/lb for Fuji
$1.49 for Golden Delicious
$1.99/lb for Granny Smith

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: 10-20 minutes
As I said, the first time took me 20 minutes, the second time took me 10.

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 3 out of 5
It can be hard the first time around, especially making the center hole for the neck to go in, but the more practice, the faster and easier it'll be!

Autumn DIY Candlesticks

I found a couple of easy, DIY candlestick ideas and wanted to share them with you. They're quick, easy, and festival for Autumn!

Trace candle around top

Place candle on top of apple

The first one comes to us from Indulgy - all you need are apples, a knife, and tea lights. Simply place the tea light on top of the apple, trace around the candle with either a marker or the knife, and cut about 1-1 1/2" into the apple (I cut about 1" into the apple - see below for results). Place the candle in the apple and you're good to go!

Note that the apple will turn bad after a couple hours but if you want to delay the browning, simply spray lemon juice inside the apple. This is not a long-term candle holder but certainly festive!

Don't use Elmer's glue -
it doesn't work!

 The second one comes to us from DIY-Craft. Now this one was a bit tricky for me because I don't live in an area with any trees, believe it or not. Luckily, I took a recent trip to San Francisco where they actually have things called "nature" and "parks" so I was able to pick up many twigs and sticks. First things first - find a candle holder that does not curve in (like those from IKEA). I found an old Glade candle holder and used that.

You may see glue in between
the sticks and that's ok!

Second, grab your hot glue gun. I tried using Elmer's glue and it doesn't work. Yes, you might see the hot glue in between the twigs but I don't know that many people who have glue for glass on hand.

Third, make sure your twigs are the same height as the candle holder. I wouldn't make them any taller, just to be safe. You don't have to glue down the entire twig (there were times I just glued the top or bottom to the holder and it worked just fine).

Give it some time to dry completely, stick a candle in there (I recommend a tea light since it's small and less likely to cause a fire accident), and enjoy your new candle holders!

The deeper the cut in the apples, the lower the candles will be!

TOTAL COSTS: Free!
If you have apples, a candle holder, a hot glue gun and trees nearby, it can be free for you too!

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Less than 5 minutes for apple holders, 45 minutes for twig holder 
It may be more or less time, depending on the size of your candle holder and how many twigs you use

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
A great activity to help gussy up your home for Autumn, especially around Thanksgiving. I wonder what gourd candleholders might look like!