Sorry it took so long to get this posted. You wouldn’t believe what moving to a whole new state and starting a brand new job can do to a person! But here it is, finally!

This past Saturday, Rob and I attended our first New Jersey party. It was our friend Jennifer’s birthday, so she celebrated by throwing a Mexican-themed party at her house. Earlier in the week I had planned to bake for her party, and I found a recipe for Apple Hand Pies; little hand-held apple pies with a powdered sugar glaze. Perfect! Once I found out about the Mexican theme, I realized that these little hand pies looked suspiciously like empanadas…what a perfect match!

Baking in a brand new kitchen, with only limited utensils and pots and pans is quite the experience. I brought a lot of stuff with me, but there were times I found myself reaching for something, only to say, “Oh yeah, that’s in storage…”

The recipe started with making a standard two-crust pie dough, which had two tablespoons of sugar added for sweetness. The dough was divided in two and chilled in the fridge. While the dough was chilling, I got busy cooking up the apples for the filling:

When the apples had cooled down, I removed one of the two halves of the dough from the refrigerator and rolled it out fairly thin. Next, I cut out circles from the dough and placed them on a greased cookie sheet. A tablespoon of the apple filling was placed on one half of each circle:

Once each circle was topped with filling, the pies were folded in half. The edges were crimped with a fork and the tops were brushed with egg wash. Finally, two one-inch slits were cut in the top of each pie to allow steam to escape:

The pies were baked for about 20-25 minutes until they were a golden brown color. Once they had cooled down, I mixed up a powdered sugar/water/vanilla/corn syrup glaze to drizzle over them:

They were a big hit at the party, and I really want to make them again sometime. My only issue was that two Granny Smith apples were not quite enough. Next time I’d definitely use three apples at least!

I have no idea yet what I’m baking this week. I should probably make that decision today, because I plan to make a grocery store run tomorrow!

A bittersweet post. This was the last baked good I made in our Columbus kitchen. The last baked good I would take into my co-workers. And yet, not surprisingly, the first post I will write in New Jersey.

Yes, folks, we made the move. Our house is all packed up and in storage in New Jersey and we’re staying with Rob’s dad for a while so we can scope out neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. We hope to move into a new place by September 1st.

With only two cookbooks and a couple of issues of Cook’s Country left unpacked, my choices are limited until we get our new place and I can unpack the rest of my books. This week I chose an Apple Coffee Cake that used yeast and looked quite pretty on the page.

The recipe started off as a typical yeasted baked good would, only with more sugar in the dough. The dough was kneaded several times and rolled into a ball, which was placed in an oiled bowl and left to rise until doubled in size:

While the dough was rising, two apples were peeled and sliced and then the slices were chopped into small pieces. These were cooked with sugar and butter until the apples were softened. The dough was then spread out onto a cookie sheet:

(Please excuse the disposable cookie sheet – most of my stuff was packed at this point.)

Once the apples had cooled a bit, they were spread out down the middle of the dough, leaving several inches of dough uncovered on either side. I then cut slits one inch apart down the dough and began layering the strips to resemble a braid:

Once the cake was completely layered, it was left to rise again for an hour. Once it was risen, I brushed the cake with egg wash and baked it for 35 minutes. It came out looking pretty good:

I then mixed some powdered sugar and milk together to make a glaze and coated the cake with it:

I didn’t even give this thing a chance to cool down before I cut into it:

Fan-bloody-tastic. This was absolutely amazing. There are several variations on the filling and I want to try a few more of them. My co-workers devoured the rest of the cake pretty quickly. It seemed like a successful way to say goodbye.

This week I’m trying to figure out what to bake. I’m thinking there may be a Lemon Meringue Pie in the future, but I’m still getting used to our new digs and the new kitchen that came with them.

This week I decided to try something that wasn’t sweet. I’ve always been a fan of soft pretzels, and the recipe didn’t seem too complicated. But as I was looking at it, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what made it a pretzel versus a twisted breadstick. I soon found out.

The recipe started with warm water, sugar and yeast, which was left alone for five minutes to get frothy:

Then, flour and salt were added and stirred in:

This was gathered into a ball and put in a greased bowl to rise for 30 minutes. Once it had risen, it was turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded a bit:

The dough was then divided into pieces and formed into the familiar pretzel shapes. Baking soda and water were whisked together and each pretzel was dunked into the mixture. They were then placed on a greased baking sheet and coarse salt was sprinkled over them:

The pretzels were then baked for about 17 minutes, rotated once during baking. When the timer went off, they came out looking like this:

It worked! And they actually tasted like pretzels! That little dip they took in the baking soda and water mixture is what turned them brown and made them taste like pretzels. The pretzel in the photo that is white is one that I missed when I was dunking them. And it baked just fine, but tasted more like bread than a pretzel.

My only issue with the pretzels was that they didn’t hold up so well the next day. These are definitely a bake-n-eat on the same day kind of baked good. But man they were good that evening.

Stay tuned for next week. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be making yet. Rob and I just got back in this evening from a wedding in New York and I haven’t had a chance to pour over my cookbooks yet!