How do you like them apples? 20 apple recipes

From muffins, to cakes, to cheese spreads, to pairings with savory meat dishes, there is no end to uses for this favorite fall fruit.

13. Apple streusel bars

The Pastry Chef's Baking
For more of a cobbler feel, leave off the glaze and serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

By Carol RamosThe Pastry Chef's Baking

From Lovin' from the Oven

Sweet pastry

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg, beaten

Apple filling

1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 cups (about 3 medium) sliced, peeled baking apples (I used 3 large Granny Smith apples)

Glaze

2 cups powdered sugar
About 3 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. To prepare crust, mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or two knives until you have pea-sized crumbles. Gently mix in beaten egg.

2. Spray a 9- by 13-inch baking dish (I used a 9- by 9-inch) with nonstick cooking spray. Gently pat about 2/3 of the crumb mixture onto the bottom of the dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., and set pan aside.

3. To prepare apple filling, combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Toss with apples and spread apples out on prepared crust. Sprinkle reserved crust mixture over apples evenly and bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes (mine took just less than 50 minutes). When finished, allow to cool completely.

4. To prepare glaze, whisk together powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and enough milk to achieve desired consistency. Place glaze in a Ziploc bag and cut off a very small portion of one of the corners. Drizzle glaze over cooled pastry and allow to harden (you can place it in the freezer to hurry things along). Cut into bars and serve.

Read the full post on Stir It Up!

13 of 20

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.