Wednesday, January 09, 2013

As American as...

...apple pie. I had a bunch of apples in the cellar screaming to be used, so I decided to make an apple tart. Ken suggested I make an American style apple pie instead. A pie with a top crust. So I did. It was a good way to use up all the apples.

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

I don't make this style of pie often, but it's nice once in a while. I used less than a half cup of sugar, and just a soupçon (how many times do you get to use that word?) of spice: cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. Another word I could use to indicate a small amount would be une pointe of spice.

We ate about a third of it. More for today!

Too much cinnamon and the pie would become, as one of my friends calls it, une tarte à la canelle (a cinnamon pie). I like the spices, but I also like to taste the apples.

Note from the front office: I hate typos. I make lots of them and I frequently manage to publish my post before I find them all. Today I noticed two spelling mistakes more than an hour after publishing. How embarrassing! They're fixed now.

16 comments:

  1. "Too much cinnamon"?? How can there ever be such a thing as "too much cinnamon" for someone born in New York? :)

    I have noticed the same thing in Australia though - cinnamon seems to have taken over from coffee as the smell they pump around shopping malls to make the feel "homely"

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    1. simon, hehe! I ate my share as a kid. But I've weaned myself off the stuff over the years. I still use it, just not as liberally as I once did.

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  2. Simon, there is so much cinnamon in tartes à la cannelle in the U.S. that apples are not really required. Instead of apples, you could have mashed potatoes, ground turkey or anything else, and it would taste the same because of the overpowering flavor of cinnamon.

    I’d love to taste your apple pie, Walt.

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  3. You've got me way over here drooling at that apple pie Walt.

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  4. Try your cold pie with some faiselle instead of custard or cream/créme fraiche... the sharpness of the cheese works very well with the apple and cinamon or apple and clove... and I always thought that Cherry Pie was the American favourite?

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    1. Definitely apple pie in the U.S., Tim. As American as..., as Walt said.

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  5. Cherry pie? the American favorite? Surely you gest, sir! Apple pie, all the way :)
    I like mine with a hint of cinnamon, or with lots of cinnamon-- the tastes are different, but if the apples are fresh (not the HORRIBLE store-bought pie type), that lovely mix of sugar and plenty of cinnamon can be very nice, indeed.

    A bit of Cheddah on that pie (Vermont cheddah, that is) would be scrumptious.

    Judy

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  6. The word "soupçon" is so much more romantic to use. Apple pie all the way here too!
    (The next 3 days in Los Angeles are going to be really cold. In the 50's F during the day but 32 F at night).

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  7. Looks wonderful...

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  8. En lisant le titre et les deux premiers mots du texte, un mot m'est immédiatement venu à l'esprit : cannelle ! Il m'est arrivé d'aller aux USA pour des conférences dans mon domaine de recherche et j'ai été très marqué par l'omniprésence de la cannelle, notamment dans les pâtisseries. Je déteste le goût de la cannelle qui, malheureusement, se propage en France ;-). J'avais trouvé des tic-tac (les petits bonbons en boites transparentes) de couleur rouge foncé au parfum "cinnamon", que j'avais ramené pour faire une blague à mes amis en leur faisant gouter ces trucs et deviner quel était leur arôme. Mes victimes ne sont pas parvenues à avaler ces bonbons :-). Par contre, j'avais découvert à l'époque, à la fin des années 90, des biscuits super bons qui s'appelaient Oréo. Ils sont maintenant très courants en France, et toujours aussi bons. Il n'y a pas de cannelle dedans où alors je ne l'ai pas sentie ;-).

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  9. Remember Apple Pies baked in a paper bag? Those might compete with your pie, Walt! Delish. I love apple pies with cheddar, too! And walnuts And Carmel! (Although I haven't had one like that for some time...) Yours will do just fine, Walt!

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  10. That pie looks soooo tasty. And thanks for the earworm, too: "Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry." :-)

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  11. How could one notice spelling errors when that delicious looking pie is before our eyes?

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