Snickerdoodle Pie

There are certain food smells that make us instantly hungry. With me, there is not a lot of foods that fall into this category, but this one definitely qualifies. As this baked, the smell of buttery brown sugar and cinnamon wafted through the house. It was hard to wait until the pie cooled before trying a slice. Since I do not work in the food industry, I have enjoyed the luxury of experiencing a variety of different scents of food while it is baking-unlike the person that fries chicken all day. Rather than smelling of grease and chicken, I much prefer to smell like cookies, much like John Travolta in the movie Micheal.

As you can see, pie is not really the end result of the recipe. Instead, the result is a big fluffy Snickerdoodle cake sitting in a flaky crust. The crust at the bottom is coated in butter and cinnamon sugar and it has a brown sugar syrup poured on top of filling prior to baking.

The moist cake teams up with a flaky crust to create a nice contrast in texture. Also, no one can deny the delicious classic flavors of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. This cake is light enough to have for tea or an after dinner dessert. Another nice point is that it is appropriate for any season.

Snickerdoodle Pie
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients/Crust
1 recipe for single crust pie
1 tablespoon raw or coarse sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp butter, melted

Ingredients/Syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tbs water
2 tbs light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla

Ingredients/Filling
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk

Start by taking the dough for the crust and lining a 9 inch pie plate. Form the decorative top edge according to your preference. Whisk the cinnamon and sugar together a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, butter the surface of the formed pie dough with the melted butter. Then sprinkle the surface of the dough with one teaspoon of the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Set aside.

The next component is the syrup. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the remaining syrup ingredients and whisk together. Continue to whisk until sugar is dissolved. Let mixture come to a boil and let cook, boiling for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Then start making the filling. Sift together salt, cream of tartar, flour and baking powder in a medium size bowl. In another bowl, cream together butter and both types of sugar. Beat in the egg and the vanilla. Once blended, mix in the milk until the mixture turns into a batter. Lastly, use a wooden spoon and fold in the sifted ingredients.

Spoon the batter into the prepared crust and smooth out evenly. Then pour the syrup in a thin stream over the surface of the batter. Sprinkle the last of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the surface of the
filling.

Cover the crust edges of the pie with foil. Place pie in oven and let bake for 25 minutes. After this baking session is complete, remove the foil from the pie edges and place pie back in oven. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Put pie plate on rack to cool. After 30 minutes cooling time, slice and serve. This pie should be served warm.
                                          **LAST YEAR:Caramel Pecan Silk Pie**

Cherry Almond Cobbler Cookies

Here it is.  A good recipe for making individual cobblers without using ramekins.  Besides the assembly, just make the two cookies and the filling.  One pan to wash when it comes to the filling and only dessert plates and forks to wash when nothing is left to eat!

Sandwiched in between the cookies are whole cherries (bought frozen) flavored with cinnamon and lemon.  For the cookies, almond streusel is baked on to the top cookie and the bottom is plain.

I did have to tweak the recipe in regards to volume on both the streusel and the filling.  Even with the tweak , I was surprised at the amount of cherries needed for just a little over 2 dz sandwich cookies. More cherries than the syrupy liquid....hmmm...not really a bad thing!

These would be perfect for the 4th of July celebration.  That is if you can wait that long.

Cherry Almond Cobbler Cookies
adapted from the Cooking Channel

Ingredients/Cherry Crumble
1/4 cup chopped blanched almonds
1 1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup of sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp gnd cinnamon

Ingredients/Cookie Dough
2 eggs
1 cup or 2 sticks of butter
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups of flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped dried cherries
1/2 cup packed brown sugar 
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Ingredients/Cherry Filling
3 lbs frozen cherries, thawed and drained
2 tbs lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Start with making the crumble.  Melt the butter in a small saucepan, remove from heat. Stir in the almond extract. Next, fill a medium size bowl with both sugars, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix until evenly distributed.   Pour the liquid into the sugar mixture, stir and then mix in the flour.  Then fold in the chopped almonds with a wooden spoon and set aside.

To make the dough, you will need 3 bowls: two medium size and one from a stand mixer. In the first bowl, stir together all the sugars.  In another bowl, sift together baking soda, flour and salt.  In the third and stand mixer bowl, add the butter.  Beat the butter on medium speed, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Continue to beat until the butter has a smooth consistency.  Mix one egg into the butter, beating for about 30 seconds.  Repeat with the additional egg.  Then add the corn syrup and both extracts.  Beat for another 30 seconds.  Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the sifted ingredients.  When no dry streaks remain, stir in the dried cherries.

Separate dough into halves.  The first half will make up the bottom of the cookies. Scoop out a heaping tablespoon of dough and flatten it on the prepared cookie sheet. It should be about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches in diameter.  Repeat with process, making sure the flattened cookies are about 1 inch apart on the baking sheet.  Bake for about 9-12 minutes or until cookies have a toasty or golden hue on the edges.  Let rest on baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to rack to completely cool.  For the top cookie, follow the same instructions with one difference: before your dough is completely flattened to size, evenly sprinkle a heaping tablespoon of streusel on top.  Then press down lightly to flatten to desired size. Once all are baked, turn off the oven.

After all the cookies have cooled, match the tops with the bottoms.  Since they are free form, they will not match perfectly, but this task will keep you from having a big difference in size from top to bottom.

To start on the filling, you will need a cake pan (I used a 9X13 size) and foil to cover the top.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl blend the cinnamon, salt, cornstarch, lemon juice and the granulated sugar.  Then fold in the cherries.  Pour mixture into cake pan and spread evenly.  Cover tightly with foil and place in oven to bake for 30-45 minutes.  At 15 minute intervals, remove from oven, uncover and stir.  Then cover and place back in oven.  After baking, uncover and let cool for 15 minutes.  It should be like pie filling, not watery but not rubbery either. If it still has a watery consistency, cover and put back in oven to bake some more and check at 15 minute intervals.  Bear in mind mixture will thicken upon cooling. Let cherry mixture completely cool prior to using as filling.  My cook time was the full 45 minutes.

To assemble, spoon desired amount of filling on bottom cookie and top with streusel cookie.

Tips and Notes:
1.  Make sure your cherries are completely frozen and well drained.  Otherwise, filling cook time will be longer to eliminate the excess liquid.

2. I have thought that maybe rolling the dough between waxed paper and cutting it into circles is a way to go for a more exact match of top and bottom cookies, but the issue would be pressing the streusel on top. Also, I was very liberal with the streusel, making sure the cookie was completely covered, even the edges.

3. Other tweaks to the cookie part of this recipe include chopping dried cherries and almonds.  Also there was no reference to type of cherries (fresh, frozen, dried) used in the cookie dough so I opted for the dried.

4. The cookies are chewy and soft in texture which makes them a bit delicate.  Care is needed when handling. When assembling do not press down on the top cookie, just set on top.  The cookies can be eaten by hand, but due to the filling they are better served with a fork.

5. Since the filling is not completely enclosed in the cookie, assemble and serve the same day.
                                  **LAST YEAR: Ube Macapuno Cake**