Aunt Esther's Fruit Salad

My cousin Alice had a great aunt named Esther. Alice never met her great aunt, but this salad that carries her name (we just call it "Aunt Esther's") has graced our Thanksgiving table for more than three decades.  Wouldn't be the same holiday without the salad, or without remembering generations past. With Alice's kind permission:

Sauce for Aunt Esther's

Drain the juice from one can of pineapple slices into a saucepan and heat.

While the juice is heating mix together
1/2 cup sugar
1 heaping tablespoon flour
1 egg

Add to the boiling pineapple juice, stirring constantly until it thickens.  Let cool.

Beat 1 cup heavy cream into whipped cream (no vanilla or sugar)

Fold the whipped cream into the pineapple mixture.
Spread on top of a bowl of diced fruit

Whipping the cream and adding it to the sauce is best done just before you serve it.  This recipe makes enough for a holiday meal, and is more than I otherwise want at one time -  so I keep the sauce in the fridge for 5-7 days and add some to freshly made whipped cream when I mix a bowl of fruit. The fruit in this salad was pineapple, clementine, grapefruit, bananas, melon, empire apple, and pomegranate seeds

This is wonderful in summer with watermelon, strawberries, blueberries or bing cherries as part of the mix.

APPLE JELLY

The difference in taste between homemade and commercial apple jelly is more pronounced than in any other preserves I can think of.  You can choose the apples and therefore the flavor.  You don't need any specialized equipment, though you'll see that I use a foley food mill to get rid of the skins, so I can use the pulp that's left over for making apple butter.

I made this jelly from empires, and I haven't seen such a red jelly from apples other than crabapples.  The taste is wonderful but lacks a little character, and I think I'll mix northern spies into my next batch.  I usually make jelly from cortlands, (which give a beautiful golden jelly), but I didn't get to it before they had all been used up.  I got these apples from the farm stand a week ago, but I'm confident you can make jelly from store bought apples.

Many jam and jelly recipes will tell you to mix in some underripe fruit, but apples have so much pectin you don't need to do that.

APPLE JELLY

3 pounds of apples, washed, quartered and cored, but not peeled
3-4 cups of water (see note)
3/4 cup sugar for every cup of extracted juice.

How's that for a list of ingredients?  Cut the apples into one inch pieces, and add water.  You've apparently got some latitude here.  Many books will say 1 cup of water for every pound of apples.  Some say to just cover the apples with water.  The old Fannie Farmer cookbook says to use 4 cups of water for 3 pounds of apples, and that might be the best advice.  I used about 3 1/2 cups of water.  Because you're going to cook the apples there will be some evaporation.  It's not as exact a science as it seems like it ought to be, and it's a pretty forgiving process.

Bring the apples to a boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes.  You want the skins to have pulled away from the pulp, and the pulp to mash up easily with a spoon.  Let cool somewhat.  Put the cooked apples through a foley food mill if you want to make apple butter from the leftovers, but all you really need to do is mash the apples against the sides of the pan with a spoon (you could try pushing the pulp through a colander if you want to use if for apple butter). The picture below is of all the skins that are left over from 3 pounds of apples.

Make a way for the juice to separate from the pulp.  The simplest thing to do is to line a colander or nonreactive sieve with wet cheesecloth (or washed cotton flannel or a washed white cotton tee-shirt- no fabric softener!!).  Cheesecloth needs to be in 3-4 layers if you want crystal clear jelly.  One layer of the flannel or cotton tee will be enough.  You can also buy a nylon jelly bag, not that's not necessary.  Pour the pulp into the colander and let it drip into the bowl for a few hours or overnight, until it's not dripping very often.  DO NOT press on the pulp to get more juice out if you want a nice clear jelly.

You should have collected 3-4 cups of juice.  Measure into a nonreactive saucepan - at least 2 quarts in size and preferably bigger.  Add 3/4 cups of granulated sugar for every cup of juice.  Heat on medium high until it starts to boil, and then pay very close attention to it, both because you want to catch the jelly point, and also because as it nears the right temperature it will boil up and double in size, and maybe boil over and make a real sugary mess (not that I've ever done that). Be prepared to pick up the pan if the jelly climbs too high up the sides. This is why you need a big pan.

If you've got a candy thermometer then do use it.  Attach it to the side of the pan, and watch as it approaches 220, which is theoretically the jelly point.  But you also need to do the "jelly test," which involves swirling some juice in the spoon until it cools for a few seconds, holding it up and watching as the juice drips off the spoon.  At first it will drip in single drops.  As you approach the jelly point it will come off in two drops (isn't that weird?).  Then very soon it will come off in a little sheet that will break away from the spoon.  Take it off the heat immediately.  I decided this jelly was ready to come off the heat at about 216 because of the way it was starting to sheet from the spoon.  It is very tender jelly and took a full 24 hours to jell.  It would have jelled sooner if I'd let it cook to 220, but wouldn't have been as tender.  What this means is that you don't really need a thermometer - you can just use the jelly test.

As soon as you take it off the heat skim the foam that has collected on the surface. You can skim while you're cooking if you want, but there will be some at the end, too (the skimmings are edible - in fact my favorite).  If you don't skim it the foam will mix in with the jelly and look really odd, suspended in spots all through the jelly.  Of course if that appeals to you...

You should have already washed jars.  It's a good idea to sterilize them (run through the dish washer or fill with water in a pan and bring to a boil), and it's a good idea to process the jars of jelly if you want to keep them at room temperature, but I'm not giving directions for that because it's more complicated and making the jelly is really simple.  Pouring the very hot jelly from a clean cup into the jars and putting in the fridge will keep the jelly as long as opened jelly will keep.  If you're using canning jars you can cover with a new lid, screw the band on tight, invert the jar briefly so the hot jelly will kill any bacteria or mold on the lid, and the lid will seal and probably give you a little longer life.  Still a good idea to keep in the fridge.  Chances are the jelly is going to disappear long before you have to worry about it.

This batch made 3 1/2 cups of jelly and should have made a little more than that.  Probably could have used a little more water in the apples originally.  No problem.

If you've put the pulp through a food mill or a colander and the pulp looks good, you can turn it into apple butter. I like my apple butter to taste of apples, so I just add sugar to taste and a dash of cinnamon (1/4 tsp for this batch) and bring it up to as hot as I can before it starts to explosively bubble (190-200 or so), put in jars and refrigerate.  The apple butter is relying on the thickness of the pulp as well as the residual pectin to give you a pleasing spread.  But you're not counting on the science of the jellying point, so you can vary your recipe, add more spices, add vinegar, cook it for a long time until it's dark and deep in flavor.  You can also use noncaloric sweeteners instead of sugar, which is not something you can do with the jelly, where you're relying on the interaction of the sugar, acid, and pectin, to create a jell.  With apple butter the flavor and the thickness are all up to you.

APPLE PIE

Mother made perfect apple pie - thin, tender, flaky crust hugging the cooked bed of apples, caramelized juice dripping down the side with a drop forever jellied in place.  Mine is pretty good too, but I'm not sure it quite measures up to Mom's.  That's what memory will do for you.

I'm here to tell you that you too can make an outstanding apple pie, better than you ever imagined, or maybe as good as you've always imagined.  You'll make some different choices than I do but you'll have a reason for that.  If some element doesn't come out as well as you want, come back here and reassess. The instructions are long only to cover every detail, not because this is difficult.

1)  The pan.
I currently use a pyrex pie pan because I have it around for so many other uses - makes a great shallow casserole or a dish to slice tomatoes into for sticking in the oven to melt the cheese on top.  But I think an aluminum (or better yet, a tin) pan makes a better pie.

2)  The flour
Flour accounts for the biggest difference in the pie crust you might make now and the melt in your mouth crust of your distant memory.  Pastry flour used to be available on your supermarket shelf, and it probably isn't now.  Pastry flour is a lower-gluten flour and it resists being tough, even if you have to rework it.  Most people now make their crusts with all purpose flour, and I think that's a mistake.  Cook's Illustrated devoted an issue last year to apple pie, and in particular to all sorts of trials to get a crust that didn't float above the apples.  The crust floats above the apples if it's made with a flour high enough in gluten so that it will maintain it's original shape as it bakes.  A crust made with pastry flour settles down like the dew on your baking apples.

So what to dew do?  Pastry flour can be ordered from King Arthur Flour, and many co-ops and health food stores will have pastry flour (or whole wheat pastry flour).  But you can lower the gluten content of your regular all-purpose flour by mixing it with cake flour, which is what I've done here, assuming this is what you'd do at first too.  Substituting one third of the total with cake flour should satisfy most of your pastry flour needs. Once you've tried this you might want to search out the real thing, as the cake flour on your grocer's shelf is bleached.  Pastry flour also makes incredibly tender cookies, so it won't go to waste.

3) The fat
Mom used snowcap lard.  Made a wonderful crust with a distinctive aroma and flavor that still means pie to me.  Most people aren't thrilled with the idea of lard and notice the flavor difference, which interferes with their dessert pleasure.  If you think pork fat rules, you won't find anything better, especially if you can find organic lard.  Many other people use solid shortening, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of artificially hydrogenated fats, and that interferes with my dessert pleasure so i don't use it.  It's the second best choice if you don't mind.  So that leaves me with butter (oil crusts are a whole different thing).  Some people use mostly butter and some shortening, and if I had shortening around I'd do that too.  I'm guessing that a better butter with a lower water content might make a better crust, but I use standard salted butter because it's what I have in the fridge.  If I were buying it just for pie I'd buy unsalted butter and add salt.

Pastry is flaky for two reasons:  some flour gets coated with fat, and that keeps it from developing gluten - but more importantly larger pieces of fat, when rolled out, create layers of flour and fat.  Think of puff pastry, which is a flour dough layered with butter and then folded back over itself, and rolled out again, and again.  This creates hundreds of separate layers of flour separated by butter.

4) The apples
I think the best apples are a little tart, firm, and spicy.  The first pie apples of the year for me are Cortlands, and then once the Northern Spies ripen in Mid-October I only use spies.  My sister prefers McIntosh.  If you aren't happy with your available apple choices try making a pie with mixed varieties.  I've tried that too and been very pleased.

5) The filling mix
I use half white sugar and half brown sugar.  Less cinnamon than lots of pies do, because I want the apples to be prominent - and a grating of fresh nutmeg on top of the apples.  For thickening I use minute tapioca.  It gives no flavor to the pie, and there's no chance of the chalky, thick coating that I've tasted in some pies made with flour.  The tapioca mixes with the juices and creates little jellied jewels.  Use less tapioca (or flour, or whatever else you use) as the season progresses and the apples dry out.

APPLE PIE

THE CRUST

2 CUPS PASTRY FLOUR 

2/3 CUPS BUTTER, CUT INTO PATS

1 TEASPOON SALT (do not add if using salted butter)

ICE WATER, AS NEEDED

Fluff up flour before measuring. (Use 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour and 2/3 cup cake flour if you don't have pastry flour). Keep the butter as cold as possible. Cut the butter into the flour using either a pastry cutter, two knives, or a food processor, until it looks like coarse meal with some pieces of butter the size of peas (This is a petite pea).  Refrigerate if necessary (if the butter has softened).  Divide the dough mix about in 2 (a little more than one cup for each crust),  Add water just to the first (bottom) crust.

Add ice water a teaspoon at a time, mixing gently. This will take longer than you want it to.  Here I've added a few spoons of water and some clumps are forming.

 

When it just comes together, stop adding water.  The mix may seem a little dry to you. This is as wet as it should be

Throw a little flour onto your rolling surface, which can be a clean counter, bread board, or a plastic mat adhered to the counter with water.  You will not need to roll between sheets of plastic wrap.

Roll from the center outward, putting more emphasis on the outward movement than on downward pressure.  Turn the crust over every few rolls, and add more flour to the board if necessary to keep the crust from sticking.  Repair any tears in the edge, but don't worry about it a lot.  This looks like it's going to tear and like it's too dry, but it was just right.  This is actually the top crust.  I didn't take pictures of the bottom crust, but you can see in the pictures that the bottom crust doesn't hold its own very well and was too wet.  My hand slipped as I was adding the last water, and got too much in.  It's always best to add the water with a spoon instead of pouring it, and then these things won't happen.

When the crust is larger than the pan, either roll it up on the rolling pin, or (my preference) fold in half twice.  Either roll the crust over the pan, or put the corner in the center of the pan and unfold.  Take excess from one place and add it to holes at the edge.  Especially in the bottom crust no one will ever know.  There are no extra points for rolling a perfect crust.  This crust is actually too thick.  I should have removed some and continued to roll it thinner.  The thinner the crust the more delicate and flaky it will be. In fact, I'm remembering that I only need about a cup of mix for each crust, and there should be more than a half cup of dough mix you won't need.  Save it for the next pie, or make tiny tarts, or sprinkle cinnamon sugar on it, roll it up, and have little cinnamon pastries. 

PREHEAT OVEN TO 425

THE FILLING (SUGAR MIX)

This is for a large pie pan filled to overflowing.
Reduce the sugar mix if making a smaller pie. 

1/3 Cup white Sugar

1/3 Cup brown Sugar

2 Tablespoons minute tapioca

1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon

nutmeg to grate on top

a couple of pats of butter to top apples

Mix together in a bowl.  Sprinkle a thin layer on the bottom crust to protect it from the first layer of apples, which should be placed carefully on the bottom and up the sides. 

Sprinkle some filling on the apple layers as they build up, leaving a good amount for the top. (Mom used a full cup of sugar.  My sister uses none.  Experiment).  Some of you like to mix the apples with the sugar mix before adding to the pie.  That's good too.  I don't because it's not necessary and it's messy.

THE APPLES

Plan on at least 3 pounds of apples for a 9 inch deep dish pie. Cortlands, spies, macs, a mix. Ask for suggestions at your farmstand or farmer's market.

Wash the apples.  Quarter the apples with a paring knife, remove the seeds, peel, and slice either the long way or the short way.  Place the first layer on the bottom of the pie with care, to protect the pie crust.  The apples should mound up high in the middle, as they will reduce in volume as they cook. Leave a little space to adhere the second crust to the first.  Here you can see how sloppy the bottom crust was; it won't matter.   Grate a little fresh nutmeg on the top, and perhaps add a few very thin slices of butter.

THE TOP CRUST

Remove a cup of dough mix from the fridge, add ice water and roll out the second crust as before.  Patch where you need to.  Make a fluted roll at the edge if you want to. 

Top with a tablespoon or so of cream, and spread with your fingers or a pastry brush over the whole top of the pie.  Cut vents in the top crust with a paring knife.   

BAKE

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then at 350 for up to another 45 minutes.  Check at 30 minutes.  When done the crust will be golden brown, the apples pliable when you insert a cake tester.  But most important, some juice will have bubbled out of the crust and caramelized.  (Prepare for this with an oven liner under your pie pan, if you want.)  Letting it cool allows whatever starch you've used to jell (this slice was cut a little warm).  I like it best just a little bit warm, with ice cream or frozen whipped cream.