Monthly Archives: September 2014

Happy Saturday Everyone! This afternoon we decided to make some apple hand pies with our orchard's Macintosh apples. We were inspired during a raucous freezer cleaning session where we came across a disk of leftover pie dough from last season (Sitting Pretty Peach Galette). If you don't have a squirreled away frozen crust in your freezer, here's our basic pie dough recipe:   Ingredients: Dough: 2 1/2 cups (315 g) flour 1 tablespoon (15 g) sugar 1 teaspoon (5 g) table salt 2 sticks (8 ounces, 225 grams) very cold, unsalted butter ¾ cup ice cold water (put ice cubes in it but don’t add them to the dough)   For the dough, combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture easily forms a ball. You may need a little more or less. Divide dough into two pieces, wrap each in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.   Now for the hand pies! Before we start, let's talk about these little pockets of gold. Hand pies are the perfect food for children and adults alike! They are incredibly cute, delicious, and the perfect size for snacking. Sometimes it just isn't convenient to sit down, have a big slice of pie on a plate, dirty a dish and a fork and listen to your kid brother tell you why he's renouncing all meat and becoming a gypsy. For those times - reach for a hand pie.   Ingredients: Pie Dough Recipe   Filling: 4 Macintosh Apples 1 tsp lemon juice 1/4 cup sugar 2 Tablespoon AP Flour pinch of salt 1 tsp cinnamon dash of allspice, nutmeg, [...]

It’s Thursday and that means yet another delicious apple recipe from the Erdenheim Archives! It took a little convincing, but we’re ready to give away our secret recipe in honor of the delicious Gala apples we have growing here in our orchard. Today we baked up a special favorite, a recipe we created after many years of testing! And when we say many, we’re talking 10 years of test tasting and baking heartbreaks. The best part about it is that all you need, as far as equipment, are two mixing bowls and a cast iron pan. It’s rich, moist, full of flavor and perfect with an afternoon tea or coffee. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Kristina’s Champagne Walnut Apple Cake!   Ingredients: 5 Erdenheim Farm Gala Apples 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/3 cup granulated sugar 1 cup ground walnuts 1/4 teaspoon of salt   2 cups AP flour 1 cup cake flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup oil (flavorless - vegetable, safflower, grapeseed, canola) 1 ½ cup granulated sugar ¼ cup Champagne (you can substitute sparking cider if you'd like) ½ vanilla bean (or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract) 4 Erdenheim Farm Eggs   2 tablespoons of soft butter for pan greasing   Directions:   1)      Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a large cast iron pan and set aside. 2)      Peel, core, and dice apples into 1/2 inch chunks. 3)      In a medium mixing bowl, combine apple pieces, cinnamon, sugar, ground walnuts, and salt. 4)      In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, salt, and sugar. 5)      Pour oil, champagne, and vanilla into dry ingredients and stir until just combined using a spatula or wooden spoon. The batter [...]

It's another cool day here on the farm so in celebration of our own Heirloom Apple variety, we're making Heirloom Apple Sauce.   On our property we have four grand apple trees that have been around for over 200 years! The apples are blushed with red and green, and yield a delicious, full apple flavor. They are truly a special and rare treat. We used them today in some old-school apple sauce.   This recipe makes enough for tonight’s dinner, tomorrow's breakfast, and this winter's stash! We had enough left over to can and add to our winter preserves collection.   Yield: 5 1/2 pints   Ingredients:   20 (4.5 pounds) Erdenheim Heirloom "Farm Apples" cored, peeled, chopped 3 1/2 cups water 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/2 lemon 1 tsp cinnamon   1) Fill a medium size pot with 3 1/2 cups of water. 2) As you chop apples, add the chopped pieces to the water in the pot. This will help them to keep from getting oxidized and brown. 3) Bring apples and water to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 40 minutes. 4) Remove pot from heat and add granulated sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Stir until combined and let cool.

If you tackled yesterday’s Challah recipe, hats off to you and this recipe will taste even better because of your valiant efforts! If you haven’t had a chance to bake your own Apple and Raisin Challah, any soft white bread or brioche will do. But trust us, you’ll want to try this one in the future with the real thing. Today was the first official day that we left for work in our official Erdenheim Farm sweatshirts. The chill in the air brought us back to our childhoods, taking that brisk walk to the bus stop each morning. We spent the better part of the today's early activities on a trip down memory lane. But now we’ve returned, it’s lunchtime, and we brought a little something back for you! This warm slice of nostalgia gets a grown up boost with crisp, tart, Erdenheim Farm Apples and sharp white cheddar cheese. We used some leftover pancetta from breakfast as well. You can add ham, tomato jam, any greens or perhaps some caramelized onions? It’s up to you!   Ingredients: 2 thick slices of Apple and Raisin Challah 1/2 Erdenheim Farm apple, thiny sliced 2 oz (or maybe 3) of thinly sliced sharp white cheddar cheese Dijon mustard ¼ cup crumbled pancetta 2 tablespoons room temperature butter     1)      Butter the bottoms of one of the slices of challah. 2)      Flip the butter side down and spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard on the top. The top will be the inside of your sandwich. 3)      Place one layer of white cheddar over the Dijon, then a thin layer of apple slices. 4)      Top the apples with the crumbled pancetta and place another layer of white cheddar [...]

We’re in FULL APPLE FRENZY here at the farm and we’re welcoming ourselves back to the blog with a classic Apple and Raisin Challah recipe that uses EF Apples, honey, and eggs. On that note, we should mention that all of the recipes we make here at the farm use our super large brown eggs. If you can’t get to us early on Saturday mornings to pick some up, any extra-large variety will do. But make sure they’re extra-large, not just large by commercial standards. Last week, over brunch with an old friend, we got to talking cooking for specific diets. We ran the gamut from gluten free, lacto-veg, all the way to Kosher. This got us to thinking, Challah time is right around the corner and what better to serve it with than some fresh apples from the orchard? We love breads, and especially enriched ones. Making a loaf of Challah is something different for us, as we usually enrich our breads with dairy (butter). After getting our hands on someone’s great aunt’s, cousin’s, sister's, mother-in-law’s recipe, we knew we had to try. In the end, our house smelled delicious and the product was just as we imagined. Tender, golden, and large. Really large. In fact we feel compelled to tell you that if you aren’t planning on making apple and white cheddar grilled cheeses (stay tuned for tomorrow’s entry) the next day, you could probably cut this recipe in half. Or, make two loaves and freeze one of them after it’s cooled. I, on the other hand, AM planning on making apple and white cheddar grilled cheeses tomorrow and I live with a hungry farmer and a pug. This loaf won’t last 24 hours [...]