What’s your favourite kind of comfort food? For a lot of people that is probably a tough question. I know I’ve got quite a few at the top of my mind, but one of them happens to be Apple Crisps or Apple Crumble. I just love the cinnamony scent and taste of the tender apples contrasting with the deliberate grittiness of the topping. I love how its simplicity, and the fact that it can be so easily and quickly thrown together, essentially epitomizes a lazy day at home in your pyjamas; hair unkempt, kicking back with a nice warm mug of coffee– no pretentions, no embellishments. Nothing else except plainly existing as who we are. In the same manner, an Apple Crisp is rather straightforward; just apples and crisps. And on the occasion that we do eat it with a little bit of Vanilla Ice Cream, well, I don’t know about you but I like eating ice cream on my lazy days the most.
I made this Apple Crisp from Joy The Baker a few weeks ago and ate it with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream for ultimate comfort. If you would notice on the pictures, there was more crisp than there were apples. That’s unfortunate because the apples are the best part for me. Why do I always seem to run out of apples at such a crucial time, but have a fridge full of them when I’m not in the mood for apple recipes? Such a profound question for the Universe.
I really liked the combination of flavours on this Apple Crisp. The topping is just chock full of deliciousness (pecans and oats!). Unfortunately I didn’t feel like this would be the one recipe I would love to keep making over and over when I’m in need of a quick fix. (Or when I’m in the mood for apple pie but am too lazy to make the crust.) Alas, something was amiss for me in this Apple Crisp. Because the topping is very flavorful and sweet, it has a tendency to overpower the apple flavour a bit; but it might be because I did not use enough apples. I also thought it takes too long a time to bake, the issue of which could be resolved by baking this in individual ramekins. That said, I would definitely urge you to try this recipe out at least once, because it still is quite a good, solid recipe. And maybe if you up the apples a bit, who knows, it might even become your favourite recipe!
The other recipe I made were these Blueberry-Cinnamon Rolls from Annie’s Eats. Anything with blueberries in them just make me feel all giddy inside. I think it is largely because I like how they pop in your mouth once you bite through the skin of the berries. I don’t know, I must not be eating enough. However it’s been quite some time since I’ve declared desserts or pastries with hot, bubbling berries in them as one of my comfort foods. (Mixed Berry Cobbler? Yes, please!)
If you’ll remember, I made some regular old Cinnamon Rolls last time with my version of Cream Cheese glaze. Yes, I liked them a lot, but I think this particular recipe is better in that this bread has a nicer, softer crumb. (I often find myself favouring recipes that use bread flour like this one.) Also, the bursts of blueberry flavor is quite delightful among all the cinnamon flavour. The berries give these that jolt of juicy tanginess, and I think that adds a lot to these rolls as a whole.
My main issue with this recipe is the glaze. I simply cannot bring myself to use 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar to make the glaze. So if you would notice, my glaze is quite thin, because I cut down to sugar to about a cup or so. The goal was to make it taste lemony, because blueberries plus lemon is a fantastic combination! But it still ended up being sweet with just a slight tanginess, and I think this overt sweetness takes away from the flavours of the bun itself (not to mention the berries). In any case, I must confess that this has become my go-to Cinnamon Roll recipe because the bread part is just really good. I’ll be sure to pair it with my version of Cream Cheese glaze.
Truth be told, I think this particular yeasted bread recipe deserves a feature on the blog! I’ll probably do it once I concoct some interesting filling to make it a bit different from the usual.
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The Recipe Round-Up is a review of recipes that almost made it but end up not getting featured on the blog for one reason or another. Most of the time the reasons will fall among these three: 1. my dissatisfaction over my photos; 2. I’ve done a similar recipe before and this is merely a variation; 3. the results of the recipes to me were almost there, but not quite. There will still be some commentaries on how I would’ve improved the process or the recipes, plus all my usual observations. But instead of providing my re-written version of the recipe, I will simply link you to where I found it.
