Apple Cinnamon Streusel Dessert Pizza

 To download a copy of the recipe for Apple Cinnamon Streusel Dessert Pizza, click HERE.

I’m ba-a-a-a-a-a-ck

Although I “retired” from posting weekly recipes back in August, it remained my hope to continue to post recipes on an occasional basis. It took seven months, but this weekend I once again got to cook with a camera in one hand and a pen in the other.

 

A long time staple of pizza chain restaurants, dessert pizza is not a new concept. Made at home, by you, with the kind of attention to detail and ingredients a mass-production chain restaurant could never provide, however, it can be brought to a higher, and frankly pretty delicious, level. (Even the recipes you’ll find on-line often use canned apple pie filling for the topping. I don’t get that. Isn’t having a dessert that’s fresher and better than the one you buy from a chain restaurant the reason you’re making it yourself in the first place? But I digress…)

Of course, if your household is anything like mine, a dessert pizza will probably be used as a breakfast pizza. Dessert pizza just sounds more grown-up; in private, we know better.

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin:

• This recipe makes a 16 inch pizza. For smaller or larger pizzas, adjust the amounts of each ingredient proportionately. 
• For a less sweet dessert, reduce the amount of sugar in the apple-cinnamon topping.

This recipe makes one 16” pizza (approximately 12 portions).

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the pizza dough base: 1 pizza dough (purchased or home made); 1 Tbsp melted butter substitute

For the Apple-Cinnamon Topping: 4 Granny Smith apples; ¼ cup sugar; ½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed; 2 Tbsp AP flour; ¼ tsp salt; 1/4 tsp nutmeg; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; 1/8 tsp lemon zest; 2 tsp lemon juice

For the Streusel: 1-1/4 cup all purpose flour; 1/2 cup white sugar; 6 Tbsp brown sugar; 2-1/2 Tbsp firm textured butter substitute, very cold; 3 Tbsp flavor-neutral oil

For the Icing: 1-1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar; 3-1/2 Tbsp skim milk; 3/4 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Lightly coat a pizza pan with butter substitute.

Pat the dough into a pizza pan.

Coat the pizza dough with 1 Tbsp melted butter substitute.

Peel and cube the apples.

Combine the apple-cinnamon topping ingredients.

Spread the apple-cinnamon topping mixture all around buttered crust.

Combine streusel ingredients with a fork. (Avoid using your hands, since your body heat will soften the butter substitute.)

Top the pizza with the streusel mix. (You’ll probably have some streusel mix left over.)

Bake for about 13 minutes until crust is lightly browned. When done, let it cool to warm or room temperature.

While the pizza is cooling, combine icing ingredients. (The amount of milk shown is approximate. Start with a little less, and add a little more at a time until the mixture has a drizzle consistency.)

Drizzle the icing on the pizza.

Cut into slices to serve.

To download a copy of the recipe for Apple Cinnamon Streusel Dessert Pizza, click HERE.

Whether you enjoy this easy-to-make sweet treat for dessert, Sunday morning breakfast, or as a naughty midnight snack doesn’t matter. Just enjoy it!

You never know when the next great-tasting, home-cook friendly recipe will be posted, so please look in once in a while! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Mixed Berry Three Cheese Blintzes

To download a cookbook-style copy of the recipe for Mixed Berry Three Cheese Blintzes, click HERE.

Blintzes – eastern Europe’s simple and delicious version of a crepe – are perfect for breakfast, a light lunch, or dessert. This week’s recipe, Mixed Berry Three Cheese Blintzes, takes an early Kissing the Cook post for blintzes and reworks it in a new – and, I think, better - way.

Although fruit fillings are often used, the classic blintz is filled with a sweet cheese mixture made with cream cheese and either farmer cheese, cottage cheese or, in more modern versions, ricotta. This recipe combines both fruit and cheese. For the syrup topping and the fruit in the filling, I used a blend of fresh strawberries and fresh blueberries. For the cheese filling, to be consistent with the blintz’ eastern European origins, I combined farmer cheese (which has a consistency similar to ricotta) with the cream cheese and cottage cheese. If you don’t have farmer cheese available, or otherwise prefer not to use it, no need to worry; my grandmother, originally from Kiev, used cream cheese and cottage cheese in her blintzes.

A Cook’s Note before we begin:

• A significant difference between this recipe and typical blintz preparations is that blintzes are normally cooked twice: once to cook the crepe, and once to fry or bake the filled blintz to brown the outside and cook the eggs in the filling. In my version, there are no eggs in the filling; except for the warmed mixed-berry syrup on top, the blintzes are served cold or room temperature instead of fried or baked. It’s an unusual way to serve a blintz, but having grown up eating the ones my grandmother made this way, I can assure you it can work wonderfully. (It’s still possible to fry or bake them if that’s what you prefer.)

The following recipe makes about 10 blintzes. Here’s what you’ll need:

For the crepes: 1 cup AP flour; ¼ tsp salt; 2 Tbsp melted butter substitute; 2 egg-substitute eggs; 1-1/2 cups skim milk; and butter substitute or oil for cooking crepes

For the cheese filling: ½ pound farmer cheese; 1 cup low fat cottage cheese; 8 ounces low fat cream cheese, softened; 3/8 cup sugar; 1/8 tsp cinnamon; 1/4 tsp salt

For the fruit syrup and filling:

1 cup granulated sugar; juice of ½ lemon; ½ teaspoon salt; pinch ground nutmeg; 1 lb. fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered; 1 cup fresh blueberries; confectioner’s sugar for garnish

First, we’ll make the crepe batter:

Combine flour and salt in a bowl, and form a well. Pour the egg-substitute eggs and skim milk into the well. Add the melted butter substitute and mix into the other liquids in the well.

Once the liquid ingredients in the well are combined, gradually mix in the dry ingredients. The result should be a thick batter with the consistency of heavy cream.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

While the crepe batter is resting, prepare the cheese filling and mixed berry syrup and filling as follows. To make the cheese filling:

Put all the filling ingredients into a bowl and mix until well combined and fairly smooth. Refrigerate until needed.

To prepare the syrup topping and fruit filling:

Place a small glass plate in the freezer and put the granulated sugar and the lemon juice into a saucepan. Stir the mixture in the saucepan until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the salt, nutmeg and strawberries and turn the heat on very low. Cook until the strawberries are softened but not mushy, about 10 minutes.

Add the blueberries and cook until softened, about another 10 minutes.

Strain the fruit mixture, retaining the liquid. Set the fruit aside to cool.

Return the liquid to the saucepan. Simmer the liquid until a few drops cooled on the frozen plate have a syrup consistency. Set aside till needed.

While the cooked fruit is cooling, cook the crepes as follows:

Heat a large non-stick pan over medium heat; remove the pan from the heat and melt about 1 tsp of butter substitute. Add about ¼ cup of batter, swirl around to cover the surface of the pan, and put it back on the heat.

When the crepe is lightly browned on the bottom and firm enough to be flipped (usually about one to 1-1/2 minutes, but keep an eye on it), turn or flip the crepe and cook on the opposite side till it has the desired brownness.

Stack the crepes on a plate, covered with a clean towel to keep from drying out. Repeat the above steps for each crepe, rebuttering the pan as needed.

Working one at a time, prepare the blintzes as follows:

Lay a crepe out flat. Put 1/4 cup of cheese filling half-way between the center-line and edge nearest you.

Place a little of the mixed berry mixture on top of the cheese.

Fold the crepe as you would a burrito. First, fold the edge nearest you over the filling.

Fold in the left and right sides.

Roll the crepe away from you to form the blintz.

To serve:

While warming the reserved mixed berry syrup, sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on a plate as a garnish.

Place one or two blintzes on the plate, and pour a little of the syrup on top.

To download a cookbook-style copy of the recipe for Mixed Berry Three Cheese Blintzes, click HERE.

Hope you enjoy the comfort of this very special dish! And please visit again next week. Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Sweet Apple Topping

To download a copy of the recipe for Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Apple Topping in cookbook-style format, click HERE.

With St. Patrick’s Day rapidly approaching, it’s once again a good time to look to our Irish friends for a wee bit of inspiration. As we’ve done here in the past, it’s again a great pleasure to present something in time for St. Patrick’s Day that doesn’t involve regrettable stereotypes or green food coloring.

This week’s recipe is for oatmeal-banana pancakes served with a sweet apple topping. From a culinary standpoint, one of the things I find so interesting about this traditional Irish approach to pancakes is that the oatmeal is not used as is, but rather is ground to a flour-like texture and combined with whole wheat flour. Once the other ingredients are added and the batter ladled onto a hot griddle, the result is a delicious pancake with a very pleasing texture.

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin.

• Although the recipe you can download from the link above is done in a traditional cookbook format (ingredients list first, then cooking method), I’ve heard from a number of readers that they prefer to cook directly from the recipe as it’s posted on this site. To make it easier for anyone who would like to do that, beginning today each new recipe post will include an ingredients list.

• Regarding the oatmeal itself, in this recipe I’ve used rolled oats, the general use oatmeal found in most households, including mine. For true Irish authenticity, you might instead want to use steel cut Irish oats, a fuller grain also known by the funny-sounding (at least to my infantile sense of humor) name of Pinhead Oats.

• If the buttermilk called for in the recipe is not available, acidulated milk can be substituted. (Add 2 Tbsp of white vinegar to 2-1/4 cups plus 2 Tbsp room temperature low-fat milk, and let rest for a few minutes.)

• These pancakes are well accompanied by a side of eggs and/or bacon. (In the photo above, I’ve added simple scrambled eggs with the decidedly American topping of ketchup.)

This recipe makes 5-6 servings.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need.

Topping: ¼ cup firm-textured butter substitute; ¼ cup packed brown sugar; 4 large apples, peeled and sliced; ¼ tsp ground cinnamon; ¼ tsp ground nutmeg; ¼ tsp salt; and 2 tsp fresh lemon juice.

Pancake Batter: ¼ cup uncooked oatmeal; 2 fresh egg whites (not the kind in a carton); pinch cream of tartar; 2 cups whole wheat flour; ¼ tsp salt; 3 egg substitute eggs; 2-1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

Other Ingredients: firm-textured butter substitute (for coating the griddle); 2 bananas, sliced into thin circles; and pancake syrup (optional).

To prepare the topping:

Melt the butter substitute over moderate heat in a medium saucepan.

Add the sugar and stir until melted.

Add the remaining topping ingredients, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook until the apples are soft but not mushy. Set aside until ready to put on the pancakes.

To make the pancake batter:

Place the oatmeal in a mini-processor and process into a flour-like powder.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in a bowl, and whisk until soft peaks form.

In a bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal and salt.

Add the egg substitute and buttermilk to the bowl, and stir until combined and smooth.

Fold in the beaten egg whites to form the batter.

To prepare and serve the pancakes:

Working in batches, ladle pancake-size portions of batter onto a hot griddle that has been coated with melted butter substitute. Cook until the tops are bubbly and the bottoms are browned, about two minutes.

Place some banana slices on each pancake.

Turn each pancake over, banana-side down, and cook until the bottoms are browned, about another minute. Place on a plate and repeat, cooking in batches until all the batter is finished.

To serve, place a serving of pancakes on a plate and top with some of the apple topping. Add syrup if desired. Serve with eggs and/or bacon.

To download a copy of the recipe for Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Apple Topping in cookbook-style format, click HERE.

There’s an Irish proverb which says, “A cabin with plenty of food is better than a hungry castle.” Here’s hoping your cabin is always filled with the comforting aroma of good food, including Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Sweet Apple Topping.

Please visit again next week for another tasty recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)