Taffy Apple Pizza

I got this recipe from Pampered Chef several years ago and just recently came across it again. It really is delicious!

Taffy Apple Pizza

1 package (18 oz) refrigerated sugar cookie dough (I am substituting my own sugar cookie recipe)

1 Package cream cheese (8 oz)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 medium sized apples

ground cinnamon

1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping

1/2 cup peanuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. For the crust, shape your sugar cookie dough into a ball and place it in the center of your large round stone (or baking sheet). Flatten slightly with your hand/rolling pin. You want it about 1/4 inch thick. Bake 16-18 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes and carefully loosen from cookie sheet/stone.

2. For topping, combine cream cheese, brown sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla and mix well. Spread mixture evenly over the cookie crust.

3. Peel, core, and slice apples and arrange evenly over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

4. Heat caramel topping until warm (about 35-40 seconds in the microwave) and drizzle over apples. Grate peanuts (remember, this is a pampered chef recipe...they recommend you use their deluxe cheese grater to grate the peanuts. If you don't have one of these, maybe you could put them in a ziploc and crush them?)

Yield: 16 servings.

The finished product.

Apple Butter!

To make a batch of apple butter, you need start with applesauce! Apple butter is delicious with biscuits, "double-butter" sandwiches (peanut butter/apple butter), and, well, it's just good :o)
Put your applesauce in a crock pot or roaster oven. For my applesauce, I used about 3/4 of a bushel of apples, of several varieties. Keep in mind, this is what I do/have done and it works well. You may need to adjust the amounts to your family's needs. You can also try the recipe found here!

Have on hand: Cinnamon, cloves, allspice, brown sugar, white sugar.

For this batch, I added a few teaspoons of cinnamon, about 2 teaspoons each of allspice and cloves, 2 cups of sugar (1 1/2 white, 1/2 brown) and stirred it around and let it simmer at 200 degrees in the roaster oven (with a crock pot, use the low setting). I left it in there simmering (stirring every few hours) for a good 24 hours. It will cook down. You want it to thicken up a bit. I wound up adding a little more sugar after taste-testing.

Get your canning equipment ready. I start getting ready by first filling up my water-bath canner and turning it on high, to get the water boiling. Wash your lids, bands, and jars; then put your lids and bands in a smaller pan of hot water on the stove, and let them simmer until time to use them. The lid-lifter in the picture was about $2 at Meijers (saves burned fingers!). After my jars are clean, you can set them in the microwave on high for a few minutes to sterilize them. You want them to be hot when putting your hot apple butter in!

Start filling hot jars with your hot apple butter (I do about 2 at a time) with a wide funnel. Place a hot lid on your jar and screw the band on. Place each jar on your canner rack as they are filled.

When your canner rack is full of jars, lower it (carefully!) into the canner. Cover and process for 10 minutes.

After your 10 minutes is up, lift out each jar with a jar lifter and place on a dish towel. Listen for that beautiful pop! They are then ready to store in the pantry. My yield was 14 jars and some left over. I put what was left in a bowl and passed out spoons to let the kids taste. They loved it!

Homemade applesauce

Start with apples! Use a variety of apples to get a unique flavor. This time I used Golden Delicious, Ida Red, and a few Galas. Wash them in plain cold water. We will not be peeling them (how easy is that?!)

Next, use an apple wedger to cut apples. If the apples are really big, slice them down a little further to cook down easier.

Fill a large pot as high as you can (the apples will cook down, a lot!). Put a little water or unsweetened apple juice in the pan, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan so they won't stick.

Cover and cook on low until they are soft. Stir them around every few minutes. See how much they cook down?

When they are soft, we will run them through a food mill. If you do not have a food mill, you will need to peel the apples. A Foley Food Mill runs about $20 and is a wise investment for many canning projects and or making baby food, etc... Just an FYI: I try to buy one new thing for canning each year. Make this tops on your list :o) BUT, if you do not have one, and will not be getting one anytime soon, you can still do this. Before I got mine, I would just peel the apples, do everything else the same and then mash them with a potato masher. Makes for chunky applesauce but that's okay, still yummy!

Get the kids involved! Hand cranking is not terribly hard, but it can wear out your arm if you are processing a lot of apples. They are excited to help and you've saved your arm :o)

Here is a peak at what the finished product looks like. Depending on the type of apples you used, you may not have to add sugar. If you use a combo of tart apples, you will need more sugar. With this combo, I did not have to add any. Cinnamon is always good.

Finished applesauce. You can either eat it now, can it, or make apple butter with it (or all of the above). Apple Butter calls for UN-sweetened applesauce...if you are planning on making apple butter, do not add sugar to the applesauce. Hopefully that made sense?

Next week, I will post how to make apple butter and can it.

Apple Cobbler

Here is the first of my apple recipes. This recipe is sooo easy and is delicious! In most of my apple recipes, I use a variety of apples...I think it gives it more flavor. In the apple cobber, I used Golden Delicious, Ida Red, and Gala.



Apple Cobbler



10-12 Large apples (peeled, cored, and sliced)
2 cups of flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 eggs
1 stick of butter



1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 9 x 13 baking dish.


2. Layer apples in dish. (I added some raisins to mine)



3. In medium sized bowl, mix flour, sugars, baking powder, and cinnamon. Beat eggs lightly into the sugar mixture. Spoon on top of the apples.



4. Cut butter into pats and line them up on the sugar/flour mixture.



5. Bake for 45 minutes.



6. This is delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream!

This recipe is doubled due to my family size. You can easily make a smaller version of this dessert by cutting recipe in half and using an 8 x 8 baking dish. I am thinking that you could also cut the sugar in half and it would still be good!