A Taste of Fall

Now that I've been blogging for a few years, I realize I have ancient posts hanging out there that I'd like to group up.  The weather has turned wet and cool, at least for the past few days, and we even had tornadic action again last night!  I swear we brought those tornadoes from Missouri to California in our move.  So, in honor of fall, I'm going to revisit a couple of those old baking posts.

Pears!

The Humble Pear Crumble Pie

Use your favorite pie crust recipe.  I used Sylvia's Perfect Pie Crust recipe from Pioneer Woman, and it got rave reviews from the pie testers.

I am obviously not a pie crust perfectionist.  I don't have the patience to expertly flute the edges, and I usually have to do some patching after lifting the crust in, but the pie tasters care not about the aesthetic appeal of the crust as they're wolfing it down.

Filling:

3 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
dash of salt
1 teaspoon of shredded lemon peel
3 Tablespoons lemon juice (basically the juice from one large lemon)
6 to 8 pears, peeled and cored, then thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, lemon peel and juice.  Toss with the pears and arrange in pie shell.

Topping:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)(I cube it up while it's cold and let it sit in the bowl til it is room temperature.)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I grate from a whole nutmeg and it's delish!)

1 cup flour

Combine the topping ingredients until it's crumbly.  Sprinkle over the pie filling.  Make sure you don't pat it down, it will make a crust and not a crumble.  Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 425.  Wrap the crust edges in foil for the first 1/2 hour then remove and cover just the crumble for the last fifteen minutes to prevent overbrowning.

Cranberries!

Cranberry cookies. {They’re really bars, but who cares?} This recipe is from my mom, and made it into our family cookbook. I bake these every year at Christmas time and always get requests for the recipes.

Cranberry Cookies
¾ cup shortening
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup butterscotch chips
½ cup chopped nuts
Cream shortening, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder and blend. Fold in cranberries {just toss them in whole} and nuts. Spread evenly on a jelly-roll style cookie sheet. Sprinkle butterscotch chips on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

 I'm linking here: