It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie -- or would it? We see this week as an opportunity to explore all the festive ways to end the meal that aren't constrained by a pie crust: think beautiful, autumnal custards, compotes, puddings & cakes.
These are not your usual contests. We have a slightly nutty system but it works. Together, the Food52 community has created two cookbooks this way -- there’s no stopping us now. Read about it
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We have lots of measuring ahead of us! Lemon zest, molasses, rum, ginger, walnuts, vanilla, flour, baking soda, apple, turbinado sugar, light brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, butter, egg, milk, apple, and yogurt.
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Amanda torments Sarah, our photographer, by bringing the dreaded green Palmolive bottle into the frame!
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Makes sense to get the main measuring done first: the dry ingredients.
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Merrill slices Honey Crisp apples.
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To cook the apples, you first brown butter -- get it nice and nut brown!
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Merrill sauted the apples for a bit....
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then added some of the turbinado...
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and then we discovered that the apples were stewing, not caramelizing. We had a serious huddle about the matter.
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And made the executive decision to turn up the heat. We're geniuses! And we like our apples caramelized.
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Merrill uses the edge of a teaspoon to peel the ginger skin.
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Creaming the butter and light brown sugar. Make sure it gets super light in color -- this will tell you that air has been whipped into the mixture.
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Goofing off about something. Or maybe just making weird faces again.
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Who made this mess?!
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The molasses seeped into the creamed butter. Cool right?
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Then it curdles the mixture, but not to worry, it all comes together later.
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We carefully pour the dry ingredients into the mixer.
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This is the bottom layer of batter.
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Then the apples go on top, followed by the rest of the batter.
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Walnuts are the finishing touch.
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And this is the cake out of the oven -- we made one mistake, which is that this time we forgot to sprinkle the last two tablespoons of sugar on top. Usually, the cake has a glossy top!
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The simplest of ingredients: fresh cranberries, an egg, molasses, flour, salt, sugar and baking soda.
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Once you have everything ready to go, it's just a dump-and-stir operation.
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Merrill butters an ancient ceramic mold while Amanda gets the batter going.
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This was part of a large collection that Merrill's mom had for years -- it has a bunch of grapes on the bottom.
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We used Blackstrap molasses, but you can use something lighter if you prefer a subtler flavor.
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A bit of just-boiled water is the key to any decent steamed pudding.
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After you add the flour, it starts to resemble gingerbread batter.
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What is Amanda plotting?
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All innocence, she pours the batter (now with the cranberries in it) into the mold.
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If you don't have a mold with it's own lid, just wrap it tightly in several layers of foil.
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We steamed our pudding in a large pot with a steamer basket and an inch or so of water in the bottom.
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After about an hour, we took off the lid to see how it was doing.
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A cake tester should come out fairly clean (i.e. no wet batter streaks), but it doesn't need to be pristine -- a few sticky traces of cooked pudding are fine.
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Amanda cheerfully throws together the hard sauce: butter, half-and-half, sugar, and once they're melted, a touch of vanilla.
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Ready to serve!
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