Just look at this thing.

Can it even be called a pie though if it lacks that fundamental flaky element? Semantics. If it looks like a pie and it feels like a pie, it’s a pie! No crust means less fuss and a whole lot healthier pie (in most cases), so lets just go with it.

For me, the only issue going crustless presents is a structural one. How can you get the whole thing to stay together without first laying that crusty foundation? I’ll tell you: It’s all in the fruit you use and how you slice it. Here, we went with apples – the most structurally sound of fruits. First, you’ll want to peel the apples and then use a mandolin or sharp knife to slice the fruit into 1/8-inch rounds. Don’t cut the fruit into wedges before doing this because you want your slices of fruit to be as large as possible. They should be like sheets. So just work away at one side of the apple until almost reaching the core and then flip it over and do the other side. Then you can slice the excess pieces off the core and reserve them for the binding sauce we’re going to make.

Binding sauce? I don’t know, that’s just what I’m calling it. The binding sauce is basically an apple sauce made by cooking down the excess apple pieces with some water, sugar and a thickening agent like cornstarch or arrowroot. Then you blend it up to make the silky sauce that’s brushed between each layer of apples as you build your pie. It holds all the layers together, like cement, so it’s not a step you can skip!

Assemblage of the pie is pretty simple. You start by lightly greasing the bottom of the pie pan, and then sprinkling with some cinnamon and sugar. Then you do a neat installation of apple rounds, followed by the binding sauce. And so on, until you get to the top of your pie dish. Like so…

And stacking it all up this way will ensure that you get a nice and neat cross section. Like so…

The blueberry sauce is cooked in the same exact way. It’s totally optional, but I recommend it for a little extra flair (the color bleeds through and is so pretty). Spread it on top of the pie just before baking.

I didn’t add the walnuts until the end so they wouldn’t burn. Another option is to sprinkle on some granola if you for that crunch you might miss without the crust.

The almonds!

What makes these muffins (or cake/bread if you choose to do that instead) so great for you is the almond factor. Instead of refined flours we use almond meal, which is very easy to make just by pulsing your almonds in the food processor a few times. There are just tons of health benefits linked to eating almonds (like lowering cholesterol), and almonds are loaded with vitamin E, antioxidants and monounsaturated fats (the same fats found in olive oil). By the way, go ahead and use almonds with the skin on because the flavonoids found in almond skins paired with the vitamin E in the their meat have been shown to more than double antioxidant power in the body. More on that here.

The eggs and almonds pack a good amount of protein, and then paired with the sugars in the banana, these muffins give you a nice boost of long lasting energy. Really nice for the morning.

So this recipe is pretty much brilliant, and I can say that because it’s not originally mine. It came from Jules over at the Stone Soup who is committed to cooking using 5 ingredients or less. Love that. (I did add to the recipe a little here and there so it’s not as simple as the original, but whatever.)

It just blows my mind when baking is so simple, successful and so guiltless too! One important thing to watch out for though is that you don’t pulse the almond meal too long in the food processor or you’ll end up with almond butter. Just stop when it gets like couscous. And if you can, also use a food processor to beat the eggs together with the banana so the mixture gets really really fluffy – this will help with the overall texture. If you can handle these two steps, you’ll find this recipe pretty no fail. I’ve made several variations of this same core recipe many times. It works great as bread or muffins, and feel free to add in more cinnamon and even some raisins. For today though, I’ve added cocoa powder to half the batter to give it a chocolaty center!

Everyone loves a little chocolaty surprise. It’s super easy to do this. You just mix some unsweetened cocoa powder into 1/3 of your batter. Then you do a scoop of original batter, followed by a small scoop of the chocolaty batter, followed by another scoop of the original batter. The result is a subtle hit of cocoa goodness at the center of each muffin that nobody will know about until they take a bite! (If you’re doing bread, just follow the same idea using your bread pan.)

Topping it off with some thinly sliced bananas & almonds and a few dots of coarse sea salt is a nice touch too. Oh yes, that salty + sweet.

I’ve been hanging on to an interesting beet cake recipe for a while now. Must be time to give it a try.

Video by Tiger in a Jar

This one is a new creation for me. A few weeks ago I picked up a bottle of rose water from the Middle Eastern market and my intention was to make some kind of rose water infused cookie…maybe with pistachios.

Side note: I recently downloaded a copy of Soup Stone’s 5 ingredient baking cookbook and have been so inspired by it. If you’re not familiar with SoupStone , it’s run by a food scientist committed to only cooking meals and baking treats with 5 ingredients or less. I love the concept and agree with her philosophy of keeping things super simple. You should check out her blog and free online cookbooks.

Anyway, figuring the rose water would go nicely in a macaroon, I started doing some research on different macaroon recipes, which I have very little experience with. I wanted something easy though (5 ingredients or less style) and all of the classic macaroon recipes I found seemed too frilly for my mood. The creams/sweet spreads that usually go sandwiched between French style macaroons were kind of turning me off…the last thing we want for Valentine’s day ;)

So I went out on a limb and did a combination of a few things I’d read – basically Frankensteined a recipe for an almond Passover cookie with Martha Stewart’s French Macaroon recipe – and came up with these!

They are FANTASTIC. Just sweet enough. Fluffy and chewy. Sort of reminiscent of nougat with the perfect hint of rose water at the end. Jason says they are the perfect cookie.

The best part about them is that they’re the kind of cookie you can make in your sleep. Almonds, pistachios, sugar, pinch of salt and cream or tarter (optional) in the food processor until a sandy consistency. Add an egg white, rose water and a couple drops of food coloring (optional) and blend.

The dough is kind of sticky and thick which makes it easy to form into nice little mounds.

They’re quick to bake and oh so lovely. You definitely have time to throw these together, especially if you’re in a Valentine’s Day pinch like me! Plus, there’s nothing more romantic than the sweet scent of roses…

It’s a little place, but I can spend an hour in there walking the aisles and asking questions about every other thing I pick up. The other day I spotted some packages of what looked like the most delicate cashmire yarn sitting among some other candies and dessert items. Beautiful…but edible?

Yes, Turkish cotton candy, or pismantye, is both. Pismantye is combination of flour, butter, sugar and often pistachio or cocoa that’s pulled or spun into threads. It’s light and fluffy with a slightly sweet and nutty flavor, rather than sugary, fruity and artificial one.

I feel like it’s what cotton candy was intended to be before someone decided it should turn your tongue blue. Seriously, heavenly. Like strands of cookie that melt in your mouth.

And by total coincidence, I came across this video on cookingissues.com that shows how the traditional hand-pulled version made. Really cool. You can totally do it at home!

The Mast Brothers from The Scout on Vimeo.

So elegant, so tasty and SO easy to make! All you have to do is peel the pears (leaving the stem on for no other reason than because it’s prettier) and then simmer them in your poaching juice.

I love the red, festive color you get from poaching pears in red wine, but I wanted to keep things non-alcoholic so I figured I’d give pomegranate juice a try. Plus, I’ve had all this pomegranate, blueberry juice that POM Wonderful sent me samples of hanging out in my fridge for a couple months now. (Time to do something with it cause I was starting to feel like a real jerk.)

Although the juice is already naturally deep in color, I still wasn’t sure that it would stain the pears that garnet color I was going for. So just to make sure, I threw a few slices of raw, peeled beet into the pot to help enhance the color. You can always count on beets to bleed all over everything (whether you want them to or not). Another option would be to add in a few drops of red food coloring if you prefer that to the beets. Neither of the two changes the flavor. I also spiced up the juice with some cinnamon, clove and a tad more sugar.

Now, I didn’t run a beet-less control group or anything, but I’m pretty sure they had a lot to do with this vibrant red!

The flavor of these is so fantastic. Aromatic from the spices and cooked pear and slightly tart at the initial bite form the pomegranate that coats the outside. Refreshing, and they really do satisfy your sweet craving. They’re great hot or cold and you can always dress them up with nuts, ice cream or whipped cream if you like. You can even add some liquor to your poaching juice (brandy is nice). AND, in addition to or instead of for dessert, slice them up and toss them with some arugula, nuts and cucumbers to make a really nice salad (that’s actually what I did for lunch today)!

Such fun!

Ask me how cool Jason felt holding a miniature, candy-coated cupcake on a stick. He’s the best.

Now, if you’re anything like me, or if you’ve been visiting this blog for any length of time, you might be a little taken aback by these. They seem pretty sweet for around here, right? Like…um, diabetes on a stick perhaps? Or like some kind of vicious prank on your dental work. I know, I know. But you kind of have to trust me on this: they are perfect. I’ve made them 4 times and have tweaked the recipe just right so believe me when I tell you that, as sweet as they look, they’re not too sweet!

That’s because I didn’t use as much sugar in the batter as most cupcakes recipes call for. I wanted these to really resemble a candy apple and the only way to do that was to let the natural sweetness/tartness of the apple shine through! I went with golden delicious cause they’re my favorite and have a great balance of flavor. This recipe calls for a lot of apples so be sure to cut them small enough, else your batter will get too lumpy and your cupcakes will have irregular tops (round is better for candy coating). Dice small or julienne to be safe.

Warning: the batter is kind of irresistible.

I did a pretty thin layer of the candy so it wouldn’t be too much. And now we’re getting into the second reason that I’m so excited about this recipe: it’s my first time making candy!

To be honest, I thought the whole making candy thing would be a disaster. I imagined the sick smell of sugar drippings on the burner and sticky everything for weeks. But none of that happened. You just simmer the sugar, water, corn syrup and food coloring (like I was saying earlier, this isn’t my healthiest recipe yet) for about 20 minutes or until it reaches 310°F if you’re using a candy thermometer.

I don’t have one either, so this little test worked great for me. The candy is done when it keeps its form or makes nice tight ribbons when dropped in a bowl of room temp water (the candy in the left picture is not ready, the candy on the right is). When the candy reaches this point (what’s called the cracking stage in candy lingo), you want to maintain that temp and start dipping your cupcakes!

Note: If you let the candy continue to boil, it can burn. I didn’t have that happen during my dipping process, but then I forgot to turn it off and after another 10 minutes of simmering, it transformed into a giant, stinky candy turd.

You can store them in a cool, dry place for a couple days (a lidded container in the fridge works). However, I find that by day three, the candy will start to soften a tad and may even bleed into the cake. Still tasty though ;) but no crunch.

Everyone who has tried them has been surprised and pleased. They kind of make you giggle or something cause you just don’t expect them to be so good! The thin candy shell on top is what really makes them. That sweet little layer snaps when you bite into it, giving way a spongy cinnamon apple cake. Crunchy not sticky. So amazing. It gives me the same thrill as biting into a tootsie pop with just a little of the candy left on it. Incidentally, what’s that owl is up to these days? It’s been a while.

Oh yea, I totally forgot to mention what inspired me to make these playful treats in the first place! I’m catering the grand opening party for Fiction place the night before Halloween so some treats are definitely in order. My friend slash catering partner and I were discussing what to make for the “treat table” and candy apples came up. We agreed that they are way too messy and kind of gross…but, candy apple CUPCAKES on the other hand…