Alaskans were disproportionately reliant on canned fruit, and canned pineapple was one of the first fruits widely available here. Pineapple cakes can be found in Alaska’s community and church cookbooks going back almost 100 years. Flash forward to the 1970s, when cake-mix cakes had totally taken over cookbooks, and “poke cakes” became a common thing. These were sheet cakes, pierced with holes, soaked in Jell-O, pudding or condensed milk and loaded with toppings, including Cool Whip and crumbled candy bars. This led to a bunch of very indulgent cakes jokingly named “Better Than Sex” or “BTS” cakes. Some were named more specifically for hunky actors like Robert Redford and Tom Selleck, who played a charming, mustachioed private investigator on the show “Magnum, P.I.,” set in Oahu. I picked this cake to adapt because it combined both our long tradition of pineapple cakes and the 1970s cake mix craze. And it involves maraschino cherries, which I get nostalgic about because I grew up eating them in canned fruit cocktail, also a longtime Alaska staple.

This recipe is written for a regular coconut cake mix, but I like the Dolly Parton mix the best — it calls for more eggs and butter instead of oil. Use it if you can find it! It’s usually at Walmart. I toned down this recipe a bit, removing a layer of instant vanilla pudding that some versions call for. I also used condensed coconut milk instead of condensed milk, which has a deeper flavor, and I reduced the sugar. I thought about Tom Selleck’s mustache the whole time.

Better Than Tom Selleck Cake

Ingredients:

1 package coconut cake mix

3 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1 cup water

1 14-ounce can condensed coconut milk, divided

1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 cup shredded coconut

Maraschino cherries for serving, optional

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 13-by-9-inch pan with cooking spray. Prepare cake mix, blending it with eggs, oil and water. Pour into the pan and bake according to package directions. Meanwhile, drain crushed pineapple well, reserving its juice. Whisk together the pineapple juice and half the condensed coconut milk. When the cake is done, but still hot, poke it all over with a fork and pour the pineapple/condensed milk mixture over it, allowing it to absorb. While the cake is cooling to room temperature, whip the cream and other half of the condensed coconut milk until spreadable. Fold in the pineapple solids. Spread the cooled cake with the whipped cream-pineapple topping. Sprinkle with the shredded coconut. Refrigerate for an hour before serving. If desired, decorate each piece with a cherry.

(This recipe was adapted from “Let them Eat: Cold War Anxieties, Cake Mix, and Alaska Women’s Inner Lives,” a recipe zine produced by the Anchorage Museum.)

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That vintage feel inspired this canned tart cherry pie, which I’ve flavored as my grandmother and mother did, using cherry kirsch or kirschwasser, an old-timey liquor of German origin. If you don’t mess with alcohol, a quarter teaspoon of almond extract will also be just fine. Or you can use both for a little more complex flavor. I also use one of my favorite crust recipes, which replaces the water with ice-cold vodka. The alcohol evaporates totally, leading to a loftier pastry. One last tip: be careful with the cherries. The goal is to fold them into the gel at the end and leave them mostly whole. They are very delicate. I change up my crust design every time, using a pizza cutter and ruler to cut the dough if I want to weave it into a lattice. If you want inspiration for that, let the internet be your guide.

Vintage tart cherry pie

Makes one 9-inch pie

For the crust:

1 cup (two sticks) salted cold butter

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

3 tablespoons sugar, divided.

3 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold vodka

For the filling:

3 14.5-ounce cans tart cherries in water

1 cup granulated sugar

Juice of one half a lemon, about 1.5 tablespoons

1 tablespoon cherry kirsch (you can also sub or add in 1/4 teaspoon almond extract)

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons salted butter

One egg, beaten

Sugar for sprinkling over the top

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Make the crusts one at the time. Using a food processor, process one stick of butter with one cup of flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar until it forms a meal. With the blade running, drizzle cold vodka in until it just begins to coalesce into a ball. Pull it out of the bowl of the food processor, press into a disc, wrap it in parchment and put it in the fridge. Repeat. If you refrigerate the pie dough for more than 15 or 20 minutes, you’ll need to let it soften up a little on the counter before you roll it.

Next, make the filling. Drain the cherries, reserving the liquid. Place 1/2 cup of that liquid in a separate, lidded jar. In a sauce pan, combine the remaining liquid, sugar, cinnamon and kirsch or extract over medium heat, bring it to a boil and stir until the sugar dissolves and it begins to simmer. Meanwhile, add the cornstarch to the jar of juice, cover and shake well. Pour the cornstarch slurry into the boiling mixture, turn down the heat and and whisk until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat, fold in the cherries and add lemon. Stir in the butter until it melts. Let it cool to room temperature while you roll out the pie dough. Warm filling will really mess with a lattice crust, in particular.

Ready a 9-inch pie pan. With a floured rolling pin, roll out one disc of dough several inches larger than the diameter of the pan and gently lift and press it in place. Fill it with the cherry filling. Roll the second disc to roughly the same size. If you choose to make a lattice top, I recommend searching for a video. I sort of like to freehand it, but for a tidier look, build the crust on parchment and lift it onto the pie. Pinch the edges all the way around and crimp them. Brush the pie with beaten egg. Place on a sheet pan to catch any extra filling and bake for 20 minutes, before turning 180 degrees, and, if it’s getting too brown, tenting it gently with foil. Bake for another 20 minutes, or until you can see the cherry filling bubbling around the edges. Allow to cool completely before cutting.

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The deliciousness had to do with the addition of finely chopped chocolate and the secret ingredient of ground oats, she said. The oats soaked up the generous amount of butter in the recipe and gave the cookies a caramelized flavor and chewy texture.

I’m an old cookbook collector. I have limited my collection to Alaska cookbooks only, except, kind of because of this recipe, old “Joy of Cooking” editions. I now have four, including my mother’s, but still I have not tracked down the actual recipe. I know it exists, and have found it adapted online. I also found a full-text archive version from the “Joy of Cooking All About Cookies” but naturally, that digital edition obscured the measurements. There are a number of “Joy of Cooking” recipes — including a plum cake, brownies, an almond torte and a chicken breast — in older editions called “Cockaigne.” It turns out that they are favorite family recipes, named for the summer home of the Rombauer-Becker family, who were the authors and editors of the cookbook. Irma Rombauer published the first cookbook in 1931 and her daughter Marion and grandson Ethan worked on subsequent editions. The word “cockaigne” refers to an imaginary land of plenty and luxury, a food paradise. Seriously, these cookies are so memorably delicious, they totally deserve the name.

With the help of my chef friend Jana Patterson, I’ve settled on the following adapted recipe. I use salted butter, because I like salted butter. I’ve bumped up the salt, slightly reduced the sugar, and used dark chocolate instead of milk. I blitz oats and the chocolate bar, separately, in the food processor. The original recipe also uses — I’m guessing here — but possibly a half a cup of walnuts, also super finely chopped or ground into a rough meal. If you are a walnut person, you could add those, too. Jana reduces the white sugar to a quarter cup and likes to take the pan out of the oven at 10 minutes and bang it once on the counter to make the cookies a little denser.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Cockaigne

(adapted from “Joy of Cooking: All About Cookies”)

Makes about 50 cookies

2 sticks salted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup white sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 2/3 cup all purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cup quick oats, ground in the food processor into a meal

1 cup dark chocolate chips

1 3-ounce dark chocolate bar, blitzed in the food processor

1/2 cup walnuts, ground in the food processor into a rough meal (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside. In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add egg. Mix until incorporated and then add in milk and vanilla. Once the batter is smooth, with the mixer on low, shake in the flour mixture. Once that is incorporated, add oats, then nuts (if using), ground chocolate, and chocolate chips. Mix until oats, chocolate and optional nuts are evenly distributed, but not more. Using a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the batter onto the pan/pans and bake for 10-12 minutes, until brown on the edges and just set in the middle. Allow to cool for 10 minutes on the pan before removing to a cooling rack.

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I talked to him this week as I was eyeing my massive rhubarb plant for pie purposes because I was curious about Crisco, which my grandmother Lidia, from the opposite side of the family, used in her rhubarb pie crusts. He was emphatically anti. Too gross and chemically, he said. And, I wanted to know how to make my rhubarb pie gel better, as versions with flour and cornstarch hadn’t been great. Tapioca, he said. (He uses tapioca starch, but easier-to-find, quick-cooking tapioca works great, too.) And let it cool all the way. This is the key. I also read up on getting the pie’s sweetness right and decided it makes sense to cut it with strawberries. I learned a hack involving first, macerating the filling in sugar to release its juices, and second, adding a layer of sugar under the filling. And, I applied another general pie trick: I baked it on a preheated sheet pan to avoid soggy bottom. The result was, I must say, the very best rhubarb pie I have every made. Try it!

The Best Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:

Two salted butter pie crusts (Here’s a GF crust recipe, too.)

3 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups chopped strawberries

1 cup + ¼ cup sugar

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

¼ cup quick-cooking tapioca

1 egg, beaten

Sugar for sprinkling on top

Method: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a parchment-covered sheet pan on the rack to heat. In a large bowl, combine rhubarb, strawberries, 1 cup sugar and orange juice to macerate for at least 15 minutes. Add the tapioca to the fruit and stir to distribute evenly. While the fruit sits, roll out your pie crusts. Press the first crust into the pie pan. Sprinkle the additional ¼ cup of sugar onto the interior bottom of the crust-covered pan. Pour in the fruit. Cover with a second crust. (If you want to make a lattice crust, here’s a video tutorial.) If you aren’t making a lattice crust, prick the crust with a knife. Brush the crust with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar. Bake on the hot sheet pan for 55 minutes or a little longer, until the crust is golden and, importantly, you see the filling bubbling out and starting to gel. The pie will set as it cools. Allow it to cool completely before serving. 

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I had a bunch of pretty cheap spring strawberries at the house over the weekend, and that’s what gave me the idea to make my PBJ in cake form. (I also secretly like bright pink strawberry cake mix, if I”m being honest.) This not-too-sweet cake features strawberry and peanut butter buttercream, red berry jam and a strawberry-flavored caked that you can, if you’re in the mood, dye to a pleasing pink color with beet powder or food coloring. It was early spring and the first thing blooming in my yard was the yellow forsythia bush, so I used those flowers to decorate it. (Not poison, but also doesn’t taste great so had to take the blossoms off before serving.) I though it was beautiful and delicious. The boys, however, tried it and were like, “It tastes just like a peanut butter sandwich, except could you make the cake part more like squishy white bread?” So basically, they’d rather just have a sandwich. Sigh.

This recipe requires strawberry puree that has been reduced on the stove. That takes a little extra time so you could make it ahead. The red jam on top of the peanut butter filling gives it an unmistakable PBJ look when you slice it. I used a mixed berry jam from Costco that I also use to make sandwiches.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake

Makes one 8-inch double layer cake

Ingredients:

Strawberry concentrate:

1 pound strawberries, washed and hulled

Cake:

2 and 1/2 cups AP flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup salted butter at room temperature

1 and 3/4 cups white sugar

5 egg whites

1/3 cup plain yogurt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup strawberry concentrate

1/2 cup half and half

Optional: 1 teaspoon beet powder or 3 drops red gel food coloring

Peanut butter frosting:

1/2 cup salted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon half and half

Strawberry frosting:

3/4 cups salted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup strawberry concentrate

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon beet powder or 2 drops of red gel food coloring

1/4 cup red berry jam

Instructions: Make the concentrate. Puree the hulled strawberries. Pour into a small sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Boil until reduced by more than 1/3, to about 3/4 cups, for about 20 minutes — stirring occasionally. Once reduced, pour into a small bowl and place in the freezer to cool. (This step can be done ahead and refrigerated).

Make the cakes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 8-inch cake pans with cooking spray and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine butter and sugar. Add egg whites, yogurt, vanilla. Mix until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix to combine. Next add the strawberry concentrate, half and half, and, if desired, beet powder or food coloring. Mix until well combined. Divide into prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes, until the top of the cakes spring back when you touch them. Invert on a cooling rack. Do not frost until completely cool. (I like to put mine in the freezer because it makes them a little easier to frost.)

Make the frostings: In the bowl of a standing mixer, whip butter and peanut butter together until blended. Add pinch of salt. Then add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time. Drizzle in the half and half and then whip for 2 minutes. Set aside and clean mixer for second frosting. In the bowl of a standing mixer, whip butter, then add powdered sugar a 1/4 cup at a time. Add strawberry concentrate and vanilla. Whip for 2 to 3 minutes until fluffy.

Assemble cake. If the cakes are very rounded, slice across the tops to make them flatter with a serrated knife. Place a spoonful of peanut butter frosting on your cake plate and position the first round on top of it to hold the cake in place. The round should be bottom side up. Cover the top of that first layer with peanut butter frosting and then a layer of red berry jam. Put the second round on top, again flat bottom side-up. Frost the top and sides of cake, using the strawberry frosting and an off-set spatula, if you have one. Decorate how you please.

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Anyway, the classic bunny cake made with box mix was, the internet says, popularized by a collaborative 1970s ad campaign from Pillsbury and Baker’s Coconut. It involves cutting one of the round layers of a two-layer cake into two fat canoe-shaped ears, leaving the remaining part, which is shaped like a bow tie. Then you arrange the bunny head, frost it, and make it look fluffy with coconut. It’s more about looks than flavor. And maybe that’s all you want to do. If so, bunny-hop to the part of the recipe that shows you how to assemble one. But, if you want your bunny cake to be delicious, read on.

Some years ago, I came across a mysterious recipe in mom’s box titled, “Carrot Cake Julia’s Favorite.” The recipe has all the fiber: chopped walnuts, applesauce, golden raisins, shredded coconut and canned pineapple tidbits. Plus cream cheese frosting. It’s also easy to make gluten-free by subbing in one cup almond flour and one cup gluten-free flour mix. I discovered after making it that it is still my favorite, lighter than most carrot cakes and full of great, textured sweet-crunchy bites. Baking it into a freaky bunny cake makes the best kind of magic: It turns a kid-pleasing thing into a kid- AND adult-pleasing thing. Anyway, maybe you just want carrot cake. You can, in that situation, skip the bunny part of this recipe altogether. If you’d like to make the bunny carrot cake, my only decorating advice is less is more. But your kids will never agree to that. I just scrape the pastel M&Ms off the next morning when I have a piece with my coffee.

Bunny carrot cake

Serves about 12

For the cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup olive or avocado oil

4 eggs

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup chopped walnuts

3/4 cup pineapple tidbits, drained

3/4 cup golden raisins

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Frosting:

1 stick or 1/2 cup salted butter at room temperature

1 8 ounce brick regular — not whipped or low fat — cream cheese, softened

Four cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Decoration ideas: Shredded coconut, pastel M&Ms, jelly beans, licorice whips, store-bought pink decorator frosting for the mouth and ears

Method: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans by tracing the bottom of the pans on parchment paper and cutting out the circles to make liners for the bottom of the pans. Spray the pans well with kitchen spray and place the liners in each. Alternatively, grease and flour the pans. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside. In another medium bowl, combine carrots, walnuts, pineapple, raisins, applesauce and coconut. Set aside. In the bowl of a standing mixer, or using a hand mixer in a large bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs on medium speed. With the mixer running, gently shake in the dry ingredients. When the dry ingredients are well incorporated, turn the mixer to low and shake in the carrot mixture. When that mixture is incorporated, divide the batter into the two prepared pans. To make sure you are dividing the batter equally, you can set the pans on a kitchen scale as you fill them and adjust the amounts accordingly. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until the tops of the cakes spring back when you touch them. Overturn the cakes gently on cooling racks and allow to cook completely.

For the frosting: In the bowl of a standing mixer or with a hand mixer, whip the butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Shake in the sugar a cup at a time. Add milk and vanilla. Whip for 2 minutes.

To build the cake: Once the cake is completely cool, carefully cut one of the circles into ears and bow tie. (See picture) Compose the cake on a serving platter, using a spoonful of frosting under each piece to hold them in place. Frost and decorate.

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If you grew up in Alaska, then you probably have a soft spot for Tang, which is a pretty Alaskatastic drink. (I have a soft spot, hence the name of this column.) Born from the mind of prolific and influential mid-century food chemist William A. Mitchell, the drink mix, which packs 100 percent of your daily value of vitamin C, really took off when John Glenn took it to space in 1962. In Alaska, where flow-in produce was expensive, it soon became ubiquitous because of its practicality, nutritional value, and portability. It has long been associated with the Iditarod, with several mushers serving as Tang spokespeople. Adventurer Joe Redington Sr. even had a dog named Tang. Hot, spiced Tang, also known as “Russian tea,” is still served along the trail.

Around the same time that Tang became a thing, Mitchell also invented Cool Whip, a whipped topping that traveled well, lasted longer than cream, and traveled frozen. It also made a lot of sense in Alaska. (Its older cousin, Dream Whip, which came as a shelf stable powder, was also used in lots of Alaska’s mid-century recipes.) Tang pie combined these two trendy, relatively shelf-stable, scientifically derived foods into a modern-seeming dessert that didn’t take women very long to whip up.

For this Drinks issue of Edible Alaska, I decided to re-make a Tang pie recipe without Cool Whip, and it turned out way more delicious than I expected, with an airy texture and a spot-on nostalgic creamsicle taste. I dusted it with some powdered freeze-dried raspberries for an extra glow-up. It became the unexpected queen of the pie table.

While testing recipes, I also tried making a version of this pie with eggs, custard-style, subbing Tang into a recipe for Atlantic Beach pie, which is an East Coast citrus pie in a saltine crust. It was a very close second, but I decided it strayed too far from the original. This Tang pie recipe was also quicker, requiring the crust to be baked for only 7 minutes. If you use a store-bought crust, it’s about as fast as whipping cream. One cool substitution you could try, borrowing from Atlantic Beach pie, is a sleeve of saltine crumbs instead of Graham crackers in the crust. The crust recipe is the same, just bake it for twice as long. It adds a perfect amount of salty crunch.

Originally published in Edible Alaska issue no. 34,  Winter 2024.  Subscribe!

Alaska Tang Pie

Makes 1 pie

Ingredients:

For the Pie

• 1 Graham cracker pie crust (recipe follows)
• Tang-flavored filling (recipe follows)
• Vanilla whipped cream topping (recipe follows)
• ¼ cup freeze-dried raspberries, for garnish

For the Crust

• 1 sleeve Graham crackers, finely crushed ( about ½ cup)
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• ⅓ cup white sugar

For the filling

• 4 teaspoons cold water
• 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup (8 fluid ounces) heavy whipping cream, cold
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup powdered sugar
• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• ¼ cup powdered Tang
• ½ cup sour cream

For the Topping

• ¾ cup whipping cream
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ⅓ cup powdered sugar

(Freeze dried raspberries to garnish)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Make the crust. In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, softened butter, and sugar. Mix by hand into a paste-like consistency. Press into an 8-inch pie pan so it evenly covers the bottom and sides. Place in the freezer for 5−10 minutes. Bake for 7 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Make the filling. In a small, microwavable bowl, mix water and gelatin and set aside for 5 minutes, until gelatin blooms. Then microwave the bowl for 10 seconds. The gelatin should go from a gel to a clear liquid. Add whipping cream, vanilla, and sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer and whip on high. As the cream is beginning to thicken, add the gelatin. Whip until the cream forms firm peaks. In a large bowl, place condensed milk, cream, and Tang. Mix to combine. Then fold in sour cream. Mix until totally combined and smooth. Place the filling into the crust and spread it evenly. Refrigerate pie for at least 6 hours to set.

When ready to serve, make the whipped topping. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Plop it in the center of the pie, and spread it outward evenly. For the garnish, put the raspberries in a medium mesh sieve. Holding the sieve over the top of the pie, rub the raspberries back and forth, grating them into a fine magenta powder that decorates the whipped cream topping.

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The almond croissant, blanketed in powdered sugar with a shatteringly crisp outside and a dense, not-too-sweet frangipane inside, tasted like everything I expected of Paris: refined, traditional, understatedly genius. Ever since, I have been thinking about making a dessert inspired by a French apple tart called “Tarte aux Pommes Normande” with salted butter crust, dense almond filling, and roasted Honeycrisp apples. Thanksgiving will be my moment.

The directions below may seem a little longer than my usual recipe, but I did my best to remove all the fussiest parts of tart-making. The little extra attention to detail here is worth it. The crust requires no rolling. It turns out that frangipane or almond custard is shockingly easy to make. After that, all you have to do is thin-slice the apples. I like Honeycrisp, but you can choose your favorite. You can absolutely make this tart gluten-free by subbing in a cup-for-cup flour blend. If you have a nut allergy, this tart can be made without the almond layer — just use the thin-cut apples and then sprinkle more extra-thin slices to fill the space around them.

You can also change the apple design, arranging thin slices however you’d like (the internet is full of inspiration). One very important thing is that you should never handle a tart pan with removable sides until it’s totally cool. It’s just asking for catastrophe, such as the pan and crust falling apart while you have a hot tart inside. (Ask me how I know.) Instead, always work with a tart pan on a sheet pan. Once it is cool and the filling is set, you should have no problem removing the sides and carefully sliding it off of the bottom of the pan onto a cake plate. This tart can be baked a day ahead and refrigerated.

Apple-Frangipane Tart

Serves 10

Ingredients:

Crust

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 4-ounce stick salted butter, melted

1 to 2 teaspoons water

Filling

3 tablespoons salted butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup almond flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

3 to 4 apples, washed, skin on

a generous pinch of kosher salt

1 tablespoon powdered sugar to garnish

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Ready a sheet pan by covering it with parchment paper.

Make the press-in crust: Whisk flour, sugars and salt in a medium bowl. Pour melted butter into the dry ingredients and work it through with your hands to make a ragged crumble. If the mixture seems dry, add water, a teaspoon at a time. You want to avoid it being too sticky, but you also want all the flour mixture to be incorporated. Once the dough is well mixed, pour about half of it around the inside edges of your tart pan and then press it against the sides, turning the pan as you go and shaping the sides. Pour the rest of the crumbly dough into the center of the pan and press it to cover the bottom. You want the sides to be just a tad thicker than the bottom. You can, if you like, spray the bottom of a quarter-cup measuring cup with non-stick spray and use it to press and smooth the dough along the bottom of the pan. Poke the bottom of the crust with a fork. (This can be done up to a day ahead. And raw crust can be refrigerated.) Now put it on a sheet pan to par-bake it. Place a sheet of foil over the tart, mold it onto the tart crust, pressing it gently around the inside diameter and folding over the top edge. Fill it with raw beans, uncooked rice or pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the pie weights and foil and carefully reshape any parts of the edges that have drooped with your fingers. The tart should cool for at least 15 minutes before you fill it. You can refrigerate it to hurry the process.

Make the filling: In a medium-sized bowl, mix melted butter, almond flour, sugar, egg, pinch of salt and extracts, set aside. Prepare the apples. Cut four apples in half, core them, lay them cut-side down on the cutting board and slice them, holding your knife vertically to the bottom of the apple, very thin. Important, do not cut the apples all the way through. That way the apples stay together. One method for doing this is to place a set of chopsticks, one on the stem top and the other, parallel, at the bottom of the apple half, and slice until the chopsticks stop your knife, leaving the slices attached.

Assemble tart: when the crust is cool to the touch — without removing it from the sheet pan — spread almond filling inside it. Arrange apples evenly on top of the almond filling, thin-sliced sides up, with one in the middle and the other surrounding it, the lines of the thin-cut sides pointing in whichever directions please your eye. The apples will sink into the almond mixture and the mixture will climb the insides of the tart. You may have one half apple extra, depending on the size of the fruit.

Slide the sheet pan with the tart on it into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until it begins to brown, then cover it loosely with foil and bake for 10-15 more minutes, until it appears slightly browned and set in the middle. Allow to cool completely before garnishing by shaking a fine mesh sieve of the powdered sugar over the top.

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One fact about these pumpkins is when you roast them, they make just about a pound of pumpkin — which is almost exactly how much comes in a can of pumpkin puree. They are also denser and sweeter than jack-o-lantern pumpkins, giving foods made with them a richer flavor. It isn’t much work to roast a sugar pie pumpkin. Just poke it with a fork and bake it for 45 minutes or so until it’s very soft and the skin is separating from the flesh. Then slice it in half, scoop out the seeds and guts and you’re left with soft meat you can just lift off the skin and use in any recipe that calls for pumpkin puree.

If I had my way, I’d jazz up my pumpkin bread loaves both with dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips and a sprinkle of pepitas, but I cook for a family that has all kinds of opinions on these ingredients, so I just make these loaves plain and I serve them with salted butter. I have included the chocolate chip and pepita measurements for those of you who don’t cook for picky people. I tend to like my loaves on the spicy side, so I add extra allspice, clove and ginger, on top of a healthy dose of cinnamon and pumpkin spice. I encourage you to taste the batter and customize the spice profile to your liking. This recipe is written to use the whole pumpkin, making two loaves, so you can give one to your neighbor or put it in the teacher’s lounge at school. You can also make this recipe with canned pumpkin.

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Roasted sugar pie pumpkin bread

Makes two loaves

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

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1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon clove

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup (two sticks) salted butter, soft, at room temperature

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar, packed

4 eggs

2 cups roasted fresh pumpkin, mashed, or one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree

Optional: 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Optional: 1/4 cup pepitas, salted or unsalted

(Do ahead: If using fresh pumpkin, poke a small sugar pie pumpkin all over with a fork, place on a sheet pan and roast in the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until it’s soft cooked and the skin is separating from the meat. Remove it from the oven, slice it in half, spoon out all the seeds and stringy bits. Peel the skin off the flesh, place the meat in a bowl and mash it with a fork.)

Method: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two loaf pans with cooking spray. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, soda, spices and salt. In the bowl of a standing mixer at medium speed, cream together butter and sugars until well combined, but not fluffy. Add eggs and mashed pumpkin to combine. With the mixer running low, shake in the dry ingredients. Mix, scraping down the sides, until it just forms a wet batter. Don’t overmix. (If using chocolate chips, fold them in once the batter comes together. If using pepitas, sprinkle them on top of each loaf.) Divide the batter and spoon half into each of the two loaf-prepared pans. Bake 50 minutes to an hour, until the tops spring back and a knife inserted into the loaves comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before cutting.

The post Use roasted sugar pie pumpkin for earthy, spicy not-too-sweet bread appeared first on Julia O'Malley.

But, I did figure out how to hit all the necessary pie notes — the inky blue, sweet/tart filling, the flaky, salty crust — with a smaller-volume pastry. Sure, a normal person might make a little tart or galette, but, as a child of the ‘80s, naturally I got way into making oversized Pop-Tarts.

If we’re going to be technical, this recipe might be more accurately called a Pop-Tart-inspired slab pie, because the dough is too flaky and delicate for you to pick up the whole face-sized thing and shove it in your mouth (sorry). To serve it, I slice it into about six squares and serve them with vanilla ice cream. My secret to a flaky crust is to use vodka instead of water, but it makes the crust really delicate, so if you want a little more sturdiness, use water. I also use a food processor to make the crust. Crust made by hand can also be a little more resilient.

You don’t have to use all blueberries either. I have supplemented bluebs with store-bought blackberries and frozen black currants. You can also do a red-filling version with raspberries, pitted sour cherries, currants, thin-sliced rhubarb, or a combo of all those, just adjust the sugar accordingly. I used 1/4 cup of sugar with my wild blueberries because I like a pretty tart pie. Oh, and I didn’t use sprinkles, which is of course customary on Pop-Tarts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

Big wild blueberry Pop-Tart

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups white flour

1 1/2 cups salted butter

1 tablespoon sugar

2-4 tablespoons ice-cold vodka or water

3 1/2 cups wild berries, drained of juices

1/4 to 1/2 cup white sugar, depending on the sweetness of the berries

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Juice of half an orange

One beaten egg

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse flour, sugar and butter into a meal. With the processor running, drizzle in vodka or water until the ball coalesces. Dump the dough onto parchment and press it into a rectangle about the size of a greeting card. Wrap it in the paper and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes.

Carefully stir berries with sugar, cornstarch and juice of half an orange, until the berries are all covered. They should be relatively intact and on the dry side. Roll the dough out on a large sheet of parchment paper into a rectangle that’s about 11 by 15 inches. Once you’ve rolled it out, stick it in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes to make it easier to handle.

Pull the dough sheet out of the freezer. With the long edge of the dough rectangle facing you, gently pull the left side of the dough off the parchment and fold the dough in half like a book. Use a knife to trim the rough top, bottom and side edges of both sheets to leave you with crisp edges and two matching rectangles. Spoon the berries, leaving any liquid in the bowl, onto what will be the bottom rectangle, leaving about a half inch of space around all the edges. Cover the berries with the top dough sheet. Gently roll the edges in, all the way around the rectangle, and then press them together with a fork. Poke holes with your fork to vent the top of the tart and brush with beaten egg. Bake for 28 minutes, until golden.

Whisk together powdered sugar and orange juice into a frosting. When the tart is cool, spread it on, avoiding the edges. Allow it to set up for 10 minutes before slicing. Serve with ice cream.

The post Didn’t pick enough wild Alaska blueberries for a pie? Make a big Pop-Tart appeared first on Julia O'Malley.