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I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Pies and Tarts

Easy Dutch Apple Pie Cheesecake

Easy Dutch Apple Pie Cheesecake will knock your socks off of everyone who enjoys a slice! It’s incredibly delicious and super easy to prepare. You just need 2 ingredients!

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The holidays can be crazy busy but you don’t have to stress to get an awesome dessert on the table! Create a show stopping dessert just by going the freezer section at your local grocery store. Everyone will love a slice of this scrumptious Dutch Apple Pie Cheesecake. 

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Easy Classic Thanksgiving Pecan Pie

This Easy Classic Thanksgiving Pecan Pie will be the hit of your dessert table. Everyone will love a slice, and you’ll love that it is no fuss baking!

Post Contains Affiliate Links. Read my full disclosure HERE

What is your favorite pie for Thanksgiving? I LOVE pecan pie.

I am basically only looking forward to Thanksgiving this year so that I can enjoy a BIG slice. And some roasted brussels sprouts.

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Quick Oatmeal Cookie Apple Crisps

Oatmeal Cookie Apple Crisp

A few weeks ago, when we went to Apple Crest Farm, we picked up a 1/2 bushel of utility Cortland apples. Utility or second or hail apples are great to grab when you have the opportunity since they are sold at a reduced rate because they are ripe then or are blemished with spots from things like hail storms They are still great apples, but just are not pretty. Who cares when you are making pies or crisps or sauces with them?!?!

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So we had A TON of apples. Awesome.

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One day when I was at work on the weekend, Price made apple crisps with Autumn for their afternoon activity. She basically just ate the apples. ha!

Here’s the thing, I didn’t like apple crisps. Well, I figured I didn’t since I don’t like berry crisps. I don’t like the oats with the berries. It’s the flavor and texture, it’s just wrong to me. But I figured I would try Price’s to be nice since he made them, and damn, I loved it.

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Since then we made 2 more crisps and we demolished them. No shame.

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I wanted to use up the rest of the apples so I got to work on another big batch of apple crisps but I was low on oats. I just  grabbed a box of Krusteaz‘s Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookie mix to try as a substitute topping mix. I figured it’s basically the same thing!

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Winner, Winner more apple crisp for dinner! (oh yeah, that’s a thing…)

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This recipe makes 2 apples crisps, but if you don’t have a bunch of apples, or just don’t feel like making 2 apple crisps, then half he ingredients. Save the rest of the cookie mix for your next apple crisp!

Grab some ice cream and dig into your hot apple crisp!

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Quick Oatmeal Cookie Apple Crisps

Makes 2 8×8 apple crisps

Ingredients

  • 12 Cups Apples, peeled, cored, sliced into 1/4″ thick pieces (I needed 14 Cortland Apples)
  • 1 Cup Brown Sugar
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon ginger
  • 1 teaspoon cloves
  •  1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 Cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 package of Krusteaz Brown Sugar Cookie Mix

Process

  1. Preheat your oven to 375.
  2. In a very large bowl or 2 medium sized bowls, combine your sliced apples with both sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, salt, and vanilla extract.
  3. Divide the apples between the 2 baking dishes
  4. Combine the melted butter and cookie mix. (You can even reuse the same bowl) Mix until the butter is thoroughly combined in the mix.
  5. Using your fingers, crumble the cookie mix on top of the 2 baking dishes. Ideally, you want a mix of fine, small, and large crumbles throughout.
  6. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Enjoy!

Struesel Topped Ginger Pear Pie

Struesel Topped Ginger Pear Pie

Happy Monday!!

I’m not ready to embrace the work week, but I’m trying to talk myself into it! Like if I repeat it over and over again it will be true. I gotta Bettlejuice it. “Happy Monday! Happy Monday! Happy Monday!!!” And magically it will be a Happy Monday!! HA!

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We just had a great weekend so I don’t want to go back to the normal routine. Oh boo!

It was rainy on Saturday so I took Autumn to a local in-door trampoline park. Unless she is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, she is on the go, preferably outside. And I couldn’t just park her in front of that all day, so we tried out Skyzone for her. Price and I had loved it when we had done it so I was hoping she would as well.

There was a small toddler area that was perfect and a handful of other kids there. She liked hoping around with the balls and noodles but most of all she liked the bigger kids jumping and making her bounce and fall and bounce and fall over again since she is so small. She was cracking up for that hour.

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And then on Sunday we met up with a friend of mine, his wife, and baby. Chris and I worked together a few years ago on a project and have stayed in touch going out to dinners with another guy from the team, so it was great meeting his wife and daughter. I wanted to steal Cora. And I don’t think Autumn would have minded as she kept kissing her. We met at the aquarium, where we have a membership, and then we went out for brunch. Autumn was so worn out by all the running around and action. Perfect day!

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Anyway, I haven’t made many pies this year and I wish I had. I missed it from my Year of Pies last year. I was missing it so I dove into the long list of pies that I wanted to make last year but hadn’t gotten around to it. Better late than never.

Pears are just a great fall and winter fruit when you are craving something other than an apple. I have my favorites like bartlett and anjou, but the top pear is the comise.

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I gave Price the first slice and he quickly dug in. He explained that he liked the combination of sweetness from the pears and the bite from the ginger. He did suggest that some vanilla ice cream would be a nice compliment to the ginger. And so he bought ice cream the next day for his next visit with the pie!

I hope you welcome the transition of summer to fall with this pie. Enjoy!

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Struesel Topped Ginger Pear Pie

Makes a 9″ pie

Ingredients

For the Crust

  • 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 6 to 8 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) ice water

For the Filling

  • 8 pears (I used comise pears)
  • 1/2 Cup Sugar
  • 1/4 Cup flour
  • 1/4 Cup Cornstarch
  • 1 ” fresh ginger, grated
  • 1/2 teaspoon mace
  • zest of 1 lemon

For the Struesel Topping

  • 1 Cup Flour
  • 1/4 Cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon mace
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 8 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small piece
  1. To make your pie crust, cut the butter and shortening into small pieces. Return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture.
  2. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a dough blade and pulse a few times to mix.
  3. Add the butter and shortening. Pulse until the butter is the size of peas and the mixture is crumbly While the machine is running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to pull away from the sides. Dump out on a floured surface. Quickly kneed together, divide into equal sized balls. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
  5. Peel and slice the pears into 1/4″ thick slices. Place the pears in a large mixing bowl.
  6. Add the rest of the pie pilling ingredients. Gently mix to coat the pears.
  7. Remove 1 pie crust disc from the refrigerator (you only need 1 disk so use the other for another pie!). On a floured surface, roll out into a large circle until it is large enough to fit a 9″ pie plate. Place the crust in the pie plate. Fold over then crimp the edges.
  8. Pour the pear pie filling into the pie crust.
  9. Make the topping by combing the flour, sugar, ginger, mace, and kosher salt in a medium bowl. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until fine crumbs form. Scatter the topping over the filling and gently pat down.
  10. Bake the pie 20 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake until the topping is lightly browned and the filling is bubbling, about 40-45 more minutes (cover with foil if the topping is browning too quickly). Transfer to a rack and let cool completely.

Pie Crust from Ina Garten, Pie from I am a Honey Bee