Apple Danish

With all the apples Derek brought home in September, I did some 30 quarts of apples.  Mostly applesauce and apple pie filling.  I also filled a gallon-size bag FULL of dehydrated apples. I have been craving an apple danish lately, so found a recipe on Allrecipes.com and, ran with it.  Below is the recipe, though instead of filling, I used a jar of my canned apple pie filling and I added an element of cream cheese filling to it too.  Sinful, I know.  It was good!

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 cup cold butter (no substitutes)
1 cup warm milk (110 to 115 degrees F)
2 eggs, beaten

FILLING:
1 1/2 cups chopped, peeled tart apples
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter (no substitutes), melted

CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, diced
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons sour cream

GLAZE:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt and lemon peel; cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in the yeast mixture, milk and eggs by hand. turn onto a floured surface; knead about 20 times (dough will be slightly sticky). Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

For filling, combine the apples, walnuts, sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Roll each into an 18-in. x 15-in. rectangle; brush with butter. Sprinkle with filling to within 1/2 in of edges. Starting with a short side, fold one third of the side over filling; repeat with other side, making a 15-in. x 6-in. rectangle. Pinch seams to seal. Cut each into 15 slices. Twist each slice a few times; pinch ends together, forming a small circle. Place 2 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-20+ minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over warm rolls. (When I added the cream cheese filling it took the bottom of the danish longer to cook.  I added 5 minutes cooking time onto the recipe, but you may need to go longer. 
 
As you can tell from my picture, I braided my dough instead of followed the recipe's instructions.
 
The second time I made this recipe, I didn't do the cream cheese filling, and split the dough into quarters.  Making 4 smallers ones helped with the cooking time and didn't feel so overwhelmed when it came time to eat.  (I donated 2 of them to Tanner's school's bake sale.  That really helped!)

Creatve Highs

I will never forget the day my mom took  me to the library when I was child.  They had just changed the card catalog system from little drawers filled with small cards to computers with databases.  Mom typed in the title of the book we were looking for, one letter at a time, then frustrated, said, "okay, why isn't it doing anything!?"  To which I replied, "mom, you need to hit 'enter'!" 

We've come a long way since then.  And I think she is even more computer savy than I am!  Well, perhaps I should say, "technology" savy.  The woman carries with her EVERYWHERE a Blackberry AND an I-Phone.  She uses them both all day long. Me?  Well, I do have a cell phone. I share it with Derek and Colin. I've arrived at that stage of life where I have to ask my 18 month old for permission to use it. (He's pretty sure its his.)

So, the reason why I am writing all this is because my mom and I just started a new card blog!  This is mostly for mom since she needs a good place to keep her cards and it will give her the opportunity to make comments on the Cricut Messageboard now. 

I can say that I've come a long way with blogging. (Though I have a long way more to go, I confess to aspirations of learning HTML.) So this new blog was fun to put together, then teach mom how to post, edit, upload pics, and add labels.  She did great and caught on quick!

Its a rough start as far as design goes, but I plan on changing things every month or two and maybe learning a few new ropes along the way.  So hop on over for a visit!  We hope you catch the creative BUG!

Tanner's award

I got a call from the secretary at Tanner's school this week. His teacher wanted to recognize him in an assembly they were having today and I was invited to attend! I am sure each child will have the chance over the school year to be recognized, but nonethelss, it was a proud parent moment for me!

Here's the footage of his award (it's super short):