Month: October 2022

Cookies – Cakes – Squares & Bars – Crisps & Cobblers –
Candies – Frosting & Icing – Pies

Desserts have a bit of a special place in the food hierarchy. On the one hand, desserts are sweet, delicious, and everyone loves them.

But they’re not always healthy, and so they’re sometimes looked down on as a bad choice.

But dessert is an important part of a meal. It’s not just about having something sweet or decadent. Easy dessert recipes help to put a closing note on the meal, so that you feel that the meal is done. It’s like the period at the end of the sentence, or the credits at the end of a movie.

So how do you enjoy dessert without overdoing it? The first way is to eat dessert in moderation. One cookie does just as good a job of bringing the meal to a close as three, so there’s no need to overdo it.

Or, you can go for healthier desserts. My mom always made fruit plates for us – strawberries, oranges, bananas, whatever was in season. And having it all cut up for us made all the difference. I love fruit, but I’ll admit, I’ll eat a lot more if someone pre-peels it for me.

So you don’t have to avoid dessert. Just be smart about it! And these easy dessert recipes will give you a few tasty ideas for sweet treats.

Cookies

There’s absolutely nothing like homemade cookies, fresh out of the oven. They can be as simple as drop chocolate chip cookies, or they can be cut out and decorated, but cookies are always good. Here are a few easy dessert recipes for cookies.

• Sugar cookies are about as simple as easy dessert recipes come. Just a few simple ingredients and you’ve got an awesome treat!

  

  • For drop cookies, try this easy sugar cookie recipe. They’re great drizzled with a bit of chocolate!
  • If you want to roll out the dough and make cut out cookies, this cut out sugar cookie recipe is perfect. The cookies keep their shape so well when they bake!
• Sugar cookies look great decorated. This sugar cookie icing recipe will let you make professional looking cookies.
• Gingerbread cookies are awesome around the holidays. And this gingerbread cookie recipe is great because it lets you cut out perfect little gingerbread men. And to decorate, this royal icing recipe is just what you need. It adds the perfect hint of sweetness.

Cakes

Cakes are actually surprisingly easy to make, and they’re so great for special occasions. And I’m a big fan of homemade cakes. For me, they’re better than anything you can get in a bakery or restaurant – my family knows that if I don’t get a homemade cake for my birthday, things will get ugly!

Here are a few simple dessert recipes for cake that I like.

• This is my favorite chocolate cake recipe. It’s the perfect taste, texture and moistness for me. Even the batter is the best looking cake batter I’ve seen!
• And it’s just not cake without a little frosting. This chocolate frosting recipe is perfect for yellow cakes, chocolate cakes… or even just on its own!

Squares And Bar Cookies

Squares and bar cookies make a really nice, elegant looking desserts, and they’re not that hard to make. With these easy dessert recipes, you just need to bake the bars and cut them up. I like to cut them into small servings, so that you get to enjoy the taste but don’t feel too full. Besides, you can always go back for seconds.

• These caramel pecan pie bars are completely decadent and delicious. They’re always a huge hit! With homemade caramel and yummy toasted pecans, don’t expect any leftovers.
• These lemons bars are sweet but tangy, and perfect for a light, slightly fruity dessert.
• This cranberry bars recipe is a great dessert recipe, and it’s pretty wholesome. It would even make a decent breakfast!

Crisps And Cobblers

There are a lot of easy dessert recipes for crisps and cobblers. They make such delicious desserts that are great any day of the week, or even for a special occasion. I particularly love apple crisp — it’s a perfect, warm dessert for a cool autumn day.

• Apple crisp is fantastic. It’s got a great, warm apple filling and a nice crunchy topping. Find out how to make your own delicious apple crisp recipe in this article on making easy apple crisp.

Candies

Of all the easy dessert recipes out there, I think candy recipes are my favorite. There’s just something about candies that looks so fancy and elegant! Like truffles, so pretty, creamy and delicious. Yum!

• This peppermint bark recipe is perfect for the holidays. The marbled chocolate and crushed candy canes are a refreshing treat.
• Truffles are my favorite candy to make. This chocolate truffle recipe is a great starter recipe that you can easily tweak.
• If you want to coat truffles, fruit, or other candies, you’ll need to temper your melted chocolate so that it sets hard and shiny. This article on tempering chocolate will tell you what you need to know about it.
• Chocolate covered strawberries are perfect for Valentine’s Day or an elegant dinner. Or even just for a quick, delicious snack! They’re not hard to make, either. Find out how in this article on making chocolate strawberries.

Frosting And Icing

Generally, I’m not a fan of too much frosting. I find that a lot of bakeries spread it on way too thick. But even I think that cake with a bit of frosting is so much better than without. Here are a few yummy frosting and icing recipes.

• This chocolate frosting recipe is great for cakes.
• If you want to decorate cut out cookies, try this sugar cookie icing recipe. It dries super beautifully, and you’ll have wonderful looking cookies.
• This royal icing recipe is perfect for flavorful cookies that need an extra hint of sweetness, like gingerbread. It dries really hard, and you can use it to build gingerbread houses.

Pies

There’s something special about a delicious homemade pie. Maybe it just makes me think of pies cooling on window sills, but it feels like a delicious, traditional, and comforting dessert. You can’t go wrong with a pie! And there are so many different kinds to choose from. Here’s one of my favorite pie recipes.

• This pumpkin pie recipe is one of my favorite recipes. It’s also my husband’s favorite, and I make it for him every year around his birthday.

I hope this collection of easy dessert recipes helps you put the perfect ending note to a wonderful dinner. Enjoy!

But it really is!

There are a lot of different ways to make a delicious and easy chicken pot pie, so you have a lot of flexibility. You can add and remove ingredients to make it just right for you.

So how do you make homemade chicken pot pie? Just read on. In this article, we’ll go over the ingredients that go into a chicken pot pie, and how to make a homemade chicken pot pie.

What Goes In A Pot Pie?

There are lots of ways to make an awesome and easy chicken pot pie. You can use different vegetables, you can have a thicker or thinner filling, and you can use cubed or shredded chicken.

But no matter how you do it, a chicken pot pie always has a few certain ingredients.

It’s a mix of chicken, vegetables and seasonings in a delicious creamy sauce, and the whole thing in a crust.

Chicken

No surprises here: the main ingredient in a chicken pot pie is chicken. And the best part about making an easy chicken pot pie is that you can use all kinds of different chicken to make it.

• Chicken pot pie is a great way to use up leftover cooked chicken. I always have a lot of leftovers after roasting a chicken, and I love making a homemade chicken pot pie with them.
• If you don’t have leftovers, you can cook chicken to make your pot pie.
  • You can boil chicken until it’s cooked through. For chicken breasts or cubed chicken pieces, it might take 20 minutes or so. A whole chicken might take a little longer.
  • The nice thing about boiling is that you can use the cooking water as a broth in your cream sauce.
  • You can also bake chicken in the oven. Just place lightly seasoned chicken on a baking sheet and cook it for 30 to 40 minutes at 375F, or until it’s cooked through.
  • You could also grill or pan-fry chicken. The only reason I’d say to avoid it is that it gives the chicken a crusty outside, which might not blend in the sauce as well.

Once you have your cooked chicken, you can cut it up into cubes or chop it very finely. There’s no right size – just chop the chicken as fine or as coarse as you like it.

No matter what type of chicken you use, you’ll need about 2 to 2 1/2 cups of cubed chicken for a 9″ deep dish pie. Use a little more if you prefer a very chicken-y pot pie, and less if you’d rather have more vegetables.

• That’s about a pound of cooked chicken, and a bit more if you’re starting with raw chicken — it loses weight as it cooks.
• Remember, the measurements really don’t need to be exact. A chicken pot pie is super flexible, and you can add more or less chicken to suit your tastes.

Vegetables

Chicken might be the main ingredient, but most chicken pot pies have a lot of vegetables in them, too. Here are a few possibilities.

• It’s hard to imagine a chicken pot pie without onion. You can do it, but onion adds so much flavor. You can chop it up very fine if you prefer not to have noticeable onion pieces, but you can also leave it coarse if you prefer.
• Carrots and celery also go great in any easy chicken pot pie. You can leave them in thin slices if you like chunkier veggies, or chop them up really fine.
• A few cloves of garlic can add a ton of flavor, too. Some other veggies you can use are peas, corn, pearl onions, and mushrooms.
• Another popular vegetable for an easy chicken pot pie is potatoes. Cubed bits of cooked potatoes add a bit of texture to the filling.
• You’ll need about 3 cups of cooked vegetables for a 9 inch pie. You can easily add more or less though, to suit your tastes.

Now, before you put your vegetables into your easy chicken pot pie filling, you need to cook them. They’ll be in the oven for a while, but usually it turns out better if the vegetables have had a chance to soften a bit. Again, you have options.

• Some veggies can be boiled for a few minutes to soften them, like carrots, celery, peas, and corn. You can boil potatoes, too, but they’ll probably take a little bit longer, up to 15 minutes for bigger chunks.
• Some veggies are best if you saute them in a bit of oil, like mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Just heat a bit of oil over medium heat, and saute the veggies until the onions start to become translucent and soft.
• Some veggies are good either boiled or sauteed, like carrots and celery.

Once your vegetables are cooked a bit, they’re ready for your easy chicken pot pie!

Cream Sauce

The chicken and vegetables give a lot of the flavor to our easy chicken pot pie, but we’re still missing a key element: the cream sauce.

The cream sauce is what blends the chicken and vegetables together, and it’s what makes a chicken pot pie so comforting, warm, and creamy.

Making the cream sauce isn’t hard. It’s made up of four basic ingredients: butter, flour, milk and chicken stock.

• For a deep dish pie, you’ll need about 4 cups of cool liquids. If you’re worried, you can always add a bit more. If you have extra filling, you can always have it with toast or pastry puffs.
  • You can use any combination of milk and chicken stock for your liquids. More milk will make it creamier, and more stock will make it more flavorful. I like to use 1 1/2 cups of milk and 2 1/2 cups of stock.
  • For extra flavor, you can add a few tablespoons of white wine or sherry to the liquids.
• You’ll need butter and flour to thicken the sauce. For each cup of liquid, try a tablespoon of butter, and two tablespoons of flour. So for four cups of liquid, that means a 1/4 of a cup of butter and half a cup of flour.

Here’s how you make it:

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Add in the flour, and whisk it until it has the texture of smooth, wet sand.
2. Let the mixture bubble for 5 or 6 minutes, until it loses the raw flour smell and starts to turn golden.
   • The longer it cooks, the less it will thicken your sauce, but it’ll give a nice, nutty flavor.
3. Slowly add the liquids, whisking constantly to keep the mixture smooth. It’ll thicken very quickly, and if you don’t whisk you’ll get floury lumps.
4. Let the sauce simmer for 10 minutes or so, whisking occasionally to keep it smooth.

Once the cream sauce is done, you can add in your cooked chicken, vegetables and seasonings. And you’re almost done with your easy chicken pot pie!

Seasonings

The last ingredients in a delicious, easy chicken pot pie are the seasonings. I think that the best part of a homemade chicken pot pie is its simplicity, so I don’t like to add a lot of different seasonings. But there are lots of choices out there that’ll give you awesome results.

You can use salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, tarragon, celery seed, parsley, cayenne pepper… different spices will give a slightly different taste to the pie. Just use a spice that you like and you’re sure to get good results.

I recommend adding the seasonings to the filling last. Add in a bit at a time, and taste. You can always add more seasonings if you want, but it’s a lot harder to take seasonings out of your filling.

The Crust

When I think of an easy chicken pot pie, I see a traditional 2-crust pie: a crust on the bottom, the delicious creamy chicken filling, and another crust on top. But there are lots of different types of chicken pot pie. Here are a few options:

• Some chicken pot pies don’t have a bottom crust. Just fill a large baking dish, or several small individual sized dishes, with the creamy chicken filling. Then, cover the dish with a pie crust rolled to size.
• My favorite chicken pot pie is a 2-crust pie. Just line a baking dish with a pie crust, fill it with the chicken filling, and place another pie crust on top. Crimp the edges together, and bake!
• Another option is to use biscuits as the crust. Just fill a dish with the homemade chicken pot pie filling, and top it with some biscuit dough.
• Really, you can use any kind of crust-type thing you like. Phyllo pastry is another option for an easy chicken pot pie.

Notes

If you’re using pie crusts, be sure to cut some slits in the top crust for steam to vent.

How To Make A Chicken Pot Pie

Alright, we’ve been over the different elements that make up our easy chicken pot pie. Now let’s put it all together.

Here’s how to make a delicious, homemade chicken pot pie.

1. If needed, cook the chicken. You can use lots of different cooking methods. Just check out the chicken section. Set the chicken aside.
2. Cook your vegetables, then set them aside. Again, there are a few different cooking methods to pick from.
   • Pick a method that’s most convenient for you. If you can saute all the veggies, then you can do that in the same pan you plan to make your sauce in. But if some need to boil, why not just boil all of them, for convenience?
   • Onions usually need to be sauteed. If you plan on boiling all the other veggies, you can saute the onions in the butter, and make the cream sauce over them. It’s not my favorite method, because I feel the onions make it harder to get the sauce smooth, but it’s definitely convenient.
3. Make the cream sauce. Just check out the cream sauce section for more instructions.
4. Add the chicken, vegetables and seasonings to your cream sauce, and let it simmer 10 minutes or so.
5. Line a pie plate with a pie crust. Fill it with the homemade chicken pot pie filling. Cover with a second pie crust, and crimp the edges of the crusts together.
6. Bake in an oven preheated to 375F until the crust is golden brown, about 45 minutes or so.
7. Let the pie cool for at least 10 minutes. The filling needs time to set a little after you take it out of the oven.

Notes

• Sometimes, the bottom crust doesn’t get crispy — it just gets soggy from the filling. There are a few things you can do to help.
  • Pre-bake the bottom crust before adding the filling. Prick the crust with a fork to prevent it from bubbling and buckling, and then line it with foil or parchment paper. Scatter some pie weights or dried beans to keep the crust flat. Then bake it for 10 minutes or so in an oven preheated to 400F.
  • Baking the pie on the bottom rack in your oven can help, too. It’ll take longer for the top crust to brown, giving the bottom crust more time to cook through.
• These instructions are for a 2-crust pie, but the idea is the same no matter what type of crust you use. The filling is cooked, so you only need to bake the pie until the crust is the perfect golden color you want.
• To help the crust become a nice, rich, golden brown, there are a few tricks you can use.
  • Brush the crust with a beaten egg. It’ll give the crust a crisp, brown, shiny finish.
  • You can also brush the crust with milk or cream. You’ll get the same crisp brown color, without the shine.

And that’s how you make a yummy, easy chicken pot pie. Enjoy!

When fall rolls around, there’s nothing better than an easy apple crisp for dessert. Apples are in season, and the weather’s getting cool, so what could be more perfect that a warm, delicious apple crisp?

Apple crisp is one of my favorite desserts. I love the apple filling, but the part I really love is the topping. Crispy and golden, it’s just so delicious. But the great part about apple crisp is that no matter what part you prefer, you can make an easy apple crisp that suits you.

If you like the crust, you can make it with a thicker topping. But if you like lots of filling, you can just pile a few more layers of apples in there to get it just the way you like it.

And the best part is, apple crisp is a really easy dessert to make. The longest part is slicing the apples! In this article, we’ll talk about how to make an easy apple crisp just the way you like it. We’ll start with what goes into the filling. Then, we’ll talk about making the topping. And finally, we’ll put it all together and talk about how to make apple crisp.

The Filling

The first part of an easy apple crisp is the filling. I’m calling it a filling, because it’s a lot like a pie filling — but really in an apple crisp it’s more of a bottom layer than a filling.

The filling is the apple part of the apple crisp. But to get the best possible apple crisp, you need more than just apples.

In this section, we’ll go over the different ingredients you want to include in your apple crisp filling:

Apples

No surprises here: apples are the main ingredient in an easy apple crisp! But there are a few extra things to know.

First of all, there are lots of different types of apples. And each type has its own particular characteristics:

• Sweetness vs. tartness. Some apples are sweet, and others are tart. A mix of sweet and tart apples gives a flavor balance, but you can try out different combinations to see what you like best.

  • Keep in mind, though, that baking makes the apples sweeter. A tart apple will bake up sweet, but it’ll have a wider range of flavors. A sweet apple will become even sweeter.

• Firmess vs. mushiness. Some apples stay pretty firm and keep their shape when they bake, and others can get really mushy. You can use a mix of both, if you want both textures, or you can just stick to one type. Just think about what you like best, and pick an apple that suits your tastes.

Once you’ve picked which types of apples you want to use, you need to cut them up. There are a few different ways to do it. Just pick whichever method you like best!

• If you like, you can peel the apple. I always prefer a peeled apple for an apple crisp, but you can also try it with the peel on for little textured bits.

• You should always core the apple. At the very least you’ll want to remove the seeds, which are very mildly poisonous. But the seed casings and other parts of the core can have an odd taste and texture, too, so you’ll probably want to remove those as well.

• Once your apple is peeled (if at all) and cored, you’ll want to slice it up into small parts that’ll cook up more easily.

  • You can cut the apple in quarters and then cut each quarter into 1/8 or 1/4 inch slices. The thicker the slice, the firmer it’ll stay.

  • You can also cut the apple into little half-inch or so chunks. It’ll give a slightly different texture — you’ll be able to really bite into each apple piece when you eat your apple crisp.

I prefer peeled apple slices myself, but the only way to know what you’ll like best is to experiment and see what works best for you.

Other Fruit

Even though it’s a nice, easy apple crisp, that doesn’t mean that it has to only have apples in it. Adding some other fruit to the filling can make a nice change of pace, and give your apple crisp a distinctive flavor.

Here are a few fruits that go really well in an apple crisp.

• Cranberries. Cranberries add a nice tartness to the sweet apples. You can add a little extra sugar to the filling if you’re afraid of it being too tart.
• Peaches or pears. Just slice them the same way you do your apples. It’ll add some sweetness, and some different flavors. Yum!
• Dried fruit. You can also add different dried fruit to the filling, for some extra flavor and texture.
• Berries. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, or other berries are great in an apple crisp.
• You can add any fruit you like! Just be sure to cut it into pieces that’ll cook at about the same speed as your apples.

How much other fruit should you add if you use any? That’s entirely up to you. You might want to have mostly apples, with just a hint of other flavors, or you can have an even blend. Just try out different combinations and see what works for you.

Sugar

Apples are naturally sweet. Even the tart apples will get nice and sweet as they bake. So there’s no need to add a whole ton of sugar to the filling. Still, a little sugar has other advantages than just sweetness.

• Sugar helps draw out the juices from the apples. That’ll help the apple pieces keep their shape better as they cook up. It also adds some moisture to the filling.
• The water, juices and sugar in the filling will boil as the easy apple crisp cooks. And thanks to the sugar, it’ll get thick and syrupy, which will give your filling a wonderful texture.

Since apples are nice and sweet already, there’s no need to add a ton of sugar. A teaspoon or so per cup of chopped apple is usually enough, although you can definitely adjust that higher or lower depending on how sweet the apples you’re using are, and how sweet you like your apple crisp!

Water

A little bit of water added to the filling, along with a bit of sugar, helps create a syrupy sauce for the apples as they cook, almost like a light caramel. You don’t need much — a teaspoon or two per cup of chopped apple.

How much you need depends on two things.

• Some apples are juicier than others. If your apple has a high water content, it’ll release more juices, so you don’t need as much water.
• How syrupy you want your filling. More water will give you more syrup, but it’ll be a bit lighter. Less will give you a drier filling, although what syrup there is might be a bit thicker.

I usually add just enough water to moisten the apples, but not enough for it to start pooling in the bottom of the dish. It gives me an apple crisp that has a thick syrup, but not too much of it — the filling is still made up mostly of apple slices that keep their shape.

Lemon Juice

Adding a bit of lemon juice to your easy apple crisp filling adds a tiny bit of flavor, but mostly it’s there to keep the apples from oxidizing and turning brown while you prepare your other ingredients, or while you let the sugar draw out the juices.

You don’t need much — just enough to coat the apples. A teaspoon or two per cup of apple slices should be plenty. Just be sure to toss the apples in the lemon juice so they’re all coated.

Spices

With just some apples, water, sugar and lemon juice, you can make an amazing and easy apple crisp. But sometimes it’s nice to change things up a little bit and add some extra flavors.

Adding some spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, allspice, or ginger can add a nice touch to the apple crisp. And like the rest of the apple crisp, there’s no need for exact measurements. Just sprinkle a bit of spices until it feels right. You can toss the apples in the spice mixture and taste one before cooking it — the flavors will intensify as they cook, so don’t overdo it!

Other Seasonings

One of the best things about apple crisp is that you can make your own easy apple crisp recipes so easily, with just a little bit of creativity. You can add almost any seasoning you like that you think would go well with apples. And if it doesn’t turn out delicious, then just remember it for next time, and keep experimenting.

Some other seasonings you can add to your apple filling are citrus zest, a bit of vanilla, or whatever you like. You can even soak your apples in a bit of red wine before baking them. Just try out different things, and you’ll discover some wonderful apple crisp recipes of your own.

And now that you know all the ingredients you need for the filling, we can move on to the next layer — the topping.

The Topping

The topping is my favorite part of apple crisp. It’s crispy, it’s crumbly, it’s buttery and delicious, and adds just the right amount of crunch to the soft, warm apple filling.

So what goes into an easy apple crisp topping?

Flour

A little bit of flour in the topping helps the topping get nice and crisp, if you mix it in with a little butter. Some apple crisp recipes don’t call for flour at all — instead, you just use oatmeal. But a little bit of flour gives nice, flaky, crispy clusters that you won’t really get with just oatmeal.

Oatmeal

You could make an apple crisp with just flour and no oatmeal. But I find an oatmeal topping much more appealing. The oats cook up nicely, and have a wondeful flavor.

You can use quick-cooking oats or old-fashioned oats — both will cook without a problem. The main different is that old-fashioned oats are slightly thicker, so it’ll give a different texture. Which texture you prefer is up to you!

Butter

Butter is an essential part of the apple crisp topping, although you could use a subsititute if you wanted. The butter is what holds the topping together, and creates little crispy clusters.

The best way to use butter in an easy apple crisp topping is to cut the amount you need into little quarter of an inch cubes. Use unsalted butter, and make sure it’s well chilled. Then, cut the butter into the rest of the topping ingredients, until the whole thing looks like coarse crumbs. The cold butter crumbs will expand in the oven, and make your topping beautifully crispy.

Sugar

The topping needs a little bit of sweetness to really be delicious. I like to use brown sugar in the topping, but you could also use white sugar if you prefer, or another sweetener. The sugar will help the topping become a nice golden brown.

Seasonings

The last ingredient in an easy apple crisp topping is optional, but it’s what makes the difference between all the different apple crisp recipes: the seasonings. Here are a few seasonings you can add to the topping.

• Spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, or cardamom.
• Chopped nuts, like pecans, almonds or hazelnuts.
• A pinch of salt can enhance other flavors. But don’t use any more than a tiny pinch — the goal is to enhance flavors, but you don’t actually want to taste the saltiness!

Proportions

So when you’re making your easy apple crisp topping, how much flour should you use? How much oatmeal? And how much sugar, butter, and spices? The truth is, it’s super versatile. You can really adjust the proportions to suit how you like your topping.

But here’s some starter amounts. For a 9″x9″ apple crisp, you can use:

• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup oatmeal
• 1/4 cup butter
• a pinch of salt

You can easily adjust those measurements to suit your tastes. If you like a topping with more oatmeal, you can add more. If you prefer a slightly more doughy topping, there’s nothing wrong with a bit more flour. And if you like things sweeter, you can always add more sugar. But that’s a great topping to start with!

How To Make Easy Apple Crisp

Alright, now that we’ve gone over what goes into an easy apple crisp, let’s go over the steps to acutally making it. It’s super easy!

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Mix all the ingredients for your filling in a large bowl, or right in the baking dish. I use about 4 apples for a 9”x9” apple crisp, but you can increase or decrease that amount based on how thick a filling you like.

   • Remember, the filling consists of sliced or cubed apples, a bit of sugar and water, lemon juice to prevent oxidation, and whatever other fruit or seasonings you want.

3. In a small bowl, mix the flour, oatmeal, sugar, spices, and nuts for your topping. Basically all the dry ingredients.

4. Cut your chilled butter into little 1/4 of an inch cubes, and mix into the dry topping ingredients until the mixture looks like a coarse meal.

5. Spread the filling at the bottom of the baking dish.

6. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the filling.

7. Bake the easy apple crisp in the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and crisp.

   • Unlike a lot of baked goods, the oven temperature isn’t too too important. You can easily cook an apple crisp at 350F or 400F if you happen to need the oven at that temperature. You’ll just need to cook it for a bit more or less time, until it’s golden brown.

And that’s all there is to it! You can be eating a wonderful and easy apple crisp in no time. The only part I find takes time is preparing the apples, so it can be nice to have a helper for that. Then it really takes no time at all, and it’s twice the fun!

Enjoy!

If you go to the grocery store, you’ll find rows and rows of canned Cream of This and Cream of That. And if you browse online, you’ll find thousands of recipes that use these condensed cream soups.

But what if you just want the soup? Well, the fact is, all those canned soups are alright, but they’ll never ever compare to a homemade cream soup made right.

A homemade soup has so much more flavor, and it’s just better for you!

No preservatives, no strange chemicals, and you control everything that goes in. If you have to restrict your salt intake, it’s as easy as getting a smaller measuring spoon.

So what exactly is a cream soup? Well, as you can guess from the name, the thing that really makes it a cream soup is… cream! Or at the very least, milk.

What about the rest? Well, in this article, I’ll tell you all about cream soups. First, I’ll go over the three basic elements that make up a cream soup: the base, the thickener, and the cream. Then I’ll talk about how to put them together to make a delicious cream soup.

What’s A Cream Soup Made Of?

The Base Of The Soup

• However, to get a more complex flavor with not a whole lot more work, you can saute some aromatics like leeks, onions, shallots, garlic, etc, with a bit of butter, and then add some chicken stock and boil the vegetables in the mixture. Then puree the whole thing! It’ll be a lot more flavorful.
• You can also use vegetable stock if you’re trying to make a vegetarian meal, but keep in mind that vegetable stock doesn’t contain any gelatin and so doesn’t really carry flavors as well as chicken stock would.
• Some vegetables benefit from being sauteed a bit with the aromatics. Mushrooms are a good example (although not technically a vegetable, you know what I mean!). It helps bring out the flavor. Just saute them, add the stock, simmer a bit, and then puree.
• Some vegetables – again, like mushrooms – make a great cream soup without being pureed. Whether you puree the vegetable-stock mix is up to you, just see what you like.

For some cream soups, however, you wouldn’t really want to use a vegetable puree. For example, a cream of chicken soup really only needs chicken stock as a base, with maybe a few aromatics and some pieces of cooked chicken added and then pureed.

The Thickener

The next element in cream soups is the thickener. This is what gives the soup most of its awesome texture – everything except the creaminess, and possibly some chunkiness from the vegetables.

There are a few ways to thicken a soup.

• • The best way to thicken a cream soup is by making a roux, and it’s not at all complicated. Just take equal parts butter and flour, and melt the butter over medium low heat. Then just whisk in the flour and cook it until it’s well blended and starts to lose its raw flour smell.
    • A good guideline is to use 1 tablespoon of flour for every 2 cups of liquid you have, but adjust to your taste.
    • Roux is especially good with a cream soup because it doesn’t just thicken – it also helps prevent the milk or cream from separating.
  • Another way to thicken the soup is with a slurry, a mixture of cold liquid (water, wine, stock, etc), and a bit of flour or cornstarch. Just add the flour to the cold liquid and stir or shake very vigorously, until you have a smooth paste. Then whisk the paste into your soup.
    • It’s a bit simpler than the roux, but you have to be careful to mix the slurry very well before putting it in your hot soup, or you’ll end up with floury, gooey lumps.
    • If you’re using a flour slurry, you’ll have to cook it in the soup for a longish while, until it starts to lose its raw flour taste.
    • Cornstarch is easier to use, but it gives a somewhat different texture than flour, and it’s generally not as appealing. It tends to be a little more jelly-like, and even gummy if you add too much.
  • You can also thicken a soup using egg yolks and cream. Just mix egg yolks and cream in a small bowl until blended, then slowly add a bit of hot soup to the bowl and mix, to heat up the egg. Then, pour the egg yolk mixture back into the soup.
    • Use about 1 tablespoon of cream and 1 egg yolk for each cup of soup to thicken.
    • It’s important to heat the eggs slowly or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs in your soup – that’s why you gently heat them before placing them in the soup.
    • It’s best to serve the soup immediately after adding the eggs. The egg yolk mixture will thicken really nicely, but it’s not super stable. If you heat the soup too much, the eggs will coagulate (again, scrambled egg soup).
    • Thickening the soup with egg yolks and cream gives a wonderfully thick, silky texture.

• Finally, you can thicken soup with a puree. Of course, we’re already doing that, as described in the previous section, but that’s not quite enough for a good cream soup.
  • If you want extra thickness, add some rice, raw grated potato or beans to your vegetables while they’re cooking. When everything is fully cooked, puree the whole thing.
  • Be sure your thickener is fully cooked, or your soup might end up with a grainy texture.
  • This will thicken the soup, but it definitely won’t add the same kind of silky smoothness as using a roux would.

Notes

• All of these thickeners will work to thicken any soup, not just cream soups.
• Most thickeners don’t freeze well.
  • If you’re planning on having lots of leftover soup, set some of your vegetable puree aside and freeze it for later.
  • You can thicken it when you defrost it, and then add milk and cream.
  • The potato, rice or bean thickening is an exception to this rule.

The Final Touch – A Bit Of Cream

Now that we know what the different elements are, we’ll learn how to put them all together to make any type of cream soup you like.

Although I described how to use a bunch of different thickeners, in this section I’ll just focus on the roux, which I think is the best for a cream soup. If you want to use another thickener though, check out the notes at the bottom of this section.

What You Need

Here’s what you’ll need to make a cream soup:

• Some aromatics, like onions, leeks, or garlic.
• A vegetable base, if desired, like asparagus, broccoli or celery.

  

  • Each pound of vegetable will yield about 8 servings of soup.
  • Chop the vegetables so that they’ll cook nicely. At this point, you can save some of the vegetables for garnish – like the tips on asparagus, or pretty broccoli florets.

  OR

  A meat base, like chicken. The stock will provide some flavor, but you can also add in a few cups of chopped cooked chicken to puree and to garnish.

• Chicken stock. You can use vegetable stock, too, but it won’t add the same texture or flavor to the soup.
• Butter. You’ll need some to saute the aromatics, and some to make the roux.
• A few tablespoons of flour for the roux, about 1 tablespoon for each 2 cups of liquid. You can add more or less depending on how thick you like your soup. If you’re using cream rather than milk, you don’t need to use as much flour to thicken.
• You’ll need milk, or cream. The amount is up to you. You can use a cup of milk for each cup or two of puree, or more or less as you like it. Start with less rather than more – you can always add more milk!
  • If you’re using cream rather than milk, you don’t need to add as much, unless you like a very rich soup.
• Spices. Salt and pepper work well, and depending on what vegetables you use you can add some other spices, like thyme, nutmeg, ginger… anything you like.

How To Make The Soup

And here’s how you put it all together to make a cream soup:

1. Finely chop your aromatics and saute them in a bit of butter.
2. Add the chicken stock and the chopped vegetables. Simmer covered until the vegetables are soft – about 20 minutes depending on the vegetable you used and the size of the pieces.
3. Puree the vegetables with the stock. Set the puree aside in a bowl.
   • It’s easiest if you have an immersion blender.
   • You can use a regular blender too. Just be careful not to overfill your container, and watch out – the puree will get hotter in the blender, so make sure it doesn’t bubble and splash you when you open your container.
4. In the same pot you cooked the vegetables, melt some butter. Add an equal amount of flour and cook over medium low heat until the mixture is blended and loses its raw flour taste – this is the roux.
5. Slowly add the milk or cream to the roux, whisking constantly. Bring to a boil and heat until the sauce is smooth and thick.
6. Add the puree, stir, and season.
7. Serve, add garnish to the bowls, and enjoy!

Notes

• If you want to thicken using a slurry, you can simply add it to the puree, and then add the milk.
• If you want to thicken using egg yolks and cream, add the milk to the puree, stir, and then add the egg yolk thickener last and serve immediately.
• If you want to thicken using potatoes, beans, or rice, just cook them with the vegetables and puree.
• If you want to freeze the soup, it’s best to just freeze the puree, and add the thickener (except for the puree thickener) and milk when you defrost.
• Depending on the type of vegetable you use, you may need to use more or less. For example, mushrooms can have a very subtle flavor, and you may want to double the amount you’d use of another vegetable.

Well, that’s all there is to making a delicious cream of anything soup. Try it out… it’s easier than the great taste would make you think!