Cook's Country

-Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan makes Bridget a foolproof recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch apple pie, Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of vanilla ice cream, and Bridget and Julia make gift-worthy Amish cinnamon bread.

That's all right here on "Cook's Country."

-In 1681, King Charles II of England gave a large piece of land in the New World to a Quaker named William Penn.

The King called it Pennsylvania.

-And young William implemented a democratic system to govern the land, which later became the basis of the American Constitution -- that included freedom of religion, fair trials, and elected representatives.

-Now, Penn marketed this new free colony throughout Europe, and it attracted settlers from all over, including many who were German.

-They were known as the Pennsylvania Dutch because they spoke Deutsch, which is German for German.

Now, these German settlers created a unique American culture around their religion, their language, and their food.

-Including the well-loved Dutch apple pie, which is what Bryan is going to show us how to make today.

-Some men were born to carry a heavier burden than others, like Bryan, who had to spend a lot of time on the ground researching this pie.

Tough job.

-It's a tough life, I'll be honest with you.

It -- It's a lot of eating and it's a lot of meeting people and -- but I'm okay with it.

-All for the love of pie.

-I went to Pennsylvania and traveled throughout the state and ate Dutch apple pie everywhere I could.

-[ Chuckles ] -Almost too much.

And I ended up in Philadelphia with a woman named Holly Ricciardi, who at the time owned a little pie shop called Magpie.

We spent the morning making Dutch apple pies together, and I'm here to share some of her tips and tricks for the perfect Dutch apple pie.

-Great.

-We're going to start off by making the crust.

We have 1 1/4 cups of flour in here.

We're going to add 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

And we're just going to process that for a few seconds to combine the ingredients.

And to this flour, next, we're going to add 8 tablespoons of butter that we've chopped into quarter inch pieces and we've frozen for about 15 minutes.

-Alright.

Nice and chilled.

-So we'll process this about 10 pulses until the butter pieces are about the size of peas.

-Okay.

-So this is what we're looking for, pieces about that size.

-Okay.

-And to that, we're going to add our liquid mixture.

So we're going to be using a combination of 4 teaspoons of sour cream and 4 tablespoons of ice water.

The reason we use sour cream is because it makes the dough a little bit more tender and flexible and easier to roll out.

Just mix that together with a fork.

Okay, so we can add our sour cream and water mixture.

We're going to pulse this about 12 times until a dough starts to form.

-Alright.

-Okay, Bridget.

And that's what we're looking for.

-Clumping.

-It's starting to clump.

Not too wet and not too dry.

So we're going to turn this out onto a sheet of plastic wrap and we'll just form it loosely into a 4-inch disk.

We'll wrap it up.

So we're going to chill this dough for at least an hour to give that butter a chance to resolidify, or we can go up to a full 48 hours.

Let's get started on the apple pie filling.

I have 2 1/2 pounds of Gala apples.

You can also use Fuji, Braeburn, Golden Delicious, or Granny Smith if you prefer a tarter apple pie filling.

-Mm-hmm.

-We're going to begin by cutting these into 1/4-inch thick slices.

So to do that, I like to just top and tail the apples.

And I like to use this vegetable peeler and just go around and peel these like this.

And the reason I top and tail is so that my thumb has a little pivot point.

And then we're just going to cut around the core.

Okay, and then we're looking for 1/4-inch slices.

Okay, so we have our apples sliced and we can add them right to our bowl.

2 1/2 pounds total.

-Gotcha.

-So first, we're going to add 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

So, all Dutch apple pies usually contain cream.

One day, we were in the test kitchen and we were eating a sample of this pie and we were putting ice cream on top of it.

And we started looking at the ice cream and looking at the pie, looking at the cream.

And we were like, "Hey, what about just -- [ Laughs ] What about just adding melted ice cream to this?"

You get the heavy cream, you get the richness, you get some more sugar, you get some vanilla.

-Right.

-Lo and behold, we tried it.

-This is -- This is ice cream.

-This is melted ice cream.

It worked.

-Huh.

-It was kind of a genius idea.

So we have 1/2 cup of melted vanilla ice cream and we could just toss this around.

Okay, so now that this is fully combined, we're going to let this sit at room temperature for at least an hour, but up to two hours.

And during that time, those apples will soften up nicely.

-Okay.

-So let's talk about our topping.

Dutch apple pie is a single-crust pie, and on the top there's a streusel topping.

So we have 1 cup of flour here.

To that we're going to add 1/2 cup of light brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

And I'm just going to stir those together to combine.

Now we're going to add 6 tablespoons of melted butter.

And we're just going to stir this until there's no dry flour remaining and the mixture starts to form clumps.

So this looks perfect.

So now we're going to put it in the refrigerator until we're ready to use it.

We're ready to roll out our chilled pie dough.

So we want to flour our board.

Flour the top of the pie dough.

And we're looking for a 12-inch round here.

And this is my favorite part of any pie recipe, is getting that perfect 12-inch round.

Alright, and if it starts to stick under the bottom, I like to just use a bench scraper to push some of the flour underneath.

That's important that the pie dough was sufficiently chilled.

We did let it come to room temperature for about 10 minutes before we started rolling, just so it was a little bit pliable.

But you don't want the butter to get too hot... -Right.

-...and start to break out of the dough.

So now that we've got about an 8-inch circle there, we can start putting a little bit more pressure on to push it out.

Still keeping with a quarter turn, but I'm forcing it a little bit more out from the center.

Alright, 12 inches that way, 12 inches here.

So I have the pie plate right over there.

-Alright.

I'll bring it to you.

-Yes.

I'm going to roll the pie dough around this rolling pin loosely.

We're just going to unroll this over the pie plate.

We want to kind of lift the side and tuck into the bottom so we don't stretch the dough, just kind of placing it in there nice and soft.

Alright.

So now we've got the pie dough snug in the bottom of the pie plate.

We're going to trim any overhang to a half inch.

-Okay.

-I like to save all these pieces because when I eventually mess up crimping, I use this for a little bit of patchwork.

Alright, so we have about a 1/2 inch overhang all the way around, and now we're going to tuck the dough under itself so it meets flush with the edge of the pie plate.

And now we're going to crimp.

I'm going to just start crimping off this one side.

And I make a very sharp crimp 'cause as this cooks in the oven, these divots and these crimps are going to soften a little bit.

So just crimp to where it feels comfortable and then rotate the pie shell around you.

-Absolutely beautiful.

-So now that it's all crimped, we're going to cover it with plastic wrap and we're going to refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.

-Okay.

-Our pie dough is chilled, our apples have macerated, and now we're ready to assemble our pie.

-Good.

-So I've put this chilled pie dough onto a rimmed baking sheet and lined it with parchment paper.

The apples are ready to go in.

Rather than dumping them in all together, in which case we might get a big mound in the center, we're going to add them a handful at a time.

And as we add them, we want to press them flat to make sure this apple pie will remain even and consistent all the way from the bottom to the top.

So with each handful, I'll just give it a light press down.

Okay, we'll add our last handful or so of apples, give the whole thing a nice press.

So we have all of our beautiful vanilla ice cream, apple nectar here and we're actually going to add that to the pie.

-Good.

-Seems counterintuitive to add the liquid back, but it makes a difference.

Now we're about to add our streusel topping.

My favorite part.

-And that's nice and chilled, too.

-Right.

So the pieces are much more firmed up than they started.

And we'll just sprinkle that around evenly.

And any big pieces we'll just break up into pea-sized chunks.

Okay, and then we're just going to give that a light press down so the streusel topping stays in place.

And now we're going to bake this off for about an hour and 10 minutes until it becomes nicely browned all over and a paring knife inserted into the center of the pie meets very little resistance from those apples.

-Okay, and what temp is the oven at?

-It's at 350.

-Okay.

-Let's take a look at this pie.

Oh, looks gorgeous.

We're just going to make sure that the apples are tender in the center and they are.

Okay.

We can pull this pie out.

-Okay.

-Alright, Bridget, unfortunately, I have a little bit of bad news.

We have to let the pie sit a minimum of four hours before we cut into it.

-I'd buy that.

-Preferably we wait overnight.

-Really?

-This is something that I learned from Holly, and she insisted on all of her pies resting overnight because as they rest, they're going to settle and they're going to take on a different shape and they'll be a lot easier to slice.

-Okay, worth the wait?

-Absolutely.

It's time to cut into our pie, and you can see that it's settled a bit.

It's going to be much easier to slice.

Alright.

Okay.

-Masterfully done.

Look at that.

That would be crumbling all over the place if you cut into it too soon.

-Especially with an apple pie, it gives those apple slices a chance to stick to each other.

-Mm-hmm.

-So apple pie, you have to have a little bit of vanilla ice cream.

It's the law in Pennsylvania.

-It is.

-Okay.

And we're finally ready to dig in here.

-Gorgeous.

I love anything under a streusel topping.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's crunchy, toasty.

-A lot of apple flavor, too, right?

-It's not too sweet.

Sometimes Dutch apple pies just taste like apple candy.

-Right.

-It's not over the top.

-And I love how the apples have a little bit of texture to them, but they're not super mushy and they're not super crunchy.

-Mm-hmm.

And this is the bottom crust.

Under all those apples, all of that juice, and it's still nice and crisp.

It's not flooded.

It's not flabby.

-Mm-hmm.

And that's because we baked it on the lower middle rack of the oven and it got a lot of that direct heat.

-Mm.

-So it helped it cook through nicely.

-I'd wait a week if I had to for this pie.

-Thank you.

-To make this gorgeous pie, it starts with a crust made by pulsing butter, then sour cream and water into a flour mixture.

Macerate sliced apples with melted ice cream, and then meanwhile, make a crumb topping.

Roll out and fill the pie shell, and then scatter the crumb mixture all over the top.

Bake the pie and then let it rest, preferably overnight, before serving.

So from "Cook's Country," the not so humble, oh, so good Dutch apple pie.

-Vanilla is America's favorite flavor of ice cream, and today Jack's going to tell us which brand is the cream of the crop.

How are you doing?

-I'm doing okay.

-I'll say.

[ Laughs ] -We're not eating ice cream cones, just in case you're wondering.

But I wanted to demonstrate one of the biggest differences that nobody thinks about, which is the amount of air that gets pumped into ice cream.

It's called overrun.

-Mm-hmm.

-So these are the exact same amount of ice cream by weight.

-Really?

-One of them -- this one -- has a lot of air.

This one is dense and creamy, does not have a lot of overrun.

I'm not going to make a mess.

I'm going to put these down.

But overrun can add about 20% air up to 120%.

-Well, that can affect the mouthfeel.

-Also how it freezes, whether it's really hard... -Mm-hmm.

-...whether it's soft and creamy, whether it's dense and rich, light and fluffy.

-I'm going to go right in.

-Dig in.

-[ Chuckles ] -I brought three brands here.

They're interesting samples.

We started with 17.

Look at this line-up over here.

A couple of things we learned -- whether it's French, original, homemade, those don't really mean much.

If it has specks of vanilla bean, it probably has less vanilla flavor.

Those are ground up beans that they've already used to make extract.

-But they look pretty.

-They look pretty.

Actually, if you want real vanilla flavor, which our tasters did, you want to use either pure or imitation extract rather than the ground-up beans.

Pure has a little bit of booziness to it because pure extract is made with 35% alcohol.

Big differences here in sugar levels.

Sugar, as you know, has a big impact on texture.

If there's less sugar, it's going to probably not be as creamy and maybe a little on the icy side.

-Mm-hmm.

-Big differences in fat.

And I like high fat and high sugar ice cream.

So that's my favorite.

Anything you're noticing here?

-Mm-hmm.

-I mean, you've been "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm," 'cause you're eating vanilla ice cream.

-This is a wonderful tasting, by the way.

I'm having a lot of fun just eating this.

This is my least favorite by far.

You said icy, it's icy.

I see the specs, but some of the specs are a little big, and I actually feel like I felt one on my tongue.

It was almost like a little pebble.

So this is my least favorite.

-Okay.

-I liked both of these.

I don't like the color of this one, but if I close my eyes, I like the creaminess.

But I think I actually prefer this one.

This one's very good.

Something about this one, I like how it feels.

It feels fatty.

I like seeing the specs.

I'm a sucker for a good spec.

-Alright.

-And it's sweet, but I like sweet, so, mm.

-You made your decision.

We're going with the middle sample.

-This is my favorite.

This is really good, though, and that, I don't like it at all.

-The two of us agree.

-Oh, we do?

-And the audience agrees.

-Ah.

-And we disagree with the tasting panel.

-Really?

-So we're all going to go off together.

-Oh, we're rebels.

-We're rebels.

-[ Laughs ] -We all picked the runner-up, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the best sample here.

Take it over.

-Ahh!

-Ben & Jerry's.

Oh.

Congratulations, studio audience.

-It's good.

Yeah.

-So this one has less air.

So there's low overrun, it's really dense.

It's really creamy.

It's super rich.

It's absolutely delicious.

-Yep.

-The tasting panel actually preferred -- the expert panel -- the Turkey Hill.

So the Turkey Hill's a much higher overrun.

So it's got a lot more air.

Some people in the tasting panel said, "Well, I can eat more of it."

-[ Laughs ] That's -- That's one theory.

-That's one theory.

That one has some corn syrup in it, which gives it a nice sort of gooey texture... -Yes.

-even though it's got a lot of air.

It's not super fluffy.

-Yeah, it's almost a bit chewy.

-Yeah, a little chewy, and that's probably from the corn syrup.

So that was the winner.

The studio audience -- it was a close runner-up for the studio audience, although they agreed with me and with you, they actually like the Ben & Jerry's.

-That's good.

-So down here at the end, so this one, Halo Top's been getting a lot of press.

They actually put the calories on the package.

It's only 280 calories per pint.

-Ooh.

-The idea is that -- -You're not going to eat it all because it doesn't taste very good?

[ Laughter ] Sorry.

-I think the idea is it's only 280 calories, so you can eat the whole thing.

But it was the only brand we didn't recommend of everything we tasted because we felt like it was really icy.

-Mm-hmm.

-And it's not so much that it's low fat, it's low sugar.

-Oh.

-So it has stevia to make up for that.

But the sugar content is so low that it's very icy.

Now, if you want a low-fat ice cream and I don't know, do we want a low fat ice cream?

-Hmm.

-We did find one brand.

It's Edy's Slow Churned -- it's called Dreyer's on the West Coast -- that we actually thought was as good as the full fat brand.

-Wow.

-So rather than the Halo Top, which has been getting all the press, if you really want low fat, go for Edy's Slow Churned.

But honestly, I don't really want low-fat ice cream.

-I'm with you.

Thanks, Jack.

-You're welcome, Julia.

-So there you have it.

If you want to agree with me, Jack, and the studio audience, you want to buy Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream.

But the winner of the tasting is Turkey Hill original vanilla premium ice cream, which is $2.99 for 1 1/2 quarts.

[ Cheers and applause ] Amish cinnamon bread, also known as Friendship Bread, is a type of chain letter.

You see, someone gifts you a portion of bread starter, teaches you how to care for it, how to make bread with it, and then how to pass a portion of it onto yet another friend.

And today, Bridget's going to show us how to make it.

-So we're going to make it very easy.

This is basically a quick bread, but it's got that cinnamon flavor that we're looking for.

-Mm.

-Okay?

So we're making two loaves of bread here.

We've got 3 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour and 3 cups of sugar.

-Wow.

-This is a sweet bread.

Sugar adds moisture.

This is a very, very moist bread.

And we've got a tablespoon of ground cinnamon.

And then we have a couple of leaveners here.

This is 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda and 3/4 teaspoon of salt, just right in there.

Alright.

So enough of that.

Let's move on down to our wet ingredients.

Now, something that we found in a lot of the more modern day versions is boxed vanilla pudding mix.

We were really curious, what is it doing in there?

What we found is, yes, it added sweetness, actually too much after the amount of sugar that's in there.

So we nixed it.

But it did have a little bit of a custardy thing that it was giving.

So we're going to make our own custard here.

We've got three large eggs and I'm going to beat them just a little bit.

So we have 1 3/4 cups of whole milk and 1 1/3 cups of vegetable oil.

And we have a little bit of vanilla, just 2 teaspoons.

Alright.

So we're just whisking this a little bit here.

That looks good.

So now the wet ingredients are going to go into the dry ingredients.

-Well, this bread looks really easy to make.

-It's super easy.

-I love it when you don't have to pull out a stand mixer.

-Oh, yeah.

The hardest part is not stirring it too fast at the beginning.

Basically, we just want this to come together until it's just mixed.

But there's going to be a few streaks or lumps in there.

That's okay.

Just making sure it's mixed on the bottom there.

Like I said, some lumps are good.

It's all going to even out.

Alright.

Let's just set that aside for just a second while we prepare our pans.

Again, we're making two loaves.

These are 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pans.

If you use something that's slightly bigger or glass pans, the instructions are a little bit different.

But we do have those instructions on our website.

We do need to get these pans so that they're nonstick.

But we also want to add a little bit more flavor.

So I've got 2 teaspoons of oil.

We're going to add about a teaspoon to each pan here and just brush it all over the sides and bottom.

I did try this with vegetable oil spray.

No, you have to use the oil.

-[ Laughs ] -Just stuck forever to the pan.

That's it.

So not only are we going to coat this with oil, but a little bit of cinnamon sugar.

-Mmm.

-As it bakes, it's going to get a nice crunchy outside.

-Sounds delicious.

-So this is a 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, and I've got 1 teaspoon more of that really good cinnamon.

Now we're going to add 2 tablespoons to each pan, and I'm going to give you that one, if you wouldn't mind kicking that sugar around.

-Sides too?

-Sides too, please.

-Alright.

-We'll set the rest of the sugar aside just for a second.

-How's that?

-Fabulous.

Alright.

And now we'll go ahead and divvy this up.

I think that looks pretty good.

Does that look even?

-Yeah, pretty even.

-So now we're going to top it.

-Ohh.

-Because we want more of that cinnamon-sugar crust.

So the rest of this -- this is another 2 tablespoons about -- on each loaf.

Now, this is it for the bread.

-Wow.

-Yeah.

So it goes together really quickly.

Alright.

So all we have to do now is bake it.

-Alright.

-So 325 for a little over an hour.

It's about an hour 5 to hour 10 minutes.

Mm-hmm.

-Oh, Bridget, that smells delicious.

-I think they're done.

-Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, yeah, I think they're done, but really the best way to tell is to take a paring knife and just put it right into the center and it should come out just maybe a crumb or two, but mostly clean.

We can't eat it, though.

It's got to cool in the pans on this wire rack for at least an hour.

It's a lot of sugar in there, a lot of oil.

Everything has to cool down, compact a little bit.

Hopefully it'll start coming away from the edges just a bit too, so when we turn them out, we'll get a beautiful crust.

-Okay.

-Long hour, huh?

-Mm-hmm.

-You're still here.

-Hi.

-[ Laughs ] Let's get some bread in you.

These waited for an hour, and now we have to release them out of the pans.

Otherwise, it's really crunchy.

So I'm going to take a paring knife and just run it around the sides of the bread to release it.

I'm going as close to the pan as I possibly can.

Alright.

And I'm just going to tilt the pan.

-Ooh.

-There we go.

I want to put this right back up, just like that.

Let me do the second one here.

How's that?

-Those are so pretty.

-Ah, pretty.

-Yeah.

-You ready?

I'm going to use a serrated knife so I can make sure that I get through that beautiful crust and not disturb too much of it.

There we go.

Isn't that beautiful?

-Wow.

The interior crumb is so even.

-You're going to see it's almost like French toast in loaf form.

-Ooh.

Hmm.

-Alright, center piece, or you want an end?

-I think a center piece.

-I think you're right.

Since it's bread, I'm going to use my hands.

-Yeah, I was tempted.

If it was cake, you'd use a fork.

Bread, you use your hands.

-Yeah.

-Oh, alright.

Mmm.

It's very clean.

It has a very simple cinnamon sweet flavor.

-Mm-hmm.

-Oh, this and a cup of coffee would be amazing.

Now, these little cookie toppings, they're almost like little toast crunches.

-Mm-hmm.

-Mmm!

-So moist.

It almost has the texture of banana bread.

-Mm-hmm.

It's moist.

It's tender.

It's right on that line between cake and bread, which I like.

-Right.

And it was so easy to put together.

-Mm.

-I mean, you saw it from beginning to end, went right into the oven.

Easy to make, easier to eat.

-Mm.

Bridget, this is delicious.

Thank you.

-You bet.

-So if you want to make a true loaf of friendship bread, make an easy batter and divide it between two pans coated with cinnamon-sugar.

Bake the bread for about an hour, let it cool in the pan, then sit back and enjoy with a friend.

From "Cook's Country," a kind and gracious recipe for Amish cinnamon bread.

So what you doing with that second loaf over there, Bridget?