epicurious

Thanks to The Well-Seasoned Cook, I discovered a nifty blog challenge: briciole's Novel Food. Though I'm too late to do an actual entry, I still love this idea, and decided to use the Teen Book Club choice for this month as my title because it's loaded with food options--the main character is a waitress with her aunt as the cook! You might think it would be hard to pick a recipe, seeing as how much of the action takes place in a diner. Hope's aunt Addie's specialty is apple pie with cinnamon ice cream, though, so I took that angle (plus I got to create more ice cream). 

I also really enjoyed using this book because the story is wonderful with great people. This odd family of aunt and niece move to Wisconsin (with the purpose of taking over a diner for a man with leukemia), which, of course, immediately won my heart. And I really like Joan Bauer's books--her characters are well developed; if you've read any of my reviews, you'll see that's often how I judge a book.

For the most part, I followed the pie recipe as printed, but I did tinker a little thanks to user comments, as well as some hints from the new issue of Cooks Illustrated magazine (like using vodka to make sure you get enough water in your dough to keep it flaky and supple, but not too much so it's rubbery!). I also had help from Chip--he made the actual pie dough, so all I had to do was roll it out.

And deciding on a cinnamon ice cream recipe turned out to be more tedious than I had imagined! There are a lot out there, with each having a tiny bit of a difference to them... so I went with one that used both ground cinnamon and cinnamon sticks.

Oh, and I forgot to put the toasted pecans on my ice cream before I took the picture--I realized it after I already took a bite! They were a yummy addition and provided a little nuttiness that really complemented the pie and completed the ice cream's flavors.

Everyone at Bible study gobbled this pie!

Book recommendation: Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer
Recipe recommendation: Double Crust Apple Pie
New product recommendation: Carmel Corn Jellybellys