Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking Chez Moi): Custardy Apple Squares

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe – Custardy Apple Squares – is one I’ve already made a few times before. It’s one of the first recipes I marked as “to make” when I received Baking Chez Moi.  Last fall, I chose to make this with my Petits Chefs cooking club because it was a lovely way to take advantage of beautiful fall apples and when you make mini versions of the “squares” (actually, in muffin tins), you can get them baked in under an hour!

This year, as in every Term 1, I’m running two cooking clubs per week, my Petits Chefs (Grades 5-8) and Cooking Basics (for the younger students in Grades 3 and 4). For the most part, with the younger boys, I choose a book or a resource and work my way through it over the course of the term. This term we’re working with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook – the original and, in my opinion, one of the best resources out there for those looking for a “basic” cookbook. We’ve made some amazingly successful recipes (mac and cheese, chili, chicken stir fry…) but I knew the boys were all wondering when we would be making a dessert. Kids often have the perception that “cooking = cupcakes” and are often surprised to see how few desserts we actually make in the club. My focus is teaching them skills that will help them be a little bit self-sufficient in the kitchen later in in life, so quite frankly, there are only a very few desserts in the mix each term.

I am always happy to cook with seasonal produce though and who can deny the appeal of autumn apples? So when the custardy apple square recipe came up for Tuesdays with Dorie, I thought it was an excellent way to introduce baking to the boys. We learned all sorts of useful kitchen skills…

Like how to peel and chop apples…

How to measure dry ingredients by volume…

How to make a custardy cake batter…

How to whisk…

How to gently mix the apple cubes into the custard/ batter…

And how to NOT make a mess pouring batter into well-greased muffin tins…

While we waited for the muffins to bake, we cleaned up and then sat down to read through the recipe. THEN we walked through the recipe and the boys basically told me in their own words how they made this dessert. I’ve absolutely no doubt that they would be able to make this at home for their parents, it’s so easy – as Dorie says, it’s perfect for novice bakers.

I baked the muffins at 400˚F for approximately 15 minutes (this is in a toaster oven that has a fan so it’s actually pretty accurate in terms of temperature).  And look:

They were PERFECT! The boys were SO excited to try these (though I made them promise to save them until they got home) and I heard great reports from families about how delicious they were 🙂

Get the recipe for Custardy Apple Squares here or on p 20 of Baking Chez Moi.

 

 

Tuesdays with Dorie participants don’t publish the recipes on our blogs, so you’re encouraged to purchase Baking Chez Moi for yourself which you can do on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store in your country) or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Then join us, baking our way through the book!

 

 

 

Please note: This post contains product links from Amazon and The Book Depository which are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you) which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!