Maple and Apple Crepe Cake

Oh, that's right internet, it's a crepe cake. Delicious maple crepes stacked between layers of cinnamon sugar apples and a pumpkin spiced cream cheese icing. May your box brownies walk away in shame in the presence of this king of desserts. It's seasonal, impressive looking once you've cut into it, and delicious. A word of warning before you Pinterest-loving-sugar addicts decide to make this, just remember it's so labour intensive you might need to get a building permit, so only make it if you're at like a Walter White level of cooking or greater.  

I don't have much to rant about this week. I always talk about myself on here, but I never ask, how are you? Oh, really? No, way. I can't believe that! Well just tell her next time she goes there to bring a moist towelette. Just remember no one is judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. Okay, back to me and this fantastic recipe that will result in a pile of sugar.

Maple Crepes 

Makes about 16 crepes

• 2 large Eggs
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1 cup Flour sifted
• 3 tablespoons melted Butter
• 2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt

1. Put all ingredients into a bowl. Mix until there's no more clumps. 
2. I recommend using a crepe pan if you have one, or using a shallow skillet. 
3. Cook each side for about 40 seconds over medium heat.
4. Make as many crepes as possible with the matter.

Cinnamon Sugar Apples

• 4 Gala Apples sliced thinly (about 1 cm thick, a mandolin works nicely)
• 4 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Ginger
• 1 teaspoon Pumpkin Spice

1. Mix all the spices and sugar together in a bowl using a whisk. 
2. In a large skillet with a lid make a layer of apples, then spices, then apples, then spices, until you run out of ingredients.
3. Cover and heat over medium until the apples become soft. Occasionally agitate the apples and move them around to avoid burning.
4. Remove from heat to let them cool down. 

Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese Icing

• 8 oz. Cream Cheese whipped
• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Spice
• 1 teaspoon Lime Zest
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Mix everything together in a bowl until it has an icing like consistency. 
2. Pretty easy huh?

Maple and Apple Crepe Cake

• Everything you just made from the previous recipes.

1. This is where things get labor intensive. Get a plate or whatever you plate cakes on. Maybe a frisbee? Start the cake by laying a crepe down, coating it with icing, then a layer of apples, and then top it off with another crepe. Continue layering until you run out of crepes. 
2. Be sure to space out the apples to ensure your cake looks, well cake-like. 

So that's it. The crepe cake. If you're up to the challenge make one yourself and tell me about it in the comment section! Enjoy! 

These crepey pictures by Katy Weaver

Pork Apple Barrel Spending Burger

Pork burger with beet and goat cheese salad

Before I start this post I just want to let you guys know about our new sponsor, The Employment Branch, which is a temp agency for recently out-of-work non-essential government employees. That's right, The Employment Branch, "Yes, you actually HAVE to work to get paid."

Pork burger with beet and goat cheese salad

I've been wanting to make this burger and put it up on the blog for a long time and we all know once you've built something up in your mind for such a long time, it always lives up to your expectations. Before I continue to ramble on about how perfect this burger is for an autumn weekend dinner, I want to explain the name of the burger. No I'm not going to explain the joke to you and why it works, but I do want to say that I took a page out of Bob's Burgers book and

made a burger of the day

. If you don't watch

Bob's Burgers

then you probably should. Why? Because you're reading this blog and you obviously have some brain functionality and like to laugh.

fall produce

I'm not going to keep talking about a burger. It's a pork burger with apple chutney, goat cheese, and onion rings served with a beet and goat cheese "salad". That's all you need to know, enjoy.

fall produce

Hello, W orld!

pork burger

Pork Burgers

yields 5 burgers

• 1 lbs. Ground Pork
• 1/4 cup Oats
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Sage dried

1. Mix everything together in a large mixing bowl with your hands.
2. Make patties, should yield about 5. 
3. In a large skilled or if you have a grill, coat with a touch of oil. Turn the heat up to 11! Actually no, don't do that, just turn it up to like medium high. Cook each side for about 2 minutes or until it's golden brown.
4. Top your burger with the apple chutney, onion rings, and some goat cheese.

I like adding oats to my burgers, because it makes the meat go a bit further. And we all love meat that keeps on coming.

Apple Chutney

• 4 Apples quartered and seeded
• 2 Fiji
• 2 Gala
• 1/2 Red Onion sliced
• 2 teaspoons Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 tablespoons packed Dark Brown Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Molasses
• 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon Curry Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat while you turn the onion and apples into pebble sized pieces with a food processor.
2. Stir the apples and onion into the hot oil. Stir all the other ingredients and let simmer for about 1 hour 30 minutes, be sure to stir occasionally. 

baked onion rings

Baked Onion Rings

• 1/2 Red Onion thickly sliced
• 2 Eggs
• 1/3 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 cup Bread Crumbs
• Oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375°. 
2. Get small-ish mixing bowls. Put the flour in one, eggs and milk (whisked together) in another and the bread crumbs, salt and pepper in the last one. Lightly coat a baking pan with some oil. 
3. Coat the sliced onion rings in flour. Then dip in the egg and milk mixture and finally the breadcrumbs. Place in the baking pan and cook for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Flip halfway through cooking.

beets

Baked Beet and Goat Cheese "Salad"

• 3 Beets
• 3 Golden Beets
• 2 tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
• 5 oz. Goat Cheese
• Micro Greens

1. Prepare the beets for baking (cutting off the tail and the green stuff). Preheat the oven to 350. Place the beets in a baking pan and cover with tin foil.
2. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Take out of oven and let cool. The beets can be prepared the evening before. 
3. Remove the skin from the beets. Slice vertically to make beet discs, which also happens to be what I call records. 
4. Stack the beets and goat cheese together and top with micro greens.

Pork burger with beet and goat cheese salad

Just because it's fall that doesn't mean you need to drench everything in pumpkin spice. Now go out there and make something delicious and avoid Starbuck's pumpkin spice latte, it causes gourding.

All photos taken by

Katy Weaver

pork burger and beet salad

Fig Dessert Pizza and Maple Coffee

fig dessert pizza

Here at Cooking with B.S. Corp. we like to pride ourselves on knowing what recipes our followers want. You've spoken up and we've listened to your pleas for more fig recipes. I would also like to point out this is the No. 1 fig based blog outside of the Middle East and would like to use this title to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but first coffee.

maple whipped cream coffee

Autumn came ushering in this year like a car swerving off the highway due to the first autumn rains. Instead of going outside and enjoying the crisp fall air, why not stay in drinking a hot cup of coffee with some maple whipped cream to top it off? And while you're enjoying your ideal fall drink, read through some of your favorite Cooking with B.S. posts and click on an ad or three. 

maple coffee

I fully endorse coffee with dessert and from what I've seen it's only my grandparents and their friends that partake in this post-dinner ritual. I wish more people my age would join in, but wishful thinking never solved anything except turning Pinocchio into a real boy.

figs

Kona coffee

maple whipped cream

Maple Whipped Cream Coffee

• 1/2 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Add everything to a mixing bowl and whisk until it's all whippy. 
2. Add the delicious whipped cream to a cup of coffee.
3. Petition Starbucks to buy this recipe from me to replace the Pumpkin Spiced Latte as "The Fall Coffee Drink".

pizza dough

Fig and Goat Cheese Dessert Pizza

• 2 Figs quartered
• 3 oz. Goat Cheese crumbled
• 1 tablespoon Honey
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
• Pizza dough

1. Once again I used America's Test Kitchen's pizza dough recipe for this one. You can buy their new book, Cooking School Cookbook here!
2. Preheat the oven to 475°
3. Drizzle the honey over the stretched out pizza dough. Crumble on the goat cheese. Add the figs and sprinkle the cinnamon over the pizza.
4. Bake on a pizza baking stone for about 10 minutes or until the edges are crispy.
5. NOTE: the figs will make this pizza a little juicy so let the sugars cool and solidify before cutting into the dessert pizza.

dessert pizza

Things can change at a moment's notice; the weather, the season, the ripeness of figs, but instead of worrying about what's coming next, take time out of your busy schedule to enjoy something sweet and the post-dinner buzz of the world's favorite bean.  Enjoy!

All photos by THE

Katy Weaver

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This whipped cream looks like a grumpy old man.

maple whipped cream coffee

Fig, Goat Cheese, and Pancetta Flatbread Pizza

That's right another fig post. Bombarding your food blog followers with fig posts is one of the benefits of having a fig tree in your backyard. Another benefit of having a kadota fig tree is using them on homemade-artisan-flatbread pizza. 

Figs, goat cheese, and pancetta. You could probably put these three ingredients in any dish and make the dish taste like a party that everyone's invited to, except for Jared. He knows why he's not invited. But adding figs, goat cheese, and pancetta to a pizza just makes the pizza taste like sex on a jetski.

Apple Cider-Fig Vinaigrette

• 2 large Figs chopped 
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1. Heat the oil up in a pan over medium heat saute the figs for a few minutes, 3-5 should do it. 
2. Stir in the apple cider. Mash up the figs with your wooden spoon or whatever overpriced utensil you bought from West Elm.
3. Pour into a small mixing bowl and let the dressing cool in the fridge.
4. Once cooled, toss with the arugula and serve with tomatoes and radishes.

Pizza Dough 

I used America's Test Kitchen's recipe for my pizza dough. I recommend getting this recipe from their new cookbook The America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook which comes out on October 15th. Here's an Amazon link to it!

Fig, Goat Cheese, and Pancetta Flatbread Artisan Pizza (Fig Sauce)

• 4 Figs chopped 
• 1/2 small Red Onion minced 
• 1 clove Garlic minced
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 pinch Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper freshly ground
• 1 tablespoon Honey

1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic. Let the garlic and onion caramelize just a bit. OH GOD! You forgot about them didn't you? Would you look at that now they're burnt. Get out another onion and start over, or just let someone else cook.
2.  Once the onions and garlic are caramelized add everything else, stir, and let the sauce simmer for a good 10 minutes.
3. Let cool and add to your pizza crust.
4. Put sliced figs, goat cheese, red onions, and pancetta on your pizza and bake for about 10-15 minutes at 475°

Go ahead and have some fun with some end-of-the-season figs. Put them in everything! So much so that you get sick of them just in time to start binging on pumpkin spice flavored autumn products. As you might have assumed these figtastic (did I use this joke last week?) photos were taken by the super talented Katy Weaver.

Figgy Lamb

Yeah, that's right, I'm stepping up my culinary game and this is a damn sexy dish. Sure, I could hold myself back and make some quinoa and kale dish that could get a million pins on Pinterest, or I could make a bucket of bacon and get a million views on reddit, but why would I restrain myself when there's dishes like this to be made. This is a cooking blog and dammit I'm going to cook dishes that blow other blogs out of the water. Oh, and of course, this blog is for making jokes about nature's scrotums (figs).

Well I guess I should describe what makes up this piece of art. If you don't think food is art then you're probably Guy Fieri. These are lamb chops cooked in a fig and orange sauce on a bed of micro greens with a fig vinaigrette and on the side, baked carrots and purple potatoes with a cheese sauce. While you're reading this post just try to forget that time you ate a chicken nugget off the floor and just pretend you're a foodie.

Here's a fun fact about figs: if you want start a fruit fly farm just leave a plate of figs out overnight and soon you'll have enough fruit flies in your kitchen to be a fully functional and licensed fruit fly rancher. Your farm subsidies should get to you in 6-8 weeks. Also, you can sell the fruit fly milk at your local farmer's market.

Fig & Orange Lamb Chops

• 1/5 lbs Lamb Chops
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1/4 cup Port
• 2 Fresh Figs quartered
• 1 Orange
• cut 3 1in. zests
• juiced

1. In a small sauce pan add the port, orange zest, juice and figs. Cook on high, covered for 10 minutes. 
2. Place the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, cook the butter until it starts to brown slightly. Add the lamb chops. Cook each side for roughly 30 seconds. Remove the chops from the pan and place them in a oven-proof pan along with the port and fig mixture.
3. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes.

Fig Vinaigrette

• 1 fresh Fig diced
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil

1. In a bowl mix all the ingredients together. To fully emulsify the dressing and pulverize the fig I recommend using a hand blender if you have one, or you can just throw it in a blender or food processor.

Baked Carrots and Purple Fingerlings

• 3 Carrots 
• 4 Purple Fingerling Potatoes
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Toss the cut up vegetables in a mixing bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Feel free to add a dash of cumin. Place in a oven proof cooking vessel and cook at 375° for 20 minutes. Half way through the cooking time flip the vegetables to avoid sticking.

Cheese Sauce

• 1/2 cup Cream
• 1/4 grated Manchego Cheese
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• A whisper of Whiskey

1. In a small skillet melt the butter over medium heat. Add the cream and cheese. Stir until melted. Once the cheese is melted stir in the whiskey. 
2. Add to anything you want to make taste better, including that beverage you're drinking right now. 

It's time for the moral of the post: don't hold yourself back. It does more harm than good. Also don't stress about the small things, if you have a loose structure to your project (or life), things will fall into place. This loose structure thing also applies to engineers - don't worry about the details, your plan for that highway overpass is good enough. 

Figgy photos by Katy Weaver