Cracked Cauldron Spillings

Our little blog was mentioned in Inc. Magazine.

While technically everything in the paragraph about us was true; after all, we do own the Cracked Cauldron, and it is a bakery, but in reality, we haven't opened doors for business - yet. We're still working on that part.

We have a location that we can't afford to inhabit yet, and we have a huge and growing number of customers who want us to open very badly (hehe - we're their only source for Bacon Bread, Chocolate Chai Roses, Caramel Orange Cinnamon Rolls, Chicken Aloute, the Peter Max Bread*, Lemon Apple Pie, and the highly addictive Hot Drops and Tavern Cookies), but we lack the funds to pay for hte location and to get the basic minimal equipment we need to do this as a full time business.

Manager is doing personal cheffing jobs and hiring herself out to do accountacy work at large corporations so she can keep her skills honed for the management of the bakery.

Me? I get to invent new recipes, like that Lemon Apple Pie.

Let me tell you about this pie. I like apple pie as well as any German or American. I make a really good pie crust and can wield a rolling pin with the best of them. But this apple pie is the best I've ever made. I bought some sweet Pacific Rose apples and some tart Granny Smiths, peeled them, cored them, sliced them thin, and simmered them in lemon juice squeezed from a whole large lemon (not a Meyers Lemon, we don't get those in Oklahoma), along with honey, cardamom, cinnamon, cassia bark, cloves, and white pepper. While they simmered, I mixed up a dough where I substituted chilled fresh squeezed lemon juice for the ice water I normally use for pie crust, and added cardamom, vanilla sugar, and a dash of cinnamon to the crust. Rolled out and waiting, I scooped in the apple slices. The juices in the pan I simmered to thicken into a nice sauce with just a pinch of cornstarch, and poured that over the apples in the waiting crust, adding just a light dusting of brown sugar with cinnamon and finely ground aniseed and a sprinkle of lavender water. I added the top crust, with little phlox flower cutouts, brushed the upper crust with lemon and lavender water, sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar, and baked it up into the best apple pie I ever ate. And I've eaten a lot of apple pies in my 60 years.

This pie is definitely going on the menu.

I'd share pictures, but, well. We ate it all.

Next time I bake this pie, I promise I'll take pictures. If you can't eat it, you should at least be able to see what it looks like.

* the name "Peter Max Bread" is still pending.