Drunken Apples.

Red Wine Apple Cobbler., originally uploaded by razzieswirl.

This is my first participation in a Sugar High Friday event, and to be completely honest, I'm a little nervous, ok seriously nervous. Even before I entertained the idea of my own food blog, I spent hours on end exploring the extremely vast world that is the food blog-o-sphere. Hours turned into days, and months. I was so obsessed with food blogs my boyfriend actually became jealous of my poor little ibook. Sugar High Fridays is one of those events you come across on some of the most amazing food blogs out there. . . It's a popular one people! I feel like I'm playing in the big leagues. Can my blog handle it? Is it good enough? Is it worthy? I surely hope so!! 

When I read what this month's theme was: Drunken Apples, I knew exactly what I wanted to do right away. We were asked to prepare a dessert featuring apples and some form of alcohol as the main ingredients. I hope my dessert isn't too cliche, but when the wind is blustering outside my window, and the yellow, orange, and red leaves and blowing by I can't help but crave a good old fashioned apple cobbler. Apple cobbler is something I mastered as a very young adult, it was easy to throw together, the ingredients are readily available and generally always in the pantry. I've perfected it over the years. One of my dearest friends mothers once showed me that cooking apples over the stovetop with butter, sugar and cinnamon before filling an apple pie makes the best apple filling possible. 

I knew I wanted to adapt my cobbler recipe to include booze, I knew something stronger than a good glass of red wine would probably be a bit much for the ooey gooey filling, so I went to my local grocery store and picked up my favorite fall red, Gnarly Head. It's has sweet undertones of cinnamon and clove, puuurrfect base for my entry. 

I present to you Red Wine Caramelized Apple Cobbler with a Crunchy Brown Sugar Oatmeal Crust topped with Goldschlager Honey Whip Cream and a sweet Red Wine Reduction. . . whew, what a mouthful, seriously!

This was beyond amazing, it exceeded my expectations, in fact, I might even say I enjoyed it more than any apple pie or cobbler I've ever made. It was rich, but had a bit of a kick, the wine reduced beautifully. The flavors were complex, rich, and very deep. It was like a wine party in my mouth, a nice sweet, warm, comforting wine party. The whip cream offered a nice light, barely sweet, creamy contrast to the crunchy warmth of the sugary red wine oatmeal cobbler. Mmm mmm good!

I don't have a recipe for my original cobbler recipe, I've been doing it so long it just kind of comes naturally. But I did try to measure this to the best of my ability. But my suggestion, as is a given in cooking, if something tastes like it needs an adjustment (generally cinnamon), adjust to your personal taste. 

Recipe: Red Wine Caramelized Apple Cobbler with a Crunchy Brown Sugar Oatmeal Crust topped with Goldschlager Honey Whip Cream and a Red Wine Sugar Reduction

Serves 3

Recipe: Red Wine Apple Filling

Ingredients:

4 large honey crisp apple, peeled and thinly sliced

2 TBL unsalted butter

1/2 cup red wine (I used Gnarly Head Zin)

1/2 cup white sugar

2 TBL ground cinnamon

a few dashes of ground clove

2 TBL flour (for thickening)

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a large saute pan.

2. Add all remaining ingredients, except flour. 

3. Cook ingredients over medium heat for about 10 minutes. 

4. If necessary add little bits of flour to really thicken the sauce up.

5. Place apples in prepared ramekins. 

6. Place some of the red wine reduction filling aside (I had a bit extra)

Recipe: Oatmeal Topping

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter softened

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3/4 cup flour (maybe a tad more)

1/4 cup oatmeal (maybe a tad more of this too)

Directions:

1. Combine butter and sugar well.

2. Add flour and oatmeal. 

3. You're looking for a nice crumbly consistency that still holds it shape a bit. 

4. Top apple filled ramekins generously with crumble topping

Bake ramekins in 375 degree oven for 1/2 hour until oatmeal topping is golden and crunchy and the red wine is bubbling up over the edges. 

Recipe: Goldschlager Honey Whip Cream

Ingredients:

6 oz. heavy whip cream

1 TBL honey

1/4 tsp. goldschlager

Directions: 

1. Mix all ingredients in a mixer and whip on high speed until fluffy. 

Assembly:

Top warm, gooey red wine apple cobbler with a generous dollop of whip cream. Curl up in somewhere extra comfy, and enjoy! 

And a special thank you to Spittoon Extra for hosting this wonderful event (check out Spittoon Extra: www.spittoonextra.biz/ (sorry I am still trying to learn how to post a link you can click on, and not one you have to copy and paste, any suggestions, feel free to let me know how to do this). Alcohol and apples were a great paring, and perfect for the season too!