Mama Bouchard Talks: Apples!

Week two of homeschool brought a study of apples! One of the most exciting parts of homeschool, for me, is to spend time finding fun crafts and cooking projects to do with my girls. My girls are hands-on learners and I am working on being a hands-on teacher. This means that I am learning to be ok with them learning hands-on, in the messiest of situations. You mommas know what I mean.

In doing my craft research I found this next project and the girls loved it!

You start with an apple, paint colors of your choice, construction or card stock paper, and corn-on-the-cob holders.

I started with the paint that we made from the recipe you can find here. Unfortunately that paint did not work on this project. But, it is really cool paint! So, I reluctantly, in the name of educating my children pulled out my very good paint. It was worth it!

You see, when you cut the apple horizontally you have a cute little flower in the center. Pop out the seeds, slap on some paint, and stamp it down.

We learned, less paint is better. It allows the center to shine! We also learned that the corn-on-the-cob holders are an awesome idea (thank you) but kids prefer to get their hands dirty (duh). :)

Our second project of the week was to make an apple pie. I had been dreaming of making The Pioneer Woman's apple pie recipe for a solid week. Do you know how long that is in woman dreams of pie days? I could not find it anywhere in my stash of never to be thrown away recipes. I did not take the time to search her site because time was not on my side and then I was struck by lightning...in a good way. I remembered that I had the cutest little apple pie molds that my bestie sent me 2.73 days after I started my diet to lose the baby weight. She was so sorry but she got them before the diet was known to her. So, I stared at them. And stared at them. This was the day I would stare no longer!

I did some research for you before you go hunting them down on at Williams Sonoma. I can't find the exact one on their site. Maybe you are lucky enough to live near civilization and you can go to their store. BUT...they do have a set of mini molds you can find here. Just think...less calories!

There are really great directions on the mold box but we had to improvise slightly. Instead of making the crust I purchased ready made crust. We flattened it out on a floured surface.

We cut out as many as we could before re-rolling the crust to maximize the dough. One crust yields two and a half pockets. In other words, two crusts will yield 5 complete apple pies. Don't you love when someone else figures that out for you?

The directions are very clear about the next part but essentially you put the solid piece of crust in the mold, place your filling inside, coat the edges with egg wash, place the top piece of crust over the filling, and press the mold together.

Brush the top and edges with the egg wash and place it on a pan. We learned that the thinner edged pie molds (as the crust came) tend to get brown faster then the thicker ones (the re-rolled dough).