Earlier this month, I flew to Raleigh to visit Daniel. It was my first time being in Raleigh and it was such a fun time! And I’m relieved that it was because it’s where I’m trying to move in a year or so. At first, I planned on keeping my job search strictly to bakeries in the Triangle area, but after visiting the city and seeing how much it has to offer, I decided to expand my options. Raleigh and the surrounding areas are home to great microbreweries, my favorite being Fullsteam, a new establishment whose mission is to develop a “Southern craft beer identity”.
Raleigh is home to another great place called The Cupcake Shoppe, the first and only cupcakery in the city. I went in for a cupcake and to drop off a resume. The shop is really cool. It reminds me of the personality and character of where I work in Tallahassee, a small business with local flair. While there, I picked out two cupcakes, Red Velvet and Fluffernutter. In all my travels and cupcake tastings, those frostings were the best I’ve ever tried. I’ve got to stay loyal to my shop’s Red Velvet cake though, it’s just that good!
After all of that, the place that inspired me most was The Flying Biscuit, a brunch place with several locations in the area. Usually, I don’t expect much from franchise establishments and would almost always rather eat at a quaint hole-in-the-wall place, but I’ve learned that judging something too early can be your loss. And fortunately for us, we didn’t miss out on a thing. We had a feast of warm biscuits smeared with cranberry apple butter, eggs benedict, roasted potatoes, granola, yogurt, and huge pieces of fruit. The biscuits were the best part and I was inspired to try some at home. I’ll be the first to say that my version turned out nothing like the ones I had, but the apple butter was the real star around my house. I’ll definitely be making more of that, as well as different variations, like pumpkin butter.
Here is the house recipe for The Flying Biscuits. Mine turned out nowhere near as soft and fluffy as theirs, but my experiments are not quite through.
But here is my fail-proof recipe for apple butter. It’s very time intensive, but not a big deal because once the ingredients are in the crock pot, you can go about your day.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 6 1/2 hours
Ingredients:
6-7 red delicious apples
1 cup cranapple juice, cider, or water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
Directions:
Peel the apples, then core and chop them. Combine the apples and juice, cider, or water in a crockpot. Cover and cook on high for 5 hours.
Afterwards, puree the apples in a food processor (or sieve). Return pureed apples to the crockpot and add the sugar and spices. Cover and cook again on high for 1-2 hours. If your mixture is liquidy after this process, try letting it sit in the fridge for a while to set up.
And put it on everything. It’s that good!
