Wildflour Bakery Anchorage, Alaska- Guest Blog
My wish is you get to Anchorage Alaska and taste Wildflour Bakery pies. Although I am back in the lower 48 today I have some more Alaska posts.
When visiting friends in Homer Alaska, we met some very nice people in their interesting home that our host had helped build.
The first thing they did was offer us pie and coffee. Who could resist?
Three types of apple pie. As we sampled a sliver of each type, we talked about the excellent flavor and crust (one gluten- free) and then I learned about the pie creator, Wildflour Bakery Owner Olivia Allen of Anchorage. Although I took a few photos of the pie (see below) I wanted to know more.
Meet bakery owner Olivia Allen- photograph by Julia Bevins, I asked Julia if she would like to be guest blogger! What a great photo.
Then I called Olivia. She returned my call just as we were entering our departing flight but emailed me more photos and information about Wildflour Bakery. Here is her blog link Look into the World See Olivia’s watercolor illustrations and follow her on Instagram Wildflour Bakery Handcrafted pies and galettes made with foraged wild berries, organic ingredients and lots of love 🌸
Olivia writes-
Wildflour Bakery uses locally sourced and foraged wild berries, herbs, flowers and backyard honey to craft beautiful and sweet treats with creative flair.
Each pie or galette is handcrafted with the intention of highlighting the Alaskan spirit of our wild spaces, near and far.
Beautifully photographed by Julia Bevins.
Gallery of photos below , sent to me by Olivia
Here are my pie photos so you see why I needed Olivia to send me some more.
And here is her artwork. I love the part about “serve generous slices.” Yes!!
We fairly well decimated the pies! You can see why I needed more photos to create this blog post as you look at my three photos I took at the kitchen table.
A few years ago I featured friend and pie judge Rob Bard.on National Pie Day. I know he would have enjoyed the pies.
Apples Wait to be Pressed into Cider- October 2009
This is a reblog- originally posted October 2009.
Sand Hill Berry Farm Cider Press- Bushels of Apples- October Sunday-Mt. Pleasant, PA
Red Currants and Red Raspberries their specialty, not to mention the gooseberries to make jam. Raspberry pies, and free raspberry sundaes. We roasted hot dogs over a fire, and marshmallows to make s’mores.
Autumn color in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania is hard to beat. The barn was filled with the smell of apples.
-
Donna
How beautiful the colors came out!! Always the photographer
A Variety of Reds in my Kitchen, Photographed with a New Mirrorless
Red Still Life in the Kitchen Photographed with Mirrorless Camera
Portable, lightweignt. Able to fit in a small bag instead of a huge one. Not so bulky.
Interchangeable lenses. A postive review all around.
You don’t always want to lug heavy DSLRs and weighty (but wonderful) glass around your neck.
A phone camera isn’t sufficient as an alternative.
AND there was the bonus of a hefty instant rebate at time of purchase.
I’d been looking and thinking about mirrorless cameras for awhile.
Reading reviews, I thought it would be a Fuji but the SONY a5000 had an affordable 20.1 Megapixel price that seemed fortuitous.
I’m satisfied with the results so far. Will keep experimenting.
Looked Like Art to Me
Steve received a gift box of apples from a former colleague. When he opened the box and placed it on the kitchen table, it looked like art to me. Found art?
Idared, Empire, Golden Delcious, and Winesap. An orchard from New York.
(my knitted scarf at the bottom, I’d just come home late from school due to my photographing the Winter Concert.)
When it bakes, you smell autumn
One of the good things about fall.
It’s a simple dessert. The time of year when the apples are perfect, so fresh
A sign of fall. Apple Crisp.
If you want to be inspired with Apples Galore, stop by Rufus’ Food and Spirit Guide blog.
I peeled a lot of apples(10), sliced and chopped and put them into a buttered 9×13 glass dish.
Cut a stick of butter into 2 cups of oats (we skip the flour) some salt and about 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Just hint of cinnamon, not to overpower the apples.
Crumble the buttery oatmeal crumbs over the apples. Bake about 50 minutes.
Marlene adds a cup of cranberries to her apples and that makes it nice and tart with the contrast of sweet.
(and a little salty caramel or vanilla ice cream on the side- or even mint, eh Maura?)
Oh no, I didn’t photograph the fragrant apple crisp as it cooled or when it was dished up on plates with the ice cream.
We just ate it!
One of the Fancy Apples
A welcome gift. Fancy fresh fruit. Perishable, DO NOT FREEZE the boxes state.
Tonight as I cut up a couple of perfectly ripe pieces for the family to share, I remembered another fancy apple I ‘d cut with the apple sectioner at home in Pittsburgh. Steve’s former colleague had shipped them and his former boss sent some succulent red grapefruit.
Our cracker selection a bit pedestrian but paired well with the cheese and fruit.
Each apple wrapped in green tissue, cradled in a partitioned box, accompanied by a handwritten map telling which type of apple was in each space. Refrigerate upon receipt.
Here in Ohio there were juicy pears in gold foil papers, sheets of green foam cushioning their journey from Oregon.
A box of oranges are in the garage keeping cool.
Doesn’t fruit always taste better when someone else cuts it up and places it on a plate?
You might remember a similar photo of a cut pear from a 2012 Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise post –
Half Apples Baked in Balsamic with a Dot of Butter
Made these for a breakfast a couple of weeks ago. 350 for an hour.
A perfect dish for the fall.
(and Bill McC, enjoy your day!)
Little Green Apples
It’s an iPhone photo story and the bowl of peelings didn’t come out. This was last Thursday.
Recipe for a summer afternoon.
Generous neighbors with an apple tree laden with fruit- a couple of boxes waiting to be filled. (We filled one.)
A friend to help pick, peel, core and slice.
The crust was butter, flour and salt, a few tablespoons of ice water- mixed up in the food processor, rolled out.
Four open face pie/tarts and one quart of applesauce that looks almost green to me.
We took one of the pies down to the owners of the apple tree and were they ever surprised. I brought one out to Ohio for the family. Along with the applesauce.
Small apples, tart and sweet, firm flesh and delicious. A sprinkle of lemon, dots of butter and light on the cinnamon. A bit raggedy looking but tasty.
Three Magi
From the archives. Three Magi. Apple boxes. Found the apple packing and storing company listing.
Was reading about the dismantling of the Christmas stuff at my son’s in Ohio and knew it was Twelfth Night and the end of Christmas. This photo came to mind. The three kings, Epiphany. Bearing gifts. Traveling so far.
These are the big wooden boxes used when the apples are picked in the orchard. You can see them stacked up in tall piles as you drive around this part of the country. You get a new appreciation for the effort it takes to grow fruit. These three apple boxes were just placed like this along the path where we’d walk the dogs.
Once a Year Recipe/Ritual
The annual making of the cranberry-orange relish. I don’t make this any other time of year.I’ve heard lots of different renditions of cranberries and everyone has their favorite. My mother used to use a metal meat grinder and screw it onto a table or chair with a woven potholder to keep the wood from being marred. Her recipe was strictly cranberries and navel orange. I add a Granny Smith and today a HoneyCrisp as well. I used to have one of those grinders and ground relish with Mark when he was a boy in the same manner as my mother. My friend J from Omaha gave me her MagiMix French Processor when she got a Cuisinart. That was more than 25 years ago and it still works. It has a European plug so I have to keep a little extra piece to plug it in. So two bags of cranberries, washed and drained, two oranges, two apples(peel on) 1 3/4 C sugar.
That is all there is to it. Refreshing and tart and sweet simultaneously. And thanks to Susan K for the Turkey towels. Very festive.
Happy Thanksgiving. I will put the bowl in a cardboard box so it doesn’t spill and drive to dinner at the other Grandma’s.
Original four comments. Zero likes . My friend Dorothy passed in 2010. A Memorial Poetry Reading is being planned for this November 13, 2015.
Ruth, what a wonderful angle to take your picture to include indoors, outdoors and I can almost smell the apples.
Dorothy