Had to say that I tryed this recipe today and it is very good! I used one cup of brown sugar and one cup of white sugar for the batter and used brown sugar in the topping. I was trying to use up some of the brown sugar I had. Also, instead of the heavy cream, I just used the skim milk I had on hand.....and it was still very good!!! A scoop of ice cream or a dollop of cool whip would be great with this too, but it really doesn't need anything extra.

I'd suggest you look for a recipe that meets your needs rather than altering the recipe you have already used. There are all kinds of sweet pastry recipes (aka Pate Sucree) using both white and brown sugar, which have a texture more like crisp cookies. And there are recipes that incorporate yogurt, Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese (which is yogurt that has been drained of the whey for a certain amount of time to make it thicker), but are not necessarily considered sweet pastry. Many sweet pasty recipes also have an egg in them for additional structure from the egg protein. Brown sugar pastry is also much darker than using white sugar. Sugar wrecks gluten formation, and the addition of a lot of sugar can make the pastry somewhat "sandy" or "gritty". Adding a lot of sugar can make pastry nearly impossible to roll out. Pastry chefs consider sugar pastry or sweet crust (Pate Sucree) best used for tarts that do NOT contain a juicy filling because they absorb liquid into the crust quickly. Your filling may be too juicy. Maybe you would like this recipe made with wonton wrappers instead of pastry? Just a thought.... Check Martha Stewart recipes for starters, then go to the Food Network, and perhaps search for pastry for tarts. It's easier to find the wheel than to reinvent it, especially when it comes to pastry. Be sure to let us know how things turned out, and good luck on your quest. -Grainlady

My grandmother use to make Apple Butter and Annie was kind enough to share her recipe for Apple butter last year. I had planned to use some of the apples off our two apple trees but never got around too it. Maybe this year. But like you Cindy, I've never had apple butter in a cake. But I have had apple butter cakes. Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table Apple Butter ============ Apple Butter recipe Posted by annie1992 (My Page) on Mon, Jul 3, 06 at 1:22 This recipe is Grandma's and I won a blue ribbon the year I was 12 at the county fair using this recipe. Dad was prouder of that ribbon than he was when I finished college, I think. LOL I did change this recipe in one way. I bake it in the oven instead of standing at the stove stirring a boiling pot of apple butter. I can go do other things and I don't get all those little burns on my arm from the volcanos of boiling apple butter. I bake it in a big non-reactive roaster at about 250F. This takes 8-10 hours but the house will smell sooooo good. Stir it about once an hour. I've baked it hotter, but you have to be very careful that it doesn't overcook and taste caramelized. If you want it more quickly, turn it up to 350 for the first couple of hours, until the pulp starts to thicken, then turn it down to finish but watch it carefully. You can also do this in a crockpot, but again, watch carefully. Today's crockpots will overcook it quickly and you'll get that caramelized flavor. Grandma Powell's Apple Butter 6 lbs apples quartered (about 12 apples, I use MacIntosh) 2 quarts sweet apple cider 2 cups sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp cloves Simmer apples in cider until tender, then put through a food mill or sieve. Measure 3 quarts of apple pulp and cook until mixture mounds on a spoon. Add sugar and spices (taste it, you can add more or less to make it the way you like it), cook stirring frequently until mixture is thick, about 1 hour. Watch carefully as the apple butter thickens so it doesn't stick and scorch. Pour hot into hot jars, add rings and lids. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes for pints and quarts. Makes about 6 pints (depending on how juicy your apples are) This is a recipe that you HAVE to taste to get it right. The apples could be very sweet or extremely sour. If they are juicy, they'll cook down and make less but it will taste just as good. I regularly add more cloves because I love that flavor, and sometimes I add ginger. Occasionally I use half brown sugar. Oh, and I always reuse the cider, I either cook more apples in it and make a double batch of apple butter, or I strain it and make apple jelly. Incidentally, if you think you can use that much, you don't have to can it, it'll keep in the refrigerator for a week or two. It doesn't freeze well, though, it kind of "separates". Annie

FWIW A) worm castings provide very little in terms of nutrition, and used in any volume (in containers) they add to excess water retention. B) The problem could very well be a nutritional issue, especially if most of the leaf damage is affecting older leaves. Reason: Some nutrients are mobile in the plant (N,P,K,Mg), the rest are considered immobile or nearly so. The mobile nutrients can be moved from one location in the plant to another in order to fuel growth of new organs (leaves/ stems/ roots), while the immobile nutrients are locked into existing tissues. It is almost always the case that container media cannot break down fast enough to provide for all of a plant's nutritional needs, which creates deficiencies, even in new/ fresh plantings. When these deficiencies arise, the plant robs mobile nutrients from existing organs, mostly older leaves, which results in the plant recognizing the now compromised 'donor' leaves as a liability, which causes the plant (a shedding organism) to rid itself of the liability by shedding the leaves. C) PTs are very tolerant of droughty conditions. That is not to say they like/ prefer to be allowed to dry down completely, but drying down completely would be the lesser of two evils when the 'other' evil would be watering at intervals too short.. Ideally, you would be flushing the soil thoroughly when you water, and waiting until the soil is nearly but not completely dry to water again. IF you have been watering in sips because you think the soil is too water-retentive and are trying to avoid risking the specter of root rot, your grow medium is likely inappropriately water-retentive, not to mention the fact that watering in sips ensures dissolved solids (salts) in your tapwater and/or fertilizer solution remains/ builds up in the soil to the point where water uptake becomes difficult for the plant. A high level of salts in the soil can actually reverse the process of osmosis and pull water OUT of cells by exactly the same mechanism that curing salts pulls water from meats like ham/ bacon/ sausage. Moisture levels near the top of the soil column are relatively inconsequential. What is important is the level of moister at the bottom of the pot. I'll leave you with something I wrote about using a "tell". The "tell" will provide you with the information you need to determine appropriate watering intervals. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al