Peach Pie

It's summertime which means it's peach season so the other night I whipped up a classic peach pie. The poaching and the peeling of the peaches is what makes this more time consuming than I'd like but the result was great. I'm curious to make another one and eliminate the poaching step to see what kind of difference that makes. Still it was a nice way to spend the evening and I took the pie into work for others to enjoy. The only problem with this is you have to let it cool for 3 hours so when it came out of the oven at 11pm I had to go to sleep without tasting it. For a second I thought about setting my alarm for 2am but decided to just have a slice at 6:30am for breakfast instead. 

Receipt from Deb at Smitten Kitchen:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/07/peach-pie/

summer peaches

peach poaching

water bath to stop from cooking

peach slices

sugary mixture to coat peach slices

ready for baking

ta-dah!

and the aftermath

Berry Pie - Leftovers

I got so many berries for the first pie I found myself with too many berries and too little time to eat them before they spoiled so I made another pie - this time for myself. I changed up the top, did full coverage top instead of lattice and played around the the tapioca amount, using slightly less than before. It's amazing what a difference it made, it was significantly runnier/juicier - but in a good way. What's a girl left all alone to do with a whole berry pie in the summer.....well eat the whole thing, but of course (again sounding like my Dad - too bad his genes of not gaining weight didn't get passed down, my waist line is increasing as I type)!

Before...

After!

Berry Pie

There are so many delicious fruits in season. The farmer's markets are all bursting with colorful berries. I knew I wanted to make a berry pie and couldn't narrow it down to just one berry so went with four wonderful, juicy, delicious berries. Can you guess what they were?

1. Strawberries
2. Blueberries
3. Raspberries
4. Blackberries

It's a super simple process - throw the berries in a bowl and coat with sugar, cinnamon, flour, lemon juice and a touch of tapiaco for thickening (less if you like the juices runny but I sort of like it thicker) and then bake away.

Here's my trick for getting the dough in the pan. After you've rolled it out (and make sure it's thin!) fold it in half, and then in half again.

Then place the center point of the folded dough in the center of your pan and unfold.

I gave this pie to Tricia but not before stealing one piece for myself. Who gives someone a pie that's already been eaten? Doesn't that sound like something my Dad would do!

Also, it's way too hard to bake and photograph at the same time, I have flour all over my camera.

Long Time No Blog...

I'm back! Now I know why some people have full-time jobs as bloggers, it's actually quite a bit of work while also carrying on a full-time job and trying to bake on the side. So I've been away for a couple months - work got busy and well, I got lazy. But I have been doing my fair share of baking the past few months. I "retired" from baking from late February - late April. I decided I was not going to do anything again until I had 2 things; 1 - Food Processor & 2 - Stand Mixer. So then came along April 23 and low and behold I got 2 wonderful birthday presents so I've been able to come out of retirement. Here are couple pictures from the last several months.

BEHOLD! Cuisinart Food Processor (*FP) & Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. 

A must for every baker!

I  know this is a baking blog but the day I got the FP I christened it by making thick, creamy & very garlicky hummus. So easy and so good!

 I started back in baking territory with something fun - cookies & bread. I decided I needed to hold off on pie until I had some other successes in the baked goods arena so played around with Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Zucchini Bread (the last not pictured below but let me tell you it was yummsville!)

Kitchen Aid at work!

No matter what, gotta cool!

The official tester gives it a smile!

After feeling good about my baked goods I ventured back into pie. But only with a baby step. At Joel's suggestion I focused on the crust, just the dough and only the dough. Using the FP was a game changer! It's just pulse, pulse, pulse and voila you've got yourself a ball of delicious, buttery dough. I was pretty sure that one of my past issues was not rolling the dough thin enough so I really took liberties with rolling it out this time and stumbled upon a lifesaving trick; turns out the size of one of my wooden cutting boards is the EXACT size the dough needs to be rolled out. So basically I just cover the surface space of that particlar board and I'm golden. (You ask why I don't use one of those silicon mats that has pie measurements? Well, I did purchase one of those and turns out my counter is too narrow for it! That's just to give you a sense of the space I'm working with. The cutting board works because it's thicker and heavier so it can hang off the counter without falling on the floor while I'm rolling the dough out).

 flour, sugar and salt combined together (1 pulse)

dump in COLD COLD cubes of butter and pulse (about 5 pulses)

mix in enough cold water to get dough sticky enough to form a ball

ball O' dough

perfect disc

must freeze for 20 minutes before rolling it out

light, airy, buttery layers of crust

just ate basic crust for breakfast, seemed very French in a way

Now I feel pretty good about the crust and my method and I'm ready to move into filling the crust with something sweet and tasty. I attempted my first Lemon Meringue Pie. I got to use both the FP for the crust and the Mixer for the meringue. It came out tasty (tart and super lemon-y, just the way I like it) but a bit too runny so I still need to work on how to thicken up the filling.

lemon + a ton of egg yolks = intense yellow color.

whipping up the meringue topping. just set that sucker on high and you can keep cleaning up the kitchen and let it do its thing until it's done...

...and you'll know it's done if it passes the "Stiff Peaks Test" - which this obviously did!

I don't have a kitchen blow torch so had to get crafty. In order to get that meringue topping golden brown I used the broiler. Turns out you only need to put it in for a few seconds. I maybe kept it in a few seconds too long but it still tasted fine.

The same day I'd also gone to the Farmer's Market to get some fruits so whipped up a Mixed Berry Cobbler. This didn't require the use of the FP or the Mixer but thought I'd share anyway.

in go the blurrrrry berries, AFTER they've been coated with sugar...

then top with clumps of dough and topped with more sugar...

baked and presto - a seasonal berry cobbler!

American Pie Workshop at ICE

I took a baking class at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) yesterday. It was a 4-hour pie workshop where 15 of us learned how to make some classic american pies. ICE has a lot of programs they offer; career training, professional courses and many recreational classes. Before I signed up for a full on pasty program I decided to simply test out their 1-day American Pie Workshop.

The instructor, Jenny is the pastry chef at Tom Colicchio's restaurant, Craft. Most of the 15 students were novices and were interested in learning the basics of pie baking. I told no one my ultimate goal, I don't want anyone else snatching up my idea. The classroom was basically a restaurant kitchen - heavy duty ovens, equipment everywhere and a live dishwasher - better! Jenny started out by going over her recipe for crust (all butter, btw) and talking through the steps of her 6 pie recipes. She then divided us into groups of 2 so there were 3 A groups and 3 B groups and each group was assigned 3 pies to make. Then we sort of were left loose. Jenny floated around and watched the ovens to make sure nothing was burning badly and was available for questions. My partner, Alexandria and I were assigned Apple-Streusel Pie, Chocolate-Peanut Butter Mousse Pie with an Oreo Crust and Summer Berry Pie. The other groups were making Lemon Meringue Pie, Chocolate-Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie. We spent the next 3 hours making the dough, Oreo crust and the 3 pies. We each had our hands in some aspect of each pie and were able to finish 3 pies in 3 short hours.

I enjoyed the class and did pick up some tips for rolling out dough, making Oreo and Graham Cracker crusts and butter measurement quick tricks. I got to use a food processor for the dough and a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer , which I am now OBSESSED with and must have. I would have preferred to work alone and make the pie(s) myself from start to finish even if that meant making fewer pies or having a long class. Overall a good experience and a fun way to spend a Sunday morning but not sure that I need to go back.

Institue for Culinary Education

http://www.iceculinary.com/

Summer Berry Pie (with mascarpone filling) - This was amazing and the best crust to date. So good. Can't wait to get home to eat it tonight. (If I get home and Joel's eaten it all I am going to flip!)

Apple-Streusel Pie, Chocolate-Peanut Butter Mousse Pie with an Oreo Crust and Summer Berry Pie.

You can't even see the goo-ey goodness of chocolate-peanut butter beneath the homemade whipped cream but it was rich! The homemade whipped cream was great also and less sweat than the store bought stuff. Alexandria forgot to watch the clock so the streusel got slightly over-cooked but it still tasted good and I made extra streusel topping so I have some in my freezer now!

Must get KitchenAid stat double stat! Look how pretty this pale yellow one is! 

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/kitchenaid-artisan-stand-mixer/

Good Pie Reading

After the thumb incident of Winter 2012 I decided to take a weekend off from baking (plus we went out of town to go skiing). But here are some articles from around the web about pie, pie shops and pie recipes.

I'm not sure I'd totally agree with the statement that "Apple pie is a weekend project to slow the baker’s heart rate" - my heart is pounding while baking wondering if it will turn out or not but my goal is to eventually feel that way.

Kierin Baldwin's apple process is different that what I've been doing and I'm excited to give it a go. Also notice, she's a gal who switched careers from the photo industry to the culinary world. It can be done folks!

 

My office just happens to be around the corner from The Dutch - think I'll take a little afternoon stroll for a slice of her apple pie.

Pie Fideltiy

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/sam-sifton-apple-pie.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=pie&st=cse

About Kierin Baldwin

http://www.kierinbaldwin.com/

Apple Pie Recipe (with pre-cooked apples)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/recipe-apple-pie.html

All-Purpose Pie Dough

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/recipe-pie-dough.html?ref=magazine

The Healing Powers of a Pie Shop

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/magazine/10pielab-t.html?ref=pies

Sweetie Pie, Raspberry Cream Cheese Pie, Crust Competition, Salted Caramel Apple Pie

I got behind on posting one post, which just led to a downward spiral of not posting anything so here's quick recap of what's been happening in the kitchen the past couple weeks.

Sweetie Pie

I found a recipe for a Sweetie Pie so obviously had to try this out, I didn't even know this existed. It's basically a yummy combination of layers of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconuts flakes, pecans and graham cracker crumbs all gelled together by pouring condensed milk over the whole thing and popping in the oven. Yes, please!

Recipe: http://www.midwestliving.com/recipe/pies/sweetie-pie/

Raspberry Sour Cream Pie

Joel and I experimented with a raspberry pie recipe. To put our own twist on it we decided on making a Cinnamon Graham Cracker Crust with a raspberry sour cream filling and a cinnamon graham cracker crumble. The filling was light and airy and went well the sugary cinnamon graham cracker. The crumble on top was a little much - having it on top and bottom overpowered the raspberry filling. Next time we'll go sans crumble to highlight the freshness of the berries.

Adapted from Original Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/raspberry-sour-cream-pie/

Battle of the Crusts with Caramel Salted Apple Pie filling

Next up, I wanted to play around with some different crust recipes. I've been using an all lard recipe and have been reading about the benefits of the all-butter crust. I found two really popular recipes and decided to put them in a head to head contest against each other. Both would have the same salted caramel apple pie filling so it was a fair comparison. It was Super Bowl Sunday so I had a good excuse to just go all out!

First - the Dough.

#1. All-Butter

Many thanks to my co-worker and pie connoisseur, Isaac Holub for giving me his recipe. It was super simple to make; flour, water, bit o' salt and butter (TIP: cut in small pieces and keep C-O-L-D).

vs.

#2. Butter meets Crisco meets VODKA (yep!)

Many thanks to Smitten Kitchen for this recipe. Again, the key is to keep the fat cold, cold cold. The vodka will cook off in the oven but will provide your crust with the liquid it needs.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/11/pie-crust-101/

Now - the Filling.

I snagged this recipe from Four and Twenty Blackbirds (bakery in Brooklyn). Their trick is using a mandolin for the apples so you have layers upon layers of very thinly sliced apples with salted caramel in between each layer. This is by far the most lengthy recipe I've followed thus far, but I have to say well worth it.

Recipe: http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/four-and-twenty-blackbirds-salted-caramel-apple-pie-recipe/index.html

Unfortunately, we had a teensy accident. Joel was so nice to give me a hand (2 different homemade crusts with 2 pie fillings in one evening was a lot, while also keeping an eye on the chili and thinking about doing Spanish homework).  He was slicing the apples with a small, cheap, plastic mandolin and something slipped and he sliced off a good chunk of thumb. There was a lot of blood and we found the piece of thumb on the floor. Of course I was worried about Joel but I was also worried about my pie dough that was being left out too long in the hot kitchen:) Anyway, Joel survived and spent the rest of the evening on the couch and his thumb is healing nicely. 

It was the first time I tried a lattice crust, it's like a fun puzzle with food!

I was very pleased with the final results of the pies. So then, back to the crust competition.......Crust #1 was great and Crust #2 was great! I don't know if it was a mental thing but I thought I could taste a small hint of vodka in Crust #2 so I think I'm going to stick with cold water in lieu of vodka for the future. All in all, it was a success (minus the loss of thumb....RIP thumb skin)

Salted Caramel Apple Pie ---- Again.

I was so pleased with the first ones and I wanted to try a variation on the crusts above so I took elements from each crust and made a new recipe.

I added shortening & sugar to Crust #1 (Isaac's) and took out vodka from Crust #2 (Smitten Kitchen's).

I rolled it out in between two sheets of parchment paper. Prior to parchment paper I'd just been using wax paper, but omigod what a difference this made. It was by far my most successful roll out yet. And the crust turned out great!