An Unexpected Interlude (In Which I Receive A Surprise From My Father)

Yesterday (December 17, 2013), Michele and I returned home from being out and about, running errands in the slushy streets of lower Manhattan. I successfully scored a new pair of winter boots to replace the slightly older new pair of winter boots which where a tad bit too small for my big feet. I grabbed the mail on the way up to the apartment and saw that there was a card for us, which I knew was of the Christmas variety, from my father. There was also another envelope addressed to me from him.

I was immediately intrigued. We'd already exchanged birthday greetings (well, I'm late with mine to him but that's not new), so what could this one be? I pulled this out of the envelope:

My printing is nowhere near this legible!

I then pulled this out of the envelope:

My printing is also nowhere this legible!

And immediately burst into tears. There was my mother's handwriting, on a card she'd used to make so many of these desserts I was blessed enough to devour. Years ago, I got a copy from her, which I transcribed to my own recipe book (which still has way too few recipes in it) when I decided to forgo the Cool Whip for actual whipped cream. Now I was holding her original in my hand and the joyous connection I felt to her and my father overwhelmed me. I was simultaneously happy and sad.

I miss my mother. I wish she were here to read this blog and share in these baking adventures with me. I wish she could laugh at my horrendous mistakes and smile at my successes. But even though she's gone, there's a little bit of her in everything I bake, whether I fail or succeed at it.

And that makes me happy beyond measure.

Currently listening to: Dexter Wansel - Time Is The Teacher

Read More

Snapped Up – The Short But Sweet Gingersnap Obsession

I thought for sure this entry would be about something other than gingersnaps. I wanted to do something like challah bread (with which I'm having a metric tonne of trouble) , or honey buns, or doughnuts or cake. Anything but gingersnaps. Not that I don't like them; the fact that I love them is well-documented here. I just thought I was ready to move on to something else. But then it happened. I screwed up a batch of snaps that I was making to give to a friend who was in town for a visit. These were tasty but they didn't rise much, were hard, and were singed way too easily. Grumphgrumphgrumph and more grumph.

Nothing flips me into an obsession with a dish faster or harder than a screw up of something I should have down pat by now! I don't really get mad about the situation, unless we're using the classical definition of the word. I become mad about finding the problem and fixing it...and learning from my mistakes. This time it turns out that I needed to learn the exact thickness to roll out the dough, as well as the exact baking time, to make sure the cookies have the right snap yet retain a measure of chewiness. Not many thin gingersnaps have that quality, so I'm setting a pretty high bar for this.

The answers to this problem were actually very simple: roll out the dough right around 1/8 of an inch. It really can't be any thinner than that or else the cookies have too much snap and are prone to burning. As for the baking time, the previous botched batch was in the oven for eight-and-a-half minutes. My baker's-sense (not unlike spider-sense) warned me that eight minutes was the longest I should leave these cookies in the oven.

This fine-tuning gave me the gingersnap cookies I've been after for a while now: snappy and chewy, with not a single singed edge or bottom. I mailed a batch to my little sister, Miss Key, and her family and, according to her, they didn't last long. I also took another batch to share with some friends at dinner the other night and they emptied the carrying tin in short order.

I think I might have finally figured it out!

Currently listing to: Eartha Kitt - C'Mon A My House

Read More

Baking My Way Back to Bavaria...Sort Of.

Allow me to set the scene. Season: Summer. Year: 1984. Place: Munich, Germany. Me: A fresh-faced kid and newly-minted graduate of SMU (Southern Methodist University). Dessert: Zwetschgendatschi. It's a mouthful, in more than one way but believe me, I quickly learned how to pronounce it because it became my favorite dessert when I was there.

Almost thirty years ago, I was in Munich working as a writer. I'd only just graduated from college and by happenstance I actually found myself employed in the very field in which I'd gotten my diploma. It's the one and only time I've ever been gainfully employed in my chosen profession: screenwriting. The husband and wife production management team hired me because they were looking for properties they could make into films as actual producers. One thing led to another and I found myself whisked from the superheated July of Dallas to work with them in the fall-like (to me) summer climes of Munich, Germany. Remind me to tell you about that part of the story some day.

I hadn't been out of the country since I was a kid and the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Munich were exciting...as well as overwhelming. I indulged in pomme frittes, bratwurst, pizza mit pfefferschoten, speck and this amazing plum cake with more consonants than I'd ever had to wrap my tongue around in one word before. Fortunately for me, it was much easier wrapping my tongue around the actual dessert! Zwetschgendatschi (pronounced ts-vetch-kin-dah-chee), which translates as "plum cake". I was exceptionally proud of myself when I learned how to pronounce that one.

I was even more proud the first time I asked for it on my own. ("Hast du zwetschgendatschi? Eine, bitte. Danke!") I must have eaten half my body weight in plum cake that summer. I had to, once I found out how short the season was for the plums that make filling. In the U.S. they're generally known as Italian prune plumbs and they're oval instead of round. When baked, they deliver a taste that's not too sweet and have a bit of a tang to them. Of course, I didn't care about any of that back then; I just knew it was one of the most delicious desserts I'd ever had and I wanted as much of it as I could get! My employers/hosts got such a kick out of my love of zwetschgendatschi.

My Munich adventure ended four months after it began. My return to Dallas also ended my career as a screenwriter (I never wanted to move to L.A., so that killed the prospects of my continuing). And it also ended my access to zwetschgendatschi. Not that I didn't try to find it, mind you. I got more strange looks from waitresses and waiters whenever I asked for it. I mean, I knew it wasn't on the menu; I just wanted to know if anyone there knew what it was. Nope. (Granted, I might have gotten a different response had I been asking in South Central Texas, not too far from my hometown of San Antonio, because there's a sizable population of descendants from German immigrants down there.)

I haven't had zwetschgendatschi in almost thirty years but yesterday I ended that dry spell by finally baking my very own!

An Brief Summary of Lame Excuses (in Countdown Order): 4) I'm not a good enough baker to make this. 3) I can't get the same kind of plums, so why bother? 2) I can't find a good recipe for zwetschgendatschi. And 1) I can't spell "zwetschgendatschi" so I can't look up a recipe!  Hey, I said they were lame excuses! 

An Brief Summary of Lame Excuses (in Countdown Order) ends.

When I saw the right plums for sale at one of the stalls in the farmers market that sets up every Thursday in front of Columbia, I swore that if I found a good enough recipe, I grab up some and try to make it. One quick search led me here (thanks, NPR) so I bought three pounds of plums. One of the sellers reminded me how short the season was for these plums and I just knew I had made the right decision. Plus, Michele and I were hosting a gathering of some artist friends yesterday so the game was afoot! Of course, this meant that, once again, I was going to break my own number one rule of never serving a first-time dessert to guests, but I just couldn't stop the momentum. I just had to give it my best shot, if for no other reason than to brush against a long-held memory.

Fail or succeed, I am what I dare. And yesterday morning I dared to be a good baker.

The images below are kind of quick and dirty (I really do need to work out a better lighting/camera situation for this blog) but they illustrate three stage of this project

Square pan will work just as well!

It all stacked up quite nicely!

Cooling on the rack!

Once it cooled down and Michele dished it out, the looks of enjoyment and thumbs up from our guests made my heart sing. I tasted it myself and realized I'd captured yet another flavor of my past. It was Bavaria, Munich, Müenchen, all over again. One friend, Carolyn (who is originally from England) told be that it was the best pastry she'd ever had in her life and that it topped anything her mother or her little sister ever served her – and she considered their pastries tops. She's given to hyperbole but I took it as a high compliment. (She also said that she'd never tell her sister what she'd just told me.)

So, let this be a lesson to me: just bake to the best of my ability, with all the joy and love in my heart, and the odds will be in my favor that I'll end up with something that's delicious and "happiness-making."

Currently listening to: Sonique - It Feels So Good

Read More

E-pie-log

When I started this adventure, I figured I'd have it wrapped up with the first version or three. How could I have known the challenges I'd encounter? I mean, I know how to bake pie! I know how to make filling! Hah! What I don't know could, and probably will, fill volumes. Each problem met and overcome led to another. And another. Every time I thought I'd be producing "the best batch yet", some element would refuse to cooperate. True, it would be "the best batch yet," but something would keep the recipe and process from gelling.

Even the latest batch (I don't know if it's v9.1 or v10.0 or v11 because I've lost count) isn't quite there. It truly is my best yet, because I've solved the filling wetness problem by doing a longer reduction, but it has problems. I'm still rolling my crusts a bit too thin sometimes. I'm still having trouble gauging filling amounts. I'm still finessing baking times. And I'm still learning how to deal with our recalcitrant oven.

However, with every challenge I met, I gained an ounce or two of confidence and a pound of humility at what I had yet to learn. I don't think any baking project has pushed my admittedly pedestrian skills, tasked my instincts, and tested my patience more than this one has. Consequently, I've been the most proud of the results. The latest batch made me so happy! I made a couple dozen (I can't seem to make any fewer than twelve): cherry, apple, and peach. I took eight to Portland as a house gift for the visit with my brother-in-law and his family. I was amazed at how well they traveled in my carry-on, with absolutely no padding. Not a single crust got smushed. Everyone enjoyed them immensely!

I decided to experiment with freezing the rest of the pies, because what would a homemade Hostess fruit pie be if it couldn't stand up to freezing for later consumption? My folks used to buy bunches of them from one of the Hostess stores and put them in our deep freezer. They were inexpensive, kept for months, and made great additions to our brown bagged school lunches. So, I wrapped each of the remaining pies in plastic wrap, placed them in a freezer bag and popped them in the freezer.

Ready to freeze!

 Almost two weeks later, I pulled one out, let it thaw in the refrigerator and then sampled it:

I think I've got it!

The crust was still flaky and the filling was still moist enough. The icing even had those weird sort of condensation markings in it that I remember from my school lunches! I'm going to call this project a success! And it's light years beyond what Hostess ever sold!

By the (estimated) numbers: twenty pounds of cherries (and counting), four pounds of peaches, five pounds of apples, at least twelve batches of pie dough, somewhere over one hundred (give or take a few) pies, and three different trips to the post office and one cross-country flight to give away tests and samples. 

My life is, indeed, a bowl of cherries!

Currently listening to: The Dramatics, Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get

Read More

A Pie In Hand, Part 3 – A Jubilee of Cherries (and Some Peaches, Too)!

Quick Shout-out Dept.: Last weekend (6-29-13) I dropped in at Roasting Plant, on Greenwich Avenue, to hang out with my brother-in-law while we waited to hook up with Michele for a late diner dinner. I ordered a cappuccino (my standard coffee order) and it was so smooth and the balanced between coffee, milk and foam, that I had to order another! That's a first for me, so I have to tip my hat to my barista for the night, Damiana; she had a magic touch!

Quick Shout-out Dept. Closes

I am so close to finalizing my recipes and process for this pie project! Boy, it's taught me a lot about a lot! It's also frustrated me to no end. That's how I like my baking: both instructive and frustrating simultaneously. Actually, I'd rather not have the frustration but often there's no learning, for me, without it. And just what little frustrations about this little project are leading me towards more personal baking knowledge? Well, the whole too much liquid in the filling thing is annoying and is forcing me to adapt my process. The inconsistency in the crust thickness is another problem to overcome.

The biggest problem I've encountered, though, is cherry availability. We had a couple of  weeks of good, inexpensive street vendor cherries and then...nothing. No cherries anywhere except a couple of supermarkets where they were going for from $7 - $9/lb! I am committed to the idea of these pies but not that committed! Fortunately, last week saw a second wave of availability and I'm back on track to perfecting this recipe. I'd better get this done soon, however, because no one seems to know how long this cherry season is truly going to last.

Oh, and the danged oven just can't seem to hold a temperature for some reason.

One thing at a time, though.

First thing up for v2.0 was figuring out the fruit to filling-to-liquid ratio. Even after doing my version of a reduction, I still had too much liquid. It's not really that big a problem except it makes sealing the pies a little difficult, softens the dough so that I have to increase baking time, and makes a mess on the baking sheets.

Cherry filling soup!

Well, that's certainly messy.

This seems half-baked.... (And kudos to anyone who gets the reference!)

Don't get me wrong: this batch certainly was very tasty, but the baking was just sloppy. The solution? Simple: do the reduction to intensify the cherry taste. Skim the cherries from the liquid and let them sit for a while. Collect whatever liquid settles out of the cherries and add it back to the pan. Reduce that even more, until it becomes a syrup. Add a little bit of that the cherries, along with some corn starch. That process gives me a filling that's not too soupy and not too dry. I also figured out that it's better for me to load the filling at one end of the pie instead of in the center, because that gives more room for the filling to settle when I flip the dough to seal it in. It also gives me more dough to work with for the seal. Sometimes I'm just brilliant (after I get a running start)!

Next up on the list was crust thickness. The only thing for that was to continue to learn how to use the rolling pin Connie gave me. I know I could go out and get a traditional rolling pin but, remember, I love a challenge and this rolling pin definitely qualifies or I don't know the meaning of "challenge". In my favor is the fact that this project has given me the opportunity to make dozens of pies, so I've gotten plenty of practice. Anyway, if I roll the dough out too thin I get a pie with interesting cracks in the crust. That doesn't hurt the taste but it does destroy the aesthetic I'm going for. If I roll it too thick, then, well, there's just too much crust-to-filling and that's not what I'm going for, either. Slowly but surely, I'm figuring it out.

Pretty but just not right.

And the oven? It turns out the best way for me to handle it is to preheat it to temperature, turn it off then quickly reset the preheat temperature before I pop the pies in, to make sure it's truly hot enough to bake the pies correctly. So far that seems to be working. Tangentially, I've also learned that our oven bakes best one batch of pies at a time. I can get six pies in a batch so this limitation means I bake eighteen pies in about an hour (give or take depending on roll/cut/fill/seal time). I've used both racks a couple of times but that just throws the temperature and baking times off. Good thing I'm a patient kind of guy, yes?

The fruits of these near-Herculean efforts:

It's all a pack of pies.

Some of these were cherry, some of them were peach. This version, v2.5, got scarfed down by a gathering of friends in lower Manhattan, which let me know that I'd nearly gotten every thing right.

From here, I moved on to v3.0, with some being regular cherry and some Rainier cherry and peach. I figured that the latter combination worked so great in the full-sized pie, why not try it in a hand-held version? I'm very glad I gave in to that urge; they were delicious! I sent a batch of this version to my father, who promised to share them with his sisters and other family down there in the Florida Panhandle.

One last decision awaited me on this road to cherry hand-held pie heaven and that was icing. Hostess fruit pies all had this exceptionally thin layer of icing on them. There was just enough to give the crust a touch of sweetness but not enough to call attention to itself and take away from the cherry taste. I had attempted to ice one of the earlier versions and it was a disaster. The recipe I used just wasn't right and it was too thick and...and blahblahblahblah. There were a dozen different reasons why I really should just leave the pies bare and just one reason to try icing them: Hostess fruit pies were iced. And that one reason trumped all the others. I mean, what kind of recreation would this be if I didn't ice them?

After checking my cook books and several on-line sources, I found another baker who, because of the downfall of Hostess, wanted to replicate these pies. See? I'm not the only one! Her icing recipe turned out to be perfect for my needs! Thanks Circle B Kitchen!

Brushing the pies with the icing shortly after pulling them out of the oven was the easiest part of the whole process and it absolutely turned the trick and gave rise to v3.1.

v3.1, all iced up!

Not perfect but perfect for me!

The icing added just the right flavor to complete the project of recreating my memory of my Hostess Cherry Pie experience – which in no way resembles the truth of that experience. Let's face it, Hostess pies were cardboard-crusted, overly-sweet-filled, preservative-riddled, and delicious to my kid self. My adult self gagged and harrumphed at them, despite my desperate craving for them. This project has given both of these selves (because my kid self is very much still with me) something that can make their day. 

The Count: Two different crust test batches, one proof of concept, four official cherry versions, three different fillings, over sixty pies baked from start to finish (with at least one more batch if I can find more cherries), five months of development work and many, many smiles on the faces of my tasters. Quite a satisfying adventure!

The Count ends.

Next!

Currently listening to: Sade, Cherry Pie

Read More

Ad Astra, Bratzy

Yesterday evening we had to bid our companion, Bratzy, farewell. I have never been a "pet person" so it was a complete surprise to find myself, eventually, enamored with Bratzy. She was patient in her task of teaching me how to expand my capacity to love...and the necessity of that evolution. She enriched our lives and I think we gave as good as we got from her. She and Michele chose well when they picked each other thirteen years ago (Bratzy was three) and I feel honored to have been included in her life.

Baker Interrupted

It seems a little odd to post a tribute to a cat here in a baking blog, but it's appropriate because Bratzy was hardly ever very far away from me when I was baking. She sat with me (on me) as I researched recipes, joined me when I was exhausted from pulling a couple dozen hand pies out of the oven and shared my pillow as I dreamed up new baking adventures.

Still life with lap cat and cookbook

Sail on, Bratzy. To the stars. I will miss you.

Currently listening to: Neutralize - Shining Through The Light (Feat. Emily Underhill) (Cross Them Out Remix) Because the lyrics have taken on new meaning to me.

Read More

What did I learn In School Today? Pizza!

In my never-ending quest for baking knowledge, I attended the pizza baking class at AOA Bar and Grill. Michele "pinged" me on I.M. at the top of the week and sent me link to a Groupon for the class, knowing full-well that I'd never be able to pass it up. She's got my number, I guess. I'm just glad she's on my side!

I haven't learned how to use my iPad camera yet.

I was much less nervous, or shall I say "self-conscious", before this class than I was before the Le Pain Quotidien class. Maybe it's that I've gotten over my fear of making mistakes in front of other people. Or maybe it's just that I've gotten over myself. I was talking with my beloved little sister this morning (today's her birthday, so I had to call and sing to her in my most exaggerated/corny/horrific Elvis voice) and she commented that what she likes about my blogging is that I admit I don't know everything and that I'm always trying to learn more about what I do know. Maybe I'm taking that to heart and that's why I was kind of fearless today. Maybe.

Self portrait of the student as a younger (by a couple of hours) man.

The thing I noticed first off about this venue was that being a restaurant/bar, and having an open floor plan, was that it was probably going to take extra effort to hear the instructor, so, I scoped out a place up front. As soon as the class filled up, my observation, and my choice of placement proved correct. See? Being trained by parents who were career teachers paid off!

Front and center!

Another observation: apparently there was some secret instruction I failed to read about coming to class as a pair. I was one of the few non-coupled people there. Looking around the room, it was as though I was a voyeur on about two dozen dates. It was actually kind of sweet.

Despite having to shout over the noise that all cavernous restaurant/bars with high ceilings create, the instructor was good at conveying the information and getting the class into the groove. He went through the basics (prepping the yeast, measuring the flour, kneading, etc.), none of which I consider problems in my pizza making experience. What I was really taking the class for was shaping and tossing technique and I wasn't disappointed. So often I found that the center of my pizzas were too thin and the edges too thick and that I had the most difficult time tossing the dough. Watching the instructors hand for finger position in patting out the dough, and listening to him discuss the steps to the pat-down, was illuminating. Aha! So that's where I've been going wrong! Pinch the dough ball with thumb and forefinger to make the round. Work the edges of the round with your fingers together, not using your palms, and pat it out to about eight inches. Then pat down the center to even things out. Flip the dough over and repeat the pat down process.

At this point in the class we proceeded pick from some prepped ingredients – mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, baby spinach, mushrooms – because, even though this was billed as a pizza making class, we were really going to make calzones for our lunch. Mine was quite tasty!

Call it lunch.

I ended up sitting across from my station mate, Avi who was an NYC high school teacher and a husband and wife, David and Betty, who were at the table behind us. They're company was enjoyable and it was great hearing their stories about coming to the class and other baking experiences. Betty's passion was sourdough bread and I really loved listening to her talk about her process of perfecting it. I take my hat off to anyone who's got the patience and desire to make sourdough. David was an actor who had set fire to two kitchens on two continents but could eat with the best of them. Avi was really looking to take more baking classes and and explore the love of the craft that I sensed was just starting to bubble up in him. Cool!

Well, when I said that I took my hat off to anyone who made sourdough bread, I should have added that I also took my hat off for NYC high school teachers who fling their dough at me when they're trying to learn how to do the toss. I felt like I was in a western, and the quick draw artist shot my hat off to prove that he was the real deal. Honestly, it was too funny and we had a great laugh – even though Avi was mortified.

When it was all said and done, I'd gained some good foundation technique (which I'll have to use very soon or run the risk of forgetting) as well as a few new acquaintances. All-in-all a day well spent!

And back home, I rewarded myself with:

My reward!

The last of the lemon-ginger ice cream, the last of the v2.0 hand-held cherry pies (which I'll discuss in my next post) and a cuppa Joe!

Currently listening to:  Zedd - Clarity (Feat. Foxes)

Read More