The Way Of The Crust (Or: Make Up Your Mind!)

If there's one thing I know about myself as a baker it's that when I find a recipe I like, I stick with it. My goal is consistency: consistency of taste, of smell, of texture and most of all, consistency of enjoyment. Whatever dish I make, it has to be at least as good as the last time I made it so that my guests, or whomever is eating it, get the most pleasure out of the experience as possible. That's why I've used the same pie crust recipe for over twenty years now. Sure, I've refined it and made adjustments in my technique but it's still the same butter and shortening base I found over two decades ago.

A temporal side note: I get a kick out of using phrases such as "over two decades ago". It makes me sound like I've actually got some historical legitimacy to what I bake. But to be honest, I've just baked as the situation required. It's only now, with the advent of this blog, that I've taken to analyzing my process. In writing this blog, I pull from the past to talk about the present and then plan the future...which makes me see and experience the past in completely new ways. There. That ought to give my big sister, Karla, a fit or two. She's not overly fond of time travel stories. (*wink*)

Temporal side note ends.

My procurement of Handheld Pies lit up  a couple of light bulbs in my baking brain. Not quite like this...but very close. Okay. Not like that at all. What the recipes and the stories in the book got me to thinking about was my crust recipe. The authors are big proponents of using lard in their crusts. True, they use butter and cream cheese as well, but they despise shortening. My standard crust is a butter/shortening combination, so such a disdainful opinion of my old friend Mr. Crisco took me aback! Outrageous! How dare they besmirch the integrity...huffupuffgrumblesnarf! My indignation lasted all of ten seconds because I remember having desserts baked with lard, french fries made with beef tallow, and all manner of other foods cooked in, or prepared with, animal fats. I remembered how good those dishes tasted (seriously, there's nothing quite like homemade french fries cooked in leftover bacon grease). With those memories wringing out my salivary glands, I decided to forgive the shortening slight and give their recipe a try.

The first thing I had to do was locate a source of lard. Over the last four decades or so, lard has gotten a bad rap, despite it's long and storied history of adding great taste and texture to foods. Various and sundry vegetable oils took its place because they were supposedly more healthy. Butter suffered in the same way, being supplanted in most American homes by margarine and "spreads", which neither taste as good, nor cook up as well, as the real thing. There are more and more studies which say that butter is actually better for us than margarine. The jury is still out on lard, although it is experiencing a resurgence in some corners. I just needed to figure out if my corner of the baking world was going to be one of them. Lard isn't sold in grocery stores in NYC and I didn't fancy buying pig fat and rendering it into lard myself. There are on-line sources but I really wanted to find someone local I could trust to have a good quality supply.

Enter Schaller & Weber, a great butcher shop on 2nd Avenue at 86th Street, just a hop, skip and jump away from our apartment! They've been in business for almost a century and I figured if anyone in the city would have lard, they would. I was right and for three dollars and change per pound, the price was right. Not only that but it's truly a great store to wander through. It's not very big but it's jam-packed with some of the coolest stuff – from European cookies to award-winning sausages to interesting condiments. Schaller & Weber is one of my new favorite places to shop.

So. Now that I had what I needed, I was ready to start The Great Pie Crust Battle! Said battle would be between my classic crust ("A"), a one hundred percent lard crust ("B") and a fifty-fifty butter/lard crust ("C"). I figured I'd make enough of each type to send batches to my father, some friends in Salem, MA and have enough left over for testing here. That, of course meant making a lot of pie dough. And prepping a lot of apples for filling. A challenge that would daunt a less dauntless baker than I! Fortunately for me, I have strong hands and a couple of sharp knives. Yes, I know that my goal is to create my version of the Hostess cherry pie but cherry season was months away when I started this project and store-bought frozen cherries are pretty bad. Apples would have to stand in.

Assembling the different test batches wasn't difficult; I just used the copper cutter on the dough, plopped a dollop of apples (yes, a dollop) on one half.

I just like using the word "dollop"!

Then I folded the other half of the dough over the dollop, sealed it (this time with a fork because my crimper skills are woeful at best) and poked vent holes in the top.

Sealed and vented

One thing I learned when rolling, cutting and folding each of the different doughs was that the all-lard crust behaved much better than the other two. It rolled out better and sealed easier (without use of any liquid along the edges). That in and of itself was almost enough to make me decide to adopt it as my new standard! Almost. I wouldn't be able to make that decision until after I'd baked all the little pies and sent them to my designated testers.

Oooo! Little pies!

The total number of pies I made for testing turned out to be forty-two. I sent three batches of eight to my father in Florida, three batches of two to my friends, the Landsmans, in Salem, MA, and kept three batches of four here for me and Michele, and as it turned out, two friends visiting from Seattle (thanks Sandra and Jeff). Everyone here chose "B," the lard crust, as the tastiest and best texture and consistency. The crusts held together better and yet retained an exceptional flakiness throughout the devouring experience. "A", the butter/Crisco recipe pies was more crumbly than flaky. And "C", butter + lard, was good, but not as tasty as "B".

My father actually took the samples I sent him on a tour of northern Florida. (They held up surprisingly well for having spent time in the U.S. Postal system as well as traveling with him from town to town.) He shared some his sisters who live near him in Lynn Haven, took some to the ancestral home in Blountstown to share with family there, jaunted around to Tallahassee and got the opinion of his older brother and finally back to Lynn Haven. Overwhelmingly, "B" was the favorite, although there were a few of votes for "C" and one for "A".

Joe and Jan in Salem also picked "B" as the best tasting but "C" was close behind. It's always good to get opinions from transplanted New Yorkers, in my opinion. ("All yummy, anyway...")

Overall, I liked working with the lard crust more than I did my standard crust. It just handled better on all fronts. I think I've got a new go-to recipe (which I'll spend another twenty years perfecting). That's not to say I won't use the old recipe for some things but I think I'm ready to decommission it – which means I'll post it here in the near future.

An epiphany : I noticed that baking with the lard added something familiar that I couldn't quite identify, something that feather-touched the edges of my memory. It wasn't until I'd made a few batches of  the "B" test that it came to me: it was a "homey" smell that I used to associate with my Granma's (my father's mother) kitchen. That little kitchen in that small town in the panhandle of Florida had some of the most wonderful smells ever, and lard was one of the components of that mouth-watering aroma. Baking these pies brought a bit of that to my little kitchen on the upper east side of Manhattan. It felt great to be able to make that connection.

End epiphany

Currently listening to: Amanda Ghost - Silver Lining

Read More

Q: What Did I Learn In School Today?

A: Bread baking basics!

I had a baking class this morning, April 6, 2013, at Le Pain Quotidien and for three hours I was a student again for the first time ("for the first time" because this was the first formal baking class I've ever taken). Exciting! But let me back up and give you the history of this little adventure.

In January, Michele and I went to Portland, OR to visit with her brother and his family. In an effort to be proactive in seeking out interesting things I wanted to do while there, I did a little reading on the local bread culture. Since Portland is a foodie kind of town I figured there would be some good bakeries from which to sample bread. I was also hoping to talk with some of the bakers to get some tips on technique. Well, the sampling happened but the talking did not. The bakeries were top-notch but none of them seemed conducive to picking the brains of the bakers.

Fast forward to last month. Michele and I went to see Eddie Izzard workshop material for his next tour (my sides hurt from laughing so much, by the way) and while we were walking around the neighborhood, waiting for the venue to open, we passed the Le Pain Quotidien on Bleeker Street. You can look in one of the windows to check out their kitchen set up. I did that very thing and noticed a sign that mentioned they taught baking classes there! Now, I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of chain restaurants in general, and I'd never eaten at any of the L.P.Q.s anywhere in the country but seeing that sign changed my opinion of them by more than a little bit!

Advance the disc slightly to last night. We had dinner with friends but I was a bit preoccupied because I couldn't stop thinking about the class. Surprisingly, I was nervous! I understood that it was a basics class and that no one was going to be judging my work; it wasn't the C.I.A. or Peter Kump's for crying out loud! I kept bumping my head against that case of nerves until the answer fell out: I was nervous about being in front of a professional baker (a job do not in the least aspire to have) but more than that I was afraid that I would get more deeply bitten by the bread baking bug. Why? Even from my admittedly limited experience, I understand the commitment it takes to become a great bread baker and how obsessive that goal can become for some folks. I swore to myself that I wouldn't go down that road. The rewards are great but the challenges are many and I shuddered at the limitations of my kitchen and my equipment. And I just couldn't imagine myself in the same company as the bread bakers I've been reading about lately.

Creep into this morning. I made sure I was at L.P.Q in plenty of time to get a cup of coffee, which i enjoyed.

Coffee in a little bowl! And a picture taken with my iPad camera!

I also enjoyed the fact that the late morning wasn't wall-to-wall customers; I was able to sit quietly and try to chill out my anxieties before the class started. The other element of the class that made me nervous was baking with/in front of other people. I'm kind of a solitary baker. I'm not used to having a whole lot of people watching me as a wrestle with a recipe or breeze through prepping a dish. With the class, I'd have to contend not only with the eyes of my fellow bakers (and the instructor), but the eyes of anyone who passed by the giant storefront window! Ack! Just drink the coffee. Chill out. Breathe.

Brie, the baker who would be teaching us called the class together, issued us our aprons (I brought my own hat, of course), went over the syllabus and some baking terms then got us started. Three hours and five different breads later, all my anxieties proved to be unfounded or highly-manageable and we were sitting down to a lunch of pizza we'd all made for ourselves (mine was artichoke hearts and bacon). We baked two styles of baguettes, raisin and sunflower seed batards, chocolate-, and butter-, filled French dinner rolls, a dough we could save and bake later, and the pizza. Brie was an amazing teacher and even though she probably didn't know it, she gave me confidence that I could become whatever kind of bread baker I want. There's nothing like learning from someone who loves what she's doing!

All the bread in my world (this afternoon, that is).

The épi de blé baguette and one of the French dinner rolls.

The raisin and sunflower seed batard, a roll and the baguette. All were such fun to make!

It was great to have some practical, in-person, instruction in some of the techniques I've been reading about in Peter Reinhart's books and that was well-worth the price of admission! All that and a nifty handout to refresh my memory from time to time! I'm looking forward to taking Part 2 of this class!

Currently listening to: Joan Armatrading - I'm Lucky

(I'll return to my handheld pie adventure in the next post.)

Read More

Proof of Concept

I thought I should prove the handheld pie concept to myself. Actually, all I really wanted to do was use up the leftover pie dough sitting in the refrigerator and testing a couple of ideas for the handheld pies was a good excuse. I needed to work some things out before I began testing in earnest. Prepping the apples wasn't a problem; I just cut them smaller than I do for a larger pie. The rest of the filling prep was exactly the same.

I didn't have anything that would cut the right shape. Hostess fruit pies aren't true half-moons; they're more like rectangles with rounded corners.

That's no half-moon! That's a fruit pie!

It looks like I'll have to give my friends at Copper Gifts another custom cutter challenge. Until then, though, I'll decided to use the ice cream sandwich cutter as a stand-in. It worked like a charm.

Just add filling!

For this go round, I just cut sides, plopped filling on one, then married the them together. I used buttermilk to help the edges seal. I know a lot of folks use egg whites or cream. I just like taste buttermilk adds to crusts. Also, this was the first time I'd ever used a crimper for the edges. I wasn't sure how it would work but I have to say I'm a firm believer in this little device!

Crimped and ready for oven action!

Pie life with cutter and crimper.

When it was all said and done, I retrieved four lovely little pies from the oven!

Pies as finger food.

They were quite tasty and fit our hands just right! The crust, even after the dough sat in the fridge for a couple of weeks, was still tender. That didn't surprise me so much because the recipe I use seems to have an excellent shelf life. I can't believe I'm about to start test two other recipes for this project but I'm curious about some other ingredients. I'll talk about those next time.

Currently listening to: Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out

Read More

A Pie In The Hand...

Allow me to revisit a topic of conversation: pie. 

Sidebar: I reserve the right to take up previously discussed topics when I come across new information or techniques come up. Or if I danged-well feel like it. This is a journey for me and the path to my becoming a better baker has many a fork (no pun intended). I promise to do my best to not bore you along the way.

Sidebar ends.

I know I've mentioned that I love pie. I love baking it. I love eating it. I love serving it. No matter what kind of pie I bake, be it apple, cherry, egg custard or chicken pot, I want it to be the best I've ever baked, served and eaten!

This laudable goal does open me up to some very tough, shall we say, "evaluation," however. Is the crust sturdy enough to hold together when those first incisions are made? Or does it crumble under the pressure? Did I make the edges too tough to easily cut through so that the first slice lifts out easily? And the filling! Did I mix in enough flour to hold it together so that it doesn't spill out from between the crust after that slice is removed? In the case of an apple pie, is the filling cooked enough so that there's a pleasantly delicate crunch when someone takes a bite? Is the crust flaky? Are the edges burned? All of these questions and more race through my mind a split second before the pastry knife descends to cut that first slice. And don't get me started about what my mind puts me through now that I've started making cherry pies with lattice crusts again!

You'd think that I wouldn't want to add to any potential pie pathos but the fact remains that I am always on the lookout for new things to add to my repertoire and often something I see will spark a new interest or rekindle an old baking desire. Such was the case when I found this on a recent bookstore run:

Lots of deliciousness in here!

It's an interesting book and even though I'm not thrilled with the way the recipes are presented, I know it's going to teach me a lot. More important than that is the way it rekindled my desire to perfect my version of the Hostess fruit pie. Don't laugh. There was a time when Hostess products actually tasted good! I used to love the cherry fruit pies -- perfect size, tasty cherry filling surrounded by a tender crust that was lightly dusted with frosting. Over the last decade, though, any Hostess products I've gotten my hands on have been horrendous at best and toxic at worst. Safeway in San Fransisco and Little Debbie have close approximations to the pies I remember but they are impossible to get in NYC. Every so often a friend of ours, M., brings me a few Safeway brand pies and chuckles because she's amused that someone who bakes the way I do has such a Jones for such prefabricated, commercial pies.

After some careful thought (and some even more not-so-careful thought) it occurred to me that what I am really looking for is a bit of nostalgia in the form of a handheld cherry pie. Taste is only one component. Texture, aroma, weight - even packaging - also contribute to the experience. I know there's no way I'll ever be able to recreate all of that exactly but, as with my Nanna's egg custard pie, I can create something that will give me, and whoever eats them, some joy. 

And, yes, I'm crazy enough to try to figure out some way to approximate tearing into one of these:

Riiiiiiip!

Now that I've thrown down that gauntlet, I have to figure out how to pull it all together. That's where the aforementioned Handheld Pies has come in handy. (See what I did there?) It's gotten me to rethink the crust recipe I've used for more than twenty years, as well as how I work with filling ingredients. Over the next few posts, I'll document it all. This is going to be fun!

Another sidebar: By the way, the apple pie I made yesterday passed all the above-mentioned test with flying colors.

As perfect a pie as I've ever made!

Definitely one of the best apple pies I've made and the crust behaved exactly the way I wanted it to. I've been told that I make very "adult" apple pies, meaning they don't taste like sugar bombs. That comes from years of tweaking the filling - adding just enough sugar to enhance but not overpower the apples, picking the right apples and other ingredients, even figuring out the right size and shape to cut the apples so that they'll cook just right. It's a lesson that I've learned and refined. And I'm sure I'll refine it again and again. 

That's part of my joy of baking.

Another sidebar ends.

Currently listening to: Des'ree, Crazy Maze

Posted with Blogsy

Read More

As The Pin Rolls

Last night we got a call from Connie, my step-mother-in-law. She checks up on things here from time to time and she wanted to let me know how much she's enjoying it. She's also happy that I'm enjoying using the pie bird. The real reason she called, though, was to give me some history behind the rolling pin. You know – this one:

Yes. This one.

She gave the rolling pin to Michele many years ago but she bought it for her own use, which was to make pasta for noodle soup. Her mother taught her to make pasta noodles and used a rolling pin like this because the tapered shape made it easy to make the flat rounds she needed. "My mother would roll out these giant circles of pasta and then had me help her set them up to dry on the tables and bed..." Connie told me. A regular shaped pin would have just cut the pasta dough when you tried to turn the corner to make the round.

That makes sense to me. Also, since she didn't have to worry about transferring the dough to a pie plate, she could make the rounds as thin as necessary without worrying that they'd break and become unusable. A very different technique than I need for my pie doughs. That's one reason it's taken me so long to learn how to best use this particular rolling pin.

Nothing like a little history to shed some light on the present! And nothing history to make me more determined to make some amazing dishes with this rolling pin.

Currently listening to: Nicky Romero, Like Home (Feat. Nervo) (Karetus Remix)

Read More

Epiphanies At Year's End

 I sit on the cusp of a new year. 2012 has been a whirlwind of wonder and banality. There has been so much excitement and horror that I often marvel that I am here at all. I marvel at the fact that I have the kind of life that enables me to do what I do and that is something I'll never take for granted. My trials have been manageable and my joys have been many. Along the way, as I've documented some of what I do here, I have, once or twice, been struck by insights that sent me soaring with "I get it!" tumbling from my lips.

Allow me to give you an example. For almost three years I've been using Michele's rolling pin for my pies and cookies with varying degrees of success. It's one of these:

Yep, that's it.

Finely crafted, solid wood, nice balance. And I have the hardest time controlling it. My old rolling pin, which I gave away (along with my marble slab) when Michele and I combined our lives into this apartment, was marble and cylindrical; it was heavy enough to keep me from having to put too much muscle into the rolling. This one is tapered from center to ends and requires a completely different technique – one I couldn't figure out for the life of me. Don't get me wrong, I made good pies and cookies with it, but I've never felt comfortable with this rolling pin. That changed at the beginning of this month. 

As part of the Birthday Tea menu, I'd decided on my apple-pear pie (one of my staple baked goods). I'd prepped the dough in my usual way (which ends with the dough disc cooling off in the refrigerator). I readied the pastry cloth I now use because a few months ago I broke the marble slab Michele moved with. I began rolling the bottom crust and suddenly it was as though time slowed down as I looked at my hands on the rolling pin and watched the pin flatten the dough. I could see everything that I was doing right and understood everything I was doing wrong. And I knew this crust would turn out exactly how I wanted it to. The same thing happened when I rolled out the top crust. I'd finally gotten a feel for the rolling pin and it was like catching lighting in a bottle: exhilirating and triumphal!

It was one of those moments in which you know you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And you just smile and keep on doing.

Have a happy new year and may it bless you with adventure, joy, wonder and love.

I leave you with this:

Engage!

  Currently listening to: Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 "From The New World"

Read More

Forward To The Next Half Century (Or: It's My 51st Birthday...Let's Have Tea!)

I have a confession to make: I love celebrating my birthday! I always have and I imagine I always will. Some of my fondest early memories of my birthday include geeky gifts such as a transistor a.m. radio from – get this – Radio Shack and mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (Mmmmmm.... Mint chocolate chip....). As a kid I thought that the two best things about my birthday were 1) it was two days before my father's birthday and 2) it was early enough in December that no one could combine it with Christmas. In all honesty, though, I still think that.

That being said, I remember the year that changed the way I thought about celebrating my birthday: my thirtieth. Thirty was a milestone for me if for no other reason than that I was leaving my twenties behind me. I was so happy not to be twenty-anything that I made up my mind to extend my thirtieth birthday for as long as I could afford to. I decided on a three-pronged attack. First I would bake my own cake and take that to work to share. Then I would have a small group of people over for dinner the night after that (which I would plan and cook). Finally, I'd invite a larger group over for brunch the following afternoon. A day's celebration for each decade of my life. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams and had my happiest birthday since I first discovered Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. (Mmmmmm.... Mint chocolate chip....)

One of those wildest dreams was the cake I chose to bake. At the time I had a subscription to Bon Appétit and that summer the cover of one issue featured a beautiful wedding cake that really made an impression on me: three tiers, dark chocolate inside, white chocolate outside, with white chocolate ribbons and bows. I fell in love with it and became determined to make it someday. Well, that day turned out to be thirtieth birthday. It took four days to make, what with all the different kinds of chocolate I had to work with and the four different forms it needed to take (cake, icing, ganache, fondant). I needed two trips on the subway, from 96th Street and Broadway to 16th Street and 5th Avenue, to get it to the office. And then it took some minor engineering to set it up. Quite a trial! But it was, and remains, the best chocolate cake I've ever baked, served or eaten.

Look, Ma! No gray hair on my chinny chin chin!

The folks in my office thought I was nuts. And they were right. But that didn't stop them from enjoying the cake! (I know I have other pictures from that day and when I find them I'll be sure to post them.)

So. How did this change my attitude about my birthday, you may ask? My thirtieth gave me my first taste of celebrating by serving. I got such great joy out of planning, preparing, baking, cooking and sharing those meals with my friends that I was smitten with the idea from then on. I found it much more fun than having someone plan a party for me. That extended celebration led to the idea of gathering a group of friends for occasional afternoon teas, which led to what I called my "Big Dinners" (seven-course meals – I'll talk about those at some point). These eventually inspired my Birthday Teas.

For the last twenty years (with only a couple of missed opportunities) I've had a Tea to celebrate my birthday. I invite several good friends (all girls, well, just because), plan the menu, which always includes scones, cucumber sandwiches, some form of ginger cookie and at least a one "show stopper".

2005: cranberry scones, cucumber sandwiches, gingersnaps and apple-pear pie

A Tale of Two (Types Of) Scones: I've been baking scones for more than twenty-five years. Back in my life BNYC (Before New York City), I dated a young lady from England and one year for her birthday I decided to bake her something from her country. I chose scones because they are odd cousins to biscuits (although the English would deny such a connection). I used the recipe from my favorite quick breads cookbook, Carol Cutler's Greatest Fast Breads, and the young lady pronounced them almost as good as what she could get at home. My scones are small, rounded, light and easy to slice and spread with whatever jam, jelly, butter is on the table. That's one type, the correct type, of scones. The other type, the type usually found in bakeries and coffee shops and similar places in America, are gigantic, mutant shaped and generally scoffed at by anyone from the British Isles. I will not eat any of these and I suggest you run like mad if ever anyone tries to serve you one.

Fini

I always have a variety of teas for the tea drinkers and good coffee for those who enjoy their cuppa Joe. The menu is usually pretty easy, since, as I said, I know the dishes that will serve as the anchor of the meal. The surprise dishes are always fun to plan and bake.

2010: I added sweet potato pie and shortbread to the table.

Last year I completely ignored a rule I made up on the spot and served two dishes I'd never made before: what turned out to be the first iteration of my ginger lemon creams and my first take on my Nana's egg custard pie.

2011: scones, ginger lemon cream cookies v1.0, apple pie (not pictured: egg custard pie)

This year I had to serve the new ginger lemon creams (since there were several guests who'd had them last year) just to show how they'd evolved. I also baked an apple-pear pie (one of my staples) but this year I used 1) the second of two pie baking dishes Michele got for me last year and 2) an antique porcelain pie bird (c. 1920, if my hasty research is correct) that my step-mother-in-law gave me. Michele told me that this actually belonged to her grandmother (her father's mother).

Royal Worchester, England bird inside the Emile Henri, France dish

Two parts, which is a bit uncommon, I think.

I'd never seen one before and had to ask her what it was for. Once she explained that it was a way to vent steam out of the pie (usually the job of slits cut in the top crust) I knew I had to use it with the very next pie I baked. This one is different from most of the ones I've seen on-line because it's in two pieces and the bird is graceful, even regal in appearance. And it helped make one of the best, if not the best, apple pies I've ever pulled out of an oven!

Not one of the four-and-twenty blackbirds but it did help the pie sing with sweet deliciousness!

2012: slice of apple-pear pie and ginger lemon cream cookie

The other show stopper on the menu was a batch of half-sized ice cream sandwiches. I made something like nineteen of them because I wanted leftovers. I love them so much that I'll eat them even in the "off-season"! They were exceptionally well received...as I knew they would be.

Half the size. All the tastiness!

I do get presents on my birthday and I'm happy to receive them but my biggest present is hosting the Tea. I love finding new recipes for the show stopper(s). I love the smells the inhabit the apartment when I'm cooking and baking. I love it when I pull a batch of scones out of the oven and they've got just the right amount of brown on the crust. I love the smiles and "Ooos" and "Ahhs" as each dish is presented and the thrilled jaw-drops at the show stoppers. Plying my friends with warmth, delicious food and wonderful camaraderie is the birthday present that fulfills me like nothing else in the world.

I want to do this forever.

Currently listening to: Michael Henderson and Roberta Flack – At The Concert

Read More