TWD Double Crusted Blueberry Pie

Okay, okay so you’re a TWDer and you’ve just spent all day reading at least 100 blogs all about blueberry pie and here I come all late in the day with my dinky little pie baked just a few minutes ago. After I got home from work. If you’ve even gotten this far without just scrolling to the pictures and moving on, I congratulate you and appreciate it, but I’m sorry, I’ve got a story to tell. And now that you’ve gotten this far you have to finish reading the post. You’re exhausted from your days work as a TWD blog cruiser, understandably so, and you just don’t want to read anymore? Gotcha, I most definitely feel you. Do me a favor though and at least leave a little “Hey! Looking good there, partner!” in the comments. Just so I know that I at least some people are still staring at their computer screens, looking at my late in the afternoon little pie.

So, a couple of summers ago I spent a little while living on a very small farm in King’s Valley, Oregon. Very small, like there was a house, a good sized piece of land where the couple who lived there grew their food supply and a beautiful blueberry patch. I worked for them farming and in return I got to live, sleep and eat in their home. The best part about it? Other than the fact that these remain two of the most incredible people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, I lived with a flipping blueberry patch. Rows and rows and rows of blueberry bushes all neatly aligned and pruned and bird-netted. I ate more blueberries that summer than ever before in my life, or since.

Every week we spent about two eight hour days picking, just picking. Mostly it was just two of us. Our general goal was as close as we could get to 100 pounds. Then on Friday nights, right after picking for the day, we would eat dinner and then spend another five hours or so sorting out all the stems, ugly berries and earwigs. It would be late into the night by the time we were done. Then on Saturday morning we’d get up at six in the morning load up her tiny, tiny car and drive with our buckets of blueberries to the Corvallis farmers market and sell them all.

Those were fun times.

We sold half pints of blueberries for $2.50. And every Saturday I’d think to myself, “Man these people are suckers.” And you know why I thought that? Because I lived with blueberry bushes outside my door and a consistently full bucket of berries in the kitchen. I ate blueberries like nobody’s business. I ate a handful of them when I woke up in the morning as I made oatmeal which I would put blueberries in. I’d eat them frozen when it was hot. I ate them in crumbles. I cooked them up with honey. I ate them all day long. And I ate them for free.

sigh

For Free.

So needless to say when I went to the market to buy blueberries (which don’t grow around here) for this pie and they were $5.00 for a half pint I was all like “Ha! I’m no sucker, no way José.” Then I looked at frozen blueberries and they were no cheaper. What? I don’t know. I just can’t pay for blueberries after that summer. I hadn’t since and I hadn’t planned to. All week I had fully intended to skip out on this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie, but then at the last minute, yesterday actually, I was at the store on my lunch break from work and just did it. I bought a half pint and thought I’d just make a mini pie. Okay. I’m a sucker.

So when I got home from work last night and I went to make my pie I looked around and was all like, “What? Where’d my blueberries go? Shit. I left them at work. Shit.” Yeah. I’m such a sucker.

Sooo, you still reading? Good, I like you. Now it’s Tuesday and my plan was to come home after work with my little container of $5.00 blueberries, make the pie and post it real quick in the hopes that everyone wasn’t too burnt out yet. I even left work early. This is how it went:

Me: I have to leave work a little early today.
Coworker: Okay. How come?
Me: Oh, I have an appointment.
Coworker: Ah, doctor?
Me: Yep…

Yeah, so what. I’m a liar and a sucker.

I’m quite glad I ended up making the pie. It looks fantastic. I haven’t had it yet, because I have to let it cool and I’m saving it for dessert and by then it’ll be way too late to post. Sooo I don’t know how it tastes yet, but I assure you it will be delicious. You know how I know this? Because it smells gloriously. I'm not even kidding.

This morning before work I put together the crust and refrigerated it already in the little gratin dish. When I came home I turned on the oven and threw together the filling in about two minutes. I didn’t measure anything, I used agave nectar instead of sugar and I added a couple leaves of young mint. I can’t wait until dinner. Then dessert. Oh, what's for dinner you ask? Tomato and homemade ricotta (thank you Jayne) tart. The pain of waiting is so woeful.

This weeks choice was Amy's. She's from South in Your Mouth and has the recipe posted up with her beautiful pie. If you haven't already (which you probably have) go see some other Tuesday with Dorie pies.

Red Shiso Three Ways

At my farmers market last weekend I picked up a little bunch of red shiso. The ruffly herb is commonly used in Japanese cooking as garnish and coloring agent. It is served alongside sashimi, rolled up in nori maki, used in sweet confections and in umeboshi. I believe as modernity is coming into this plant, it’s being used more as an herb, which is great because it really tastes wonderful. It is in the mint family, Lamiaceae, and is sometimes called perilla. The flavor is quite unique and is reminiscent of some other plants in it's family. It is a bit spicy and slightly astringent. There are two types of shiso, red and green. The red leaves turn everything they touch pink.

Out of my shiso I made three things, a beverage, a sauce and a sorbet. They were all pink and varied from light to almost red. The dishes all had other flavor components as I meant to use the shiso as a flavoring rather than the main element and they were all enormously tasty.

The beverage was written in my notebook under the heading “beverage”. I’m not a namer of things most definitely. It is a muddled cocktail with a gin base. The sauce is a lime butter sauce that I usually make with whatever herbs I have on hand, this time it was shiso. The sorbet is in my notebook under the heading “red sorbet.” And that’s about as creative as I get with names. *Campari, used in the sorbet, is a delicious Italian bitter.

Beverage
8 red shiso leaves
1 slice lime
1 ½ ounces gin (I used Bombay Sapphire)
½ ounce simple syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters
1 ounce club soda

Muddle the shiso leaves with the lime in a shaker. Add ice, gin, simple syrup and bitters. Shake. Strain into an old fashion glass with ice and pour the soda over. Garnish with a slice of lime and a shiso leaf.

Lime Butter Sauce with Shiso
½ cup dry vermouth
1 shallot, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 lime, juiced and zested
½ cup whole milk
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature and cut up
½ cup loosely packed shiso leaves, roughly chopped or torn

Put the vermouth in a sauce pan and reduce by half over low heat. Add shallot, garlic, lime juice and zest and milk and reduce by half again. It should take about ten minutes to reduce and thicken. Add butter slowly, whisking until smooth. Add shiso and stir over very low heat for about a minute. Strain. Serve with roasted artichokes or fava beans or something that looks good with pink.

Red Sorbet
1 pound strawberries
3 tablespoons water
7 tablespoons Campari
8 tablespoons sugar
½ cup loosely packed shiso leaves, roughly chopped or torn

Place half the strawberries in a saucepan with the water. Try to use the lightest colored strawberries here. Place the lid on the pan and cook over low heat for about two minutes until the strawberries are quite well softened. Pour the cooked strawberries along with their juices into a food processor. Add the raw strawberries and sugar. Process until smooth. Add the Campari and process again to combine. Taste now and adjust sugar if desired. Transfer to a bowl, stir in shiso and cover. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Strain out the leaves and process in an ice cream machine. Or freeze it granita style.

TWD Apple Cheddar Scones

This week Karina from The Floured Apron was responsible for hundreds of scones coming into existence by way of my favorite weekly baking group, Tuesdays with Dorie. I thank her from the bottom of my buttery little heart for having me make these and getting me out of my little one scone cave.

Up until now, I have had only one scone love and it was the Cook's Illustrated oatmeal scone recipe. When I make scones, I make those scones. Sure I'd tried other scone recipes before, but none were as good as those and every time I had a scone driven craving, I made them. What do you call it... a rut? Yeah, that's it.


And so hooray for the scones that I would like to think will pull me out of it. I liked these ones, I liked them a lot. They were sweet in that savory sort of way, where if I had a hankering for sugar they wouldn't satisfy, but they most definitely hold their own on the snacking board. With any luck these scones will have opened me up to experimentation beyond my tried and true. The apple cheddar scones of Baking are composed of a beautifully basic recipe with finely chopped dried apples, shredded cheddar cheese and a bit of cornmeal. I think a big part of the subtlety and goodness of them lies in the "finely chopped" part of the apples. I think it evenly disperses the mild sweetness of the apples in a wonderfully discreet manner. There were no noticeable chunks of anything in my scones and I rather liked that. The cheese I used was a locally made white cheddar. It was mild, but imparted a nice aged sort of taste on my baked good, I liked it. Another lovely ingredient was apple cider and as is my custom when a recipe calls for it, I got a 22 ounce bottle of Fox Barrel hard apple cider. Used the little bit for the recipe and enjoyed the rest along side.


Perhaps my favorite part of this week is the fact that four of my scones are still in the freezer. Yep. I only baked two of them straight away, the rest I froze, wrapped in plastic and they now await me in the freezer for breakfasts throughout the week. They require only a slightly prolonged baking time right from the freezer. Oh the joy.

Lunch and a Few Good Blogs

Here on the internet there is a pleasant and pretty blog dedicated to my favorite thing, food. This particular food blog is run by a lovely woman who recently endowed upon me two little gifts. One was a tasty, spicy lunch and the other was a very kind award. I'll go ahead and start out with the lunch.


Mari, who writes this blog, Mevrouw Cupcake, recently posted about a dish of Spicy Szechuan Noodles. The dish is composed of soba noodles, raw vegetables, bean sprouts and a wondrous little sauce. Being instantly attracted to it, I began sprouting my mung beans immediately. This is easy, as easy as sprouting anything else, which is easy. Soak, drain, rinse, drain, rinse, drain, rinse, drain and you've got bean sprouts. Yum city. After a trip to the farmer's market I had a nice selection of small white carrots, various colored radishes and cucumber and I came home and whipped the dish up in no time. I made half her recipe and got three big lunches out of it. It's quite delicious with a killer sort of peanut dressing.


The other thing I got from Mari was an award. Well, shucks. I'm honored. I thank her endlessly for a hefty little ego boost which is quite nice to get every now and again. In turn I'd like to recognize a couple of other women whose blogs I find myself drawn to.

Jayne from The Barefoot Kitchen Witch writes a rather entertaining blog about food and family. I love reading her posts, check out her and her husband's Hail Marys.

Caitlin from Engineer Baker caught my attention with her awesome monicker and paring knife sharp wit.

So to these two bakers get this Excellent award, but since I didn't exactly follow the rules of the award passing and I say rules, schmules anyway. I claim that they don't have to follow them if they don't want to. Feel free, though, to pass it along if you'd like.

Thanks again Mari. And thanks to Jayne and Caitlin and all of the other bloggers who put so much effort into keeping me entertained and informed on the old internet.

Danish Braid

The month of June represents laminated dough to the ladies and gentlemen of the Daring Bakers. Hosting this month is Kelly of Sass and Veracity and Ben of What’s Cooking? who chose a wonderful danish as our recipe for June. The Danish is a lovely sort of laminated pastry and the recipe which was chosen, from The Secrets of Baking by Sherri Yard, is a beautiful one which includes cardamom, vanilla and orange. The filling is an apple and cinnamon sauté with lemon and butter. No kidding, the spices and fruit used here form quite an awesome flavor. I made half the recipe which yielded one heftily sized Danish braid. The recipe I’m posting has been halved and converted into grams.

Danish Braid

For the dough
5 grams (½ tbs) instant yeast
60 grams (¼ cup) whole milk
30 grams (1/6 cup) sugar
Zest of ½ orange, finely grated
½ tsp ground cardamom
3 grams (¾ tsp) vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 large egg, chilled
26 grams (1/8 cup) fresh orange juice
210 grams (about 1 ½ cups) all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt

For the butter block
1 stick cold unsalted butter
9 grams (1/8 cup) all-purpose flour

Dough
Combine milk, sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix well on low speed. Change to the dough hook and add the salt, yeast and flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Without a standing mixer: Combine yeast and milk in a bowl with a hand mixer on low speed or a whisk. Add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice and mix well. Sift flour and salt on your working surface and make a fountain. Make sure that the “walls” of your fountain are thick and even. Pour the liquid in the middle of the fountain. With your fingertips, mix the liquid and the flour starting from the middle of the fountain, slowly working towards the edges. When the ingredients have been incorporated start kneading the dough with the heel of your hands until it becomes smooth and easy to work with, around 5 to 7 minutes. You might need to add more flour if the dough is sticky.

Butter Block
1. Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.
2. After the dough has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 9 x 7 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the dough to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 7 x 9 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Apple Filling
2 Fuji or other apples, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch pieces
50 grams (¼ cup) sugar
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ vanilla bean, split and scraped
30 grams (1/8 cup) fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Toss all ingredients except butter in a large bowl. Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat until slightly nutty in color, about 3 - 4 minutes. Then add the apple mixture and sauté until apples are softened and caramelized, 10 to 15 minutes. If you’ve chosen Fujis, the apples will be caramelized, but have still retained their shape. Pour the cooked apples onto a baking sheet to cool completely before forming the braid. (If making ahead, cool to room temperature, seal, and refrigerate.) They will cool faster when spread in a thin layer over the surface of the sheet. After they have cooled, the filling can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Left over filling can be used as an ice cream topping, for muffins, cheesecake, or other pastries.

Assembly

1 recipe Danish Dough
1 recipe apple filling
For the egg wash: 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.
2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.
3. Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends. Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.

Proofing and Baking
1. Spray cooking oil onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 1 hour, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.
2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.
3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 10-15 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

Sprouted Rye Sourdough

It’s late spring and things around my kitchen are getting sprouted like nobody’s business. Therefore I was wholeheartedly giddy when Zorra, founder and current host of Bread Baking Day chose sprouts as June’s theme. At the very start of spring I wrote my first bread formula that was actually documented in about three pages of my notebook and it was for a wheat berry sprout sourdough. I had been wanting to play around with the formula and try it out with rye sprouts. Then BBD 11 came along, grabbed my hand and shoved it into my bag of rye berries. I did the rest on my own.

Sprouting rye berries to yield 213 grams of finished sprouts: Put 130 grams or ¾ cup berries to soak in the morning. Use a jar large enough so that you’ve got about 2/3 empty space. In the evening cover them with cheesecloth and drain. Leave the covered jar upside down and at a slant in a bowl and cover the whole thing with a kitchen towel. The next morning rinse them with cool water, swirl, drain and put back under the towel upside down. That evening the sprout at the end of the berry should be just a little nubby thing poking out. Do not rinse anymore at this point. Cover the jar proper and refrigerate until use and make that useage within a couple days if possible. If your sprouts are ready before this amount of time, by all means stop and refrigerate, just be sure they don’t get rinsed right before they go into the fridge.

Sprouted Rye Sourdough
213 grams rye berry sprouts
250 grams ripe wheat starter (at 100% hydration, I did my final build 80% wheat, 20% rye)
257 grams water
200 grams bread flour
130 grams whole wheat flour
10 grams salt

Grinding the sprouts
In a food processor grind all of the sprouts with 30 grams of the water. Grind until most all the grains are broken up and it is a mostly cohesive mass.

Mixing and kneading
Combine the starter with the remaining 227 grams of water and stir to combine. Add the sprouts, flours and salt and mix. Knead by hand for about eight minutes and let rest for five. Or knead in a mixer for about five minutes with a dough hook on medium-low speed. Let rest for five minutes. The dough is pretty sticky. Knead by hand for another minute and put the dough in an oiled bowl.

Bulk fermentation
About 3-5 hours. Let it rise by about half. No stretch and folds here, the rye is too fragile.

Shaping and proofing
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and divide in half. Preshape, cover and let rest for five minutes. Shape gently into boules or batards. Proof for about two hours, being sure not to overproof, again fragile rye here.

Baking
Load into a 500 degree oven with steam. Turn oven down to 425 after a minute or so. Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating loaf halfway through baking. Cool completely.

TWD Mixed Berry Cobbler

Thanks to Beth of Our Sweet Life TWDers baked about 42 gallons of berries this past week. And that's based on the assumption that half of us halved the recipe, which is what I did because my stinkin boyfriend won't help me eat desserts anymore. Boo. Oh, you didn't know? I'm sort of a math nerd, I'll use any excuse to break out the old calculator.



This mixed berry cobbler is pretty basic: sweetened and thickened berries on the bottom and a plain biscuit topping baked over that. I used whole spelt flour rather than all purpose and it came out really tasty. My berries were nothing special. I got them frozen. At the store. They were on sale. I picked out all the strawberries. I had the cobbler with ice cream and I had it with coffee. Coffee was better. I had it cold, at room temperature and warm. I've got to say room temperature was best.

During blackberry season, I pick all the blackberries off the bushes in my apartment complex at the crack of dawn every day before anyone else is awake. I feel bad about it sometimes, but not that bad. Blackberry season isn't for another month. This cobbler made me want blackberries. I actually usually make crumbles out of them. This cobbler made me want a blackberry crumble. Oh, sorry. I'm rambling. Maybe I'll make jam this season. I used to make jam in a commercial kitchen. It would get really hot in there, what with all the giant pots of boiling water. Ah, jeez. Okay. Go away now and look at all the other cobblers. Oh, and have a lovely day.