PPB: Great Pumpkin Pie

A short post to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

For a Halloween celebration at work I made the Great Pumpkin Pie from the Pie & Pastry Bible. I am not a big pumpkin fan but I had a lot of leftover pumpkin puree from making a Pumpkin Cheesecake a few weeks ago. Not wanting the puree to go to waste, I froze them, hoping I can use them again.

The pie turned out pretty good. It uses a butter crust and not the cream cheese pie crust that I love so much. I much prefer the taste of the cream cheese crust though. What's different about this pie is that it calls for processing gingersnap and pecans and putting it at the bottom of the crust.

As for the taste, I'm eating my piece and it is not bad. I can't get more excited than that, pumpkin is just not a flavor I like :).

PPB: Apple Puff Pastry

These pastries are simply so good!

I had made a batch of puff pastry back in March. For no reason other than I want to make it. When I got the Pie & Pastry Bible a couple of years ago I made puff pastry, roll it out and bake it, in the hopes of making napoleon. I didn't weigh down the pastry correctly so they all bake up and puff up all over the place. My napoleon turned out great in the taste department, but it's very rustic in the looks. Kinda like how a street looks after harsh winter, with pot holes and bumps all over the place.

PPB: Designer Cherry Blueberry Pie

Last week my husband decided to surprised me with a new camera: Nikon D7000!!!

I can't even tell you how happy I was (jumping up and down and bouncing off the wall in excitement).

I have been coveting a new camera for a while, but thought I should wait.

Needless to say I was so surprised to come home one day to find a box in the room, with a bouquet of red roses, and a card.

To celebrate the occasion, I made pie, :)). It is, after all, his favorite type of dessert.

After much consideration, it was going to be either the nectarine raspberry pie or the cherry pie. When I got to the grocery store, the cherries were on sale. So cherry pie it is. For kicks, I thought I added blueberries to the mix too. I've seen such pie in a bakery so why not.

This pie is supposed to use sour cherries, but I've never seen such cherries in my life, so I got sweet cherries instead. I cut the sugar in the filling by 1/2 to compensate for the sweetness.

PPB: Cherry Rhubarb Lattice Pie

I've never made a pie with rhubarb before. I think I've had it and it was pretty good, but it was so long ago that I don't remember.

Whenever I make pie, I usually make apple pie.

This weekend, I thought I should make something different.

Since I am in love with Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cream Cheese Pie Crust, I want to make a pie that use this pie crust.

So I leafed through the book.

Technically, I can make any pie with this crust, I think. But I was curious to find out what comes with the pie crust.

I found 2 interesting ones.

Cherry Rhubarb and Strawberry Rhubarb.

Which one?

Undecided, I thought "let's see what's available at the store..."

I got to the store and found both cherries and strawberries.

I picked cherries.

They looked fresher, while the strawberries looked too ripe.

Now let's get baking!

PPB: Love for Three Oranges

This is Love for Three Oranges from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie & Pastry Bible. Did you know that Love for Three Oranges is a title of an opera? It's a story about a prince who's addicted to tragic poetry. The doctors told the King that the prince's sickness can be cured with laughter, so then a mission began to find someone that can make the prince laugh successfully. Several people tried to make the prince laugh, one of them was a witch. The witch tripped over while trying, revealing her underclothes. The prince laugh. Pissed off, the witch cursed the prince with obsession for "love for three oranges." So then the search began for the three oranges, which turned out to be real oranges that upon opening each one materialized into a princess. Strange right? But I do find that opera story often does not make sense - and they tend to be very melodramatic (kinda like soap opera but much fancier). You can read all about this opera on Wikipedia here.

Back to the tart. I have been wanting to make this tart for a while. It is now citrus season and when I walked into Whole Foods last week I saw both tangerine and navel oranges up front and they are both on sale. I bought both right away. I've read the recipes briefly several months ago and I remembered 2 of the oranges' component: navel oranges and orange juice. I don't remember the 3rd orange but Julie over at Rose's forum mentioned she has used tangerine and loved it so I figured I should be safe buying tangerine :).

This tart is time consuming to make. None of the steps are hard but they take time. So much so that Rose even breaks it down for you for 3 days.

I made it over 2 days - yes I am crazy that way. But I also made 1/2 recipe, baked in 4 mini tartlet pans.

Day 1: Make the crust (chill, shape in the pan, and freeze), make the orange curd, make the caramel sauce, macerate oranges.

The crust is called sweet cookie tart crust - basically it's pate sucree. Easy to make, combine the flour, sugar, and butter until the butter is pea-size, then add the egg yolk and cream mixture. Chill the dough for 20 minutes. While the dough is chilling, I made the orange curd.

Orange curd is pretty easy also, whisk yolks and sugar in a pot, pour in the tangerine juice, add a pinch of salt, and butter. Place the pot over low heat, stirring constantly. I cheat and use medium heat, it's okay as long as you watch it and stir constantly! When you see steam, lower the heat or take it off the heat, while still stirring constantly. I found that I have absolutely no patience stirring citrus curd for 30 minutes - which is about how long it takes when I use low heat, so I have been cheating (sorry Rose!). So far it's been successful :). Once the curd has thickened, strain it, and mix in the orange zest (the tangerine doesn't have very appetizing-looking skin, so I use navel oranges' zest :)).

Next, macerate the oranges. Peel and supreme navel oranges. 1/2 recipe means that I should use 2 oranges, but I find that I need 3 to get enough slices. Then make the caramel sauce - cook water and sugar until it's dark amber, then pour in the cointreau. Once the sizzling stop, add in orange juice. Put the pot back over the heat until the caramel melted. Once all the caramel has melted, pour the sauce over the orange slice. Cover and store away.

By this point I have spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen. Tired and orange-d out, I spent the evening watching some mindless TV show :).

Day 2: Blind bake the crust, make the sponge cake layer, make the orange curd cloud cream, make the caramel glaze, compose the tart.

Rose said that if the crust has been frozen for more than 6 hours, you can bake it without any weights (beans/rice). Mine's been frozen for about 24 hours so I bake it as is. While baking, the bottom of the crust keeps rising so I had to poke it with a fork several times. Next time I will use the beans to weigh it down as I like a poke-free blind baking. Not a big deal, but it's just annoying having to remember to keep checking.

The sponge cake layer is very similar to the biscuit roulade. It might just be biscuit roulade. One of my favorite type cakes. I made 1/2 recipe baked in a quarter sheet pan.

The orange curd cloud cream calls for making gelatin-stabilized whipped cream and then fold it into the tangerine curd.

For the caramel glaze, drain the oranges and pour the caramel sauce into a pot. Boil until reduced to 1/4 cup. This is where I messed up. Rose said to boil until thickened and bubbly. It was bubbly pretty fast but it's still more than 1/4 cup so I kept reducing it. Until it turned into caramel goo - as in, there is no way it's pourable or spreadable onto the oranges.

Tasting impressions:
Where do I begin? I feel like I am in orange heaven. If there is any tragedy here it would be the tragedy of not making enough tarts. The orange cream is the star of this dessert, combined with the sponge cake it is super good! This goes to the top of the list of favorite tart - I am already plotting making it again!

Holiday Baking

This is Pecan Pie from Rose's Pie & Pastry Bible. I don't make pies as often as I'd like. But I just purchased Lyle's Golden Syrup and wanted to try it asap. Somehow the 1st thing that came to mind is Pecan Pie.

It is pretty easy to make, first make the crust. Once cooled, place all the pecans in the crust, and proceed to make the filling. The filling is really easy. Combine all of it in a pot under low heat and stir until it's thick. This step is the hardest, because I find it completely boring to stand there and stir constantly. I think next time I should bring a novel or something and read while waiting. Rose said this takes 7-10 minutes but it took me 20 minutes (and it felt like an hour).

This pie comes with a bittersweet glaze, which is basically melted chocolate with cream added - like ganache before it's thickened. I need to learn how to make parchment cone, it broke midway so then I just ended up applying it with a spatula.

Oh well, that's what the whipped cream is for, to make it prettier and cover all the imperfection :). Since we are planning to eat the pie over several days, I made stabilized whipped cream and added bourbon.

Tasting impressions:
Really really good. I was afraid of it being too sweet with the golden syrup and the sugar, but I think because it used brown sugar it taste less sweet. The whipped cream is really yummy and added a nice flavor to the pie.

I also made some cookies yesterday. The sugar cookies are from Susan Purdy's Pie in the Sky. It is my go-to sugar cookies recipes and it's very good! I also tried to make gingerbread cookies from RHC, but I used regular molasses (instead of light) and even though I reduced the quantity, they taste too strong. I still decorated some of them, for practice.

So for my HCB readers, these are why I am slacking off and did not make the Vanilla Bean financiers. I was going to make it yesterday but ran out of time.

So there you go. Holiday Baking at Knitty Baker's house. More to come...

PPB: Marionberry Turnover

This is Marionberry Turnover from the Pie & Pastry Bible. The crust is Rose's yummy-licious Flaky Cream Cheese Crust. In the book, Rose gave the option to use apples, cherries, raspberries, blueberries for filling. But I thought I'd try to use the yummy marionberry.

I made 1/2 recipe which was supposed to yield 12 mini turnover. I ended up with 15 :). Something's wrong with the math there but no one's complaining though, as these are so good.

Now for next time, I might actually follow the instruction and make one with apples, or blueberries. The possiblities are endless!

Danish Braid

I made this Danish braid a couple of weeks ago. The danish dough recipe is from Rose’s PPB, the fillings are frangipane and frozen bluberries cooked with sugar. This dough is softer than the croissant dough so it feels easier to roll and handle. I really love working with laminated dough, I can’t really explain it, something about rolling the dough makes me feel happy. A couple of error I made: I didn’t notice that the danish braid requires only 1/2 of the danish dough recipe, I made the full batch so ended up with 2 danish braid. I filled the other one only with frangipane and forgot to take a picture of it. Also, I put too much frangipane in the dough, it leaked over during baking. Neither mistakes is a big lost - the danish taste heavenly and I will make it again.

PP&B: Apple Pie

This is Open-Faced Designer Apple Pie from page 84 of the Pie & Pastry Bible. My first attempt of making this pie last month were not this good: the bottom crust was a bit under baked and the leaves around the crust looked like it was hit by a hurricane. I was so happy that this second attempt was more successful. One tip I have for anyone who is going to attempt this is to try to split the task into 2 days: make the crust and shape the leaves on day 1, then finish the pie on day 2. If you can't do this in one day, start as early in the day as possible. Also, be patient. The leaves take time to make. You have to roll out the dough then cut it with a paring knife. By then the dough is too soft so have to chill it before prying the leaves out. Then have to chill the scraps again before rolling it out and cutting it. Anyone who's ever made sugar cookies in different shapes would know what it takes. Next time I should try putting the chilled marble pastry board beneath it so it doesn't get soft too fast.

Regardless of the time it takes, I was glad I did it. I don’t think this is something I will do often, but it’s nice to do it at least once to have the experience, and of course, apture the moment in eternity in a nice picture, :).