Alpha Bakers: Pizza Rustica

We are finally baking Pizza Rustica - YAY!

I have wanted to make this since the book came out. I had even thought to ask Marie to put this on the schedule last year, because I really want to make it. But then I keep forgetting to send the email or post a comment about it (I guess that means I don't want it that badly). In the end, I never sent a request and figured oh well, I'll just wait for it to come on the schedule. And now it's here. And it's sort of good timing too. I've been sick for 2 weeks and when I felt better last weekend I decided to bake this a week ahead.

I don't know why I want to make this, since I'm not a big fan of things with a lot of cheese. I don't have anything against cheese, just don't find food with mainly cheese as filling very interesting. I think the name intrigue me. Pizza Rustica. Sounds very elegant and yummy. Also, the picture in the book makes it look so appealing. At any rate, I want to make it for the sake of making it and not really much for eating it.

And Marie, I made the full recipe. It was not by intention. I had written down the ounce amount of ricotta, mozzarella, and soppressata that I need for a 1/2 recipe. But there is no such thing as small portion of ricotta or mozzarella at the grocery store I went to, so I ended up buying and making the amount for a full recipe.

Alpha Bakers: Kouign Amann, revisited

For the catch up week, I made Kouign Amann.

I ordered some metal rings from Food Service Warehouse and wanted to try it out. These are actually listed as hash brown rings, which I find kind of funny that I bought them to bake Kouign Amann, but they are almost the right size - 4 inch x 1 inch (instead of 4 inch x 3/4 inch that Rose specified). I also like that they are cheaper than the usual pastry ring. I figured that if they can be used for hash browns means that they would withstand heat and would work in the oven at 400 degrees, but just to make sure I baked one of them by itself in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes - before using them for Kouign Amann. It stayed intact after 10 minutes so that's good.

Alpha Bakers: Kouign Amann

Oh it is so nice to be doing this again. I had hoped that there will be a bake-a-long for the Baking Bible so I was super excited that it is really happening and it is finally here!!! I have to admit part of me is feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of baking through 108 recipes of the book (counting from the table of contents' page). But then I remembered that I did bake through Rose's Heavenly Cakes which has 94 recipes. So I should be able to do this again!

Thank you Marie for hosting this again and thank you Rose for supporting/sponsoring our adventure. Virtual wave to all the former HCB-er/Beta Bakers and hello to new members. If you haven't bake much of Rose's recipes, you will find that it is difficult to go back to other recipes, as Rose's instructions is really detailed and tasted delicious.

Now Marie really started with a bang, the first recipe being the cover recipe. This is not a difficult pastry to make. The total time is 6 hours but most of the work is at the beginning: melting the butter, making the dough, the butter block, and the first turn. After the first turn, it is pretty much requires only very little hands-on time.

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.