Cider Apple Pie with a woven lattice crust

Son #1 thought I’d like to sample some different ciders and brought home two different brands from his student job as “logistics bar guy” (Hmm fun job). One I liked, one was meh and the extra bottle lingered in the basement. Looking for something else I accidentally toppled it. Looked at the left and saw a bottle of cooking Calvados…

Cider
Apple
Calvados
Apple
Normandy
Pie?

Sometimes my brain works like that. Even when I am not drinking cider.

Pie dough. I don’t know where I got this recipe from but it was not my favorite so I won’t repeat it here. Just use a recipe you like, or go Dutch and make a cake/cookie like crust. This one was tasty but a bit brittle. Personally I like to up the ratio filling crust some more. The filling however was different from what I usually do.

 

Cider Apple Filling
(adapted from the weekend baker, Abigail Johnson Dodge)

1 kg (2 lb) firm apples, peeled, cored, cubed 2cm
2 tbs butter
140 gr (5 oz) light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
100 ml (3.5 fl oz) apple cider
50 ml  (2 fl oz) calvados (because that’s what I had I used “cooking calvados” which is cheap and comes already flavoured with a bit of salt and pepper) By all means use the real stuff if you have it! (Or cognac?)
3 tbs cornstarch

In a large heave deep skillet/pot melt butter, combine sugar and spices and sprinkle over the apples, stir to combine and cook apple cubes on medium heat until they are softened a bit (3-4 minutes).
Adjust heat to high and add cider, stir and keep stirring, cook until the sugar has dissolved and the cider comes to a soft boil. Meanwhile combine calvados and cornstarch in a small bowl and add this pasty mixture to the boiling cider-apples in your pan. Keep stirring and boil until the liquid is thickened and clear, this will take about 1 minute. The apples still need to be crunchy at this point so don’t boil until you have apple sauce! :-)
Remove from the heat and let the apple mixture cool to room temperature.

 

Assembling the pie:

Now that is going to tough….. Not really.

I used a 9 inch (22 cm) Pyrex pie plate, buttered.
Then rolled out the dough to a 14 inch/35 cm round, lifted it onto the pie plate and adjusted so that I would have an even overhang. Nudge the dough into the sides of the dish. I like to use a small ball of dough to push the crust against the sides. I have long nails and that causes tears and stretching so a small ball of dough pushed against the sides gets the dough exactly where I want it!

I love the lattice crust! To make a lattice crust you roll out a rectangle (9x14 inches / 23x35 cm) and cut strips 2 cm wide and 35 cm long. On a piece of parchment arrange 6 strips horizontally, setting them 2 cm apart. These are the bottom strips. You’ll need another 6 strips for the top.

Two methods:

- one where you make the lattice crust directly on the pie
- one where you weave the lattice crust separately on a piece of parchment

Now, I could explain in writing how to proceed and that would be fine, however, images in this case say so much more than words….
I didn’t take pictures of the process but here is an step by step instruction, and maybe even better, here’s  a lattice crust on Youtube! (The latter uses a different method than I did but the effect is the same, plus she shows that you don’t need to weave to get a beautiful result). Both of the examples weave their crust directly on the pie and that’s fine. I created the top separately and chilled in the fridge for 15 minutes, then inverted the whole thing onto the pie (remember the parchment paper underneath? that’s why!). It’s easier to correct weaving mistakes this way and your dough strips aren’t getting wet and slippery from the filling, but I find it quite hard to position the top exactly right on the filling afterwards so there is something to be said for either way.

Now that you’ve topped your pie with a crust, it’s time to preheat the oven to 425F / 220 C (or 200 convection). Meanwhile trim both crusts, leaving a 2cm/3/4 inch overhang. Roll the overhang under itself to provide a high edge that rests on top of the plate rim. Pinch crimp the edge using your thumb and forefinger of one hand on the outside while you push your other forefinger on the inside to make a dent. Brush with milk.

 

Bake for about 55 minutes until the crust is golden and the apples are tender when pierced with the tip of a knife. I had to top my pie with some foil because it started to brown a bit quickly.

 

 

Technorati Tags: apples,pie,cinnamon,calvados,cider

We whip it, we whip it, we whip it….Bread!

Can you hear the beat? Just ignore me, I’m dancing to the music in my head.

 

Ilva as our Kitchen of the Month made us whip some dough. With a whisk! No really, a whisk!

Now eggwhites with a whisk I understand.
Understand whisking batter
Know that a cream of anything can be whisked

But I have to say that I had trouble envisioning a balloon whisk going through bread dough. First of all I wasn’t too sure my whisk would survive. And then I thought about how the dough would get in and under and between all the whisk threads. Yikes! *shudders* No fear though, the dough isn’t at all dough like, because you need to add as much water as you have flour.

I will let you digest that for a while…………………………………………………..

 

You’re there? Equal liquid – flour makes? Slurry!! We’re talking almost 100% hydration here. When I read the recipe use sifted spelt and whole wheat spelt I was certain I had both in my pantry. Turned out my spelt was whole wheat spelt….

 

 

So I did a “Labaratoire Baking” and mixed up a blend of flours using a combination of white rye flour, regular flour and whole wheat spelt. (not necessarily in the quantities given in the recipe. Which might not be wise. Ask me how I know)

The good thing is that my combination made an excellent biga, look at those bubbles in the picture above left. This is right out the fridge! A very nice smell as well. What I should have done was using this as a biga or if you will an “old dough”  and build a dough from there with new flour. But no, suddenly my conscience started to speak and I all of a sudden had an urge to follow the recipe.
Of course I could never ever shape some sort of loaf from this. I could use a pan with sides.. As it was nearing dinnertime my pan with sides became focaccia. I divided the dough up in two, draped it in two oiled oven dishes and started mixing a “topping”

 

White Topping

100 gr plain yoghurt
100 gr creme fraiche
2 tbs flour
fresh pepper/salt to taste
1 tbs za’atar
1 tbs home made chili oil
2 onions, chopped
(optional: I picked some fresh green from the garden; oregano/parsley/chives)

Combine and stir, that’s all!

I simply spooned the topping over the dough, sprinkled some bacon on top, sliced a couple of very nice sundried tomatoes, and kept the bag of rocket lettuce (arugula) for dressing later.

 

 

I was amazed by the breadiness when the pans came out of the oven (25 minutes, 200C). After all this the dough was capable of producing a very nice airy bread. Honestly I expected some drier, lots of holes, hard crusted something and out came a real bread disguised as focaccia. This is not the best picture because the guys decided they didn’t want to wait until it was sufficiently cooled, hence the mashed together crumb.

 

 

This is the recipe (as in the real one, as in how it should be done)

WHIPPED BREAD
from Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry by Hanne Risgaard
makes 2 loaves
840 g/ 29.63 oz sifted spelt flour
160 g/ 5.64 oz whole-spelt flour
10 g/ 0.35 oz fresh yeast
20 g/ 0.70 oz salt
approx 800g/ 28.21 oz water

Mix the two types of flour in the mixing bowl, rub in the yeast, and add the salt and water. Mix the dough at high speed using a whisk until the dough no longer sticks to the sides and bottom of the bowl. Scrape the soft dough off the whisk, put a lid on the mixing bowl, and let the dough rest in the fridge overnight.
The next day, allow the dough to warm for a couple of hours before continuing.
Gently turn the dough onto a generously floured work surface, and dust the top of the dough with a little flour. Divide the dough into four equal-size pieces. Quickly twist the pieces together in pairs, preserving as much air in the dough as possible. Place the two twisted loaves on separate peels lined with parchment paper. Let them proof until nearly doubled in volume.
Preheat the convection oven, with baking stone to 250°C/480°F.
Generously mist the inside of the oven with water. Ease the loaves, along with the parchment paper, onto the baking stone. Spray a little more water into the oven. Repeat after one minute. (avoid glass)
After 5 minutes of baking, lower the heat to 210°C/410°F, then bake the loaves for another 20-30 minutes more. 

 

Please go and see my fellow Babes, see how they whipped up their bread! 

• Bake My Day - Karen
• Bitchin' Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire - Katie
• blog from OUR kitchen - Elizabeth
• Feeding my enthusiasms - Pat
• girlichef - Heather
• Life's A Feast - Jamie
• Living in the Kitchen with Puppies - Natashya
• Lucullian Delights - Ilva
• My Kitchen In Half Cups - Tanna
• Notitie Van Lien - Lien
• Paulchens Foodblog - Astrid
• Provecho Peru - Gretchen

 

If you want to make this bread with us and be a  Bread Baking Buddy, then bake it, blog it and send Ilva a link by May 26th, to luculliandelights AT gmail DOT com with Bread Baking Buddy in the subject line and she will add you to the roundup.

 

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Bread Baking Babes: Gâteau á la Crème !

 

As Lien says in her blogpost; we bake up a treat this time! Lien over at Notitie van Lien/Lien’s Notes invited us in her Kitchen of the Month and decided we would bake something different. Something with eggs, lots and lots of eggs and oh butter was involved as well! Not to fear though she said, this was truly Bread Baking Babes Business because the dough uses yeast.

I was a bit terrified when I read about the egss and the butter in the dough. Notoriously bad risers those doughs! I have this nemesis recipe with eggs and butter and whiskey to make rolls… and every time I try it the dough will stay as it is. (Like a terrified dog? “Down I said and don’t you move!” That’s how that whiskey dough behaves, and it doesn’t even whimper).

Anyway, back on track, not this dough Lien said. This dough, she said will behave and will rise. To make sure we were all duly convinced she baked the recipe up and showed us the tricks of the trade. Wow. That girl knows her dough. She figured out how much dough per gateau (say that out loud please? Just for fun? Aaaah.. that feels good right?) how much dough-per-gateau we needed and the amount of filling each gateau should have. Dedication my friends, sheer dedication!

I am so happy Lien baked this before we all tried, because we’re both in the Netherlands, working with the same flours. I did change one small thing to the dough because someone mentioned the resulting bread a bit dry because all the liquid comprised of eggs. So I substituted 1 egg with 90 gr. milk. And the dough did rise! I was so surprised but it behaved very well. Then the risen dough went in the fridge for a cool-down period so it’s easier to shape. For shaping (and the rest of the recipe please check out this video here.  Mind you, Lien has rewritten the recipe to accommodate for 2 small ones, or if that's too much richness for you, you can make one round gâteau with a small brioche loaf on the side. They take about the same baking time, so just place the tin next to the gâteau when you bake it.

 

For the brioche dough
250 g strong plain flour
3,5 g sea salt
2 TBsp caster sugar
1 TBsp fresh yeast or 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
3,5 free-range eggs, preferable organic (the other half egg will be used for the glaze)
150 g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (cool room temperature)

For the crème filling (for two small gateaux, if you want to make 1 small gateau and 1 plain loaf, half it)
6 free-range egg yolks, preferably organic
60 g caster sugar
1 lemon, juice and zest
250 ml crème fraîche

For the glaze
1/2 egg, preferably organic
1/2 TBsp caster sugar
10 g (¾ oz) butter, cut into cubes (optional)
1/2 - 1 TBsp nibbed sugar, to decorate

Preparation method
1. For the brioche dough, place the flour, salt, sugar and yeast (keeping the yeast away from the salt as it will attack it and damage its ability to ferment), in an electric mixer bowl. Add the eggs and mix with a dough hook attachment for 5 minutes on low power until the eggs are completely incorporated (alternatively, place the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and stir together for 5 minutes).

2. Increase the speed of the machine or your stirring and mix for another 5 minutes until the dough comes away from the edge of the bowl. Then add the cubes of butter and continue to mix for 2-3 minutes until completely incorporated.

3. Remove the bowl from the machine, if using, then cover with clingfilm and set aside at room temperature for 1 hour to prove, then chill the dough for a further hour (it will be easier to work with).
4. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/360ºF.

5. Lightly flour a work surface and your hands. Take half of the brioche dough and bring it together with the palms of your hands to form a ball, then place it on a baking tray and flatten it slightly. Starting from the middle of the dough, gently press the dough flat and spread it out to form a circle to approx 24 cm ( 9,5 in) in diameter, but leave a 2 cm (1 in) gap from the edge as this will create the rim of the tart. Be careful not to stretch the dough and try to keep the base even in thickness. Use the second half of the dough for another gateau or make a small loaf from it.

6. Cover with lightly greased plastic and a clean tea towel and place the dough in the warm area for 25 minutes.

7. For the crème filling, mix the egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice together in a large mixing bowl and gradually mix in the crème fraîche. Set aside.

8. For the glaze, brush the rim of the gateau with the egg yolk and sprinkle with the nibbed sugar and prick the base of the dough evenly with a fork to help the even cooking and rising of the dough. Pour 1/4 the crème mixture inside the rim of the dough of one gateau, sprinkle with the caster sugar and dot with the butter. Pour in the other 1/4 when the baking sheet is already in the oven, so you won't spill. (make the second one the same way)  and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until the brioche has risen and the filling is set. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool, then serve.

NB: For this recipe you will need a food processor with a dough hook attachment. (Or work the dough in the bread machine like I did, take it out for rising)
(adapted from: Raymond Blanc "From Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets")

 

So why does it look so appetizing on all the other girls blogs and I am not completely blown away by mine? I found the dough rather dry, I think I baked it at a too high temperature too long? (And I completely completely forgot to let the dough rise for a second time!!
And I have to confess I did unmentionable stupid things to my filling; overdoing it on the vanilla is one thing, adding raspberry vanilla infused vodka instead of lemon, adding canned figs. Because they look cute. Yes. I should have stayed true to the recipe.
My filling behaved like the stock market these days, it rose and fell never to come up again. Can you tell I’m a little sad? I even contemplated to not post and make it again last night… but no. Instead I went out for a dinner date with the husband and had the most horrible bread ever with our wine. Pah! That’s heavenly punishment enough.

Posted!

 

Buddies!! As always you're all very welcome to bake along as our Bread Baking Buddy. Bake, tell us what your thoughts are about it, blog and send it all to Lien (notitievanlien(at)gmail(dot)com), so she can return the favour by sending a Buddy Badge back ánd include you all in a round up of the Buddies. Deadline 29th of this month as usual. Have a great time baking and Happy easter!

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie
blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth
Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle
girlichef – Heather
Life’s A Feast – Jamie
Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya
Lucullian Delights - Ilva
My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna
Notitie Van Lien – Lien
Paulchens Foodblog – Astrid
Provecho Peru – Gretchen

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: lemon,egg yolks

ABC Bakers; King Arthur’s no knead Cherry Walnut Bread

that officially is called Chocolate Cherry Pecan Chocolate Bread in which I forgot to add the chocolate and substituted walnuts for pecans! But… you can find the original recipe here on their website! There are in fact two recipes for the same bread, the one on the blog is slightly different from the one on their website, I used the one on the blog. Handy step by step pics; isn’t that easy?

Almost as easy as it was to make this bread, no knead so I feared a gummy inside but no, not at all! I handled the wet and sticky dough as if it were a sweet soda bread and patted the dough in shape. This got me not as much ovensprings as I hoped for and thus a slightly tighter crumb but on the whole we like this very much. A pleasantly firm crust and really nice the next day toasted.

 

Don't forget to check out the other ABC bakers' No-Knead Bread.

Assyrian Spinach Pies to celebrate Bread Baking Babes

Celebrate because it was 5 years ago Tanna and I toyed with the idea to gather baking friends and start baking together as a group. Base thought was to keep it small and intimate, to stir ideas around, to be able to have flour talks like other women discuss shoes (“do you think these heels make my ankles look fat?” translates into “when I bake this bread and retard it do you think I need to add more water due to the coarse rye flour?”). Throughout the years we found great gals, bread Babes in the kitchen but maybe even more importantly Babes at heart. The love for messing around with dough is imminent but also we found that these Babes were also a no-rules attached group of Friends, there’s always at least one of them there when you need them to vent some steam, to bitch around, to cry or to exchange silly jokes. Shout or whisper, someone will hand you that much needed bottle, the hankie, the colored jokes. A great group. And we bake!

 

 

 

 

This month Tanna provided us with a recipe for Spinach pies. Pies as in savory hand held bites originally filled with spinach and cheese but they lend themselves to every filling imaginable. I jumped at the spinach filling because I do like my spinach, then add some real feta and let my thoughts roam around for added extra’s. I thought of adding red pepper and raisins… then turned to that lonely can of figs in the pantry!
So in my bowl with filling I had this:

 

Filling idea

450 gr chopped raw baby spinach (chopped my adult spinach roughly, should have chopped more)
3 chopped canned figs
pinch of lime juice,
3 chopped caramelized garlic cloves
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1 tbs honey
75 gr chopped walnuts
200 gr crumbled feta
salt and pepper

 

Dough
1 tablespoon active dry yeast, (2 1/4 teaspoons)  = 1 package
2 cups warm water (105° to 115°)
1/2 teaspoon ground mahlab (I know I had it somewhere, couldn’t find it so I added 1 tsp za’tar instead!)
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus more for kneading, use some white whole wheat next time
1 large yellow onion, chopped and sauteed
1 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup olive oil (I used about 50 grams)

Then this dough, I didn’t think, just followed the recipe as is; resulting in a wonderful silky very sticky dough. A great dough really. To use in jelly roll fashion. As it turned out not suitable to make the circles of dough to fill and pinch together and make savoury pies. I tried rolling out 50 grams balls of dough. Didn’t work. The stuff held on to the counter as if it was fearing for it’s life. Then I tried rolling out a rectangle and armed with a big round cookie cutter tried to cut rounds…. Uhuh. Good thinking, too bad that didn’t work either. Flour flew, curses flew, rolling pin tossed to the side. I shaped more or less round disks of dough, held in the palm of my hand and stuffed the filling in, then pinched the sides together forming a triangle with raised edges. Beautiful. Upon baking the dough (being the wet dough it was) rose and cleared the carefully shaped ridges completely. Puffy bread filled with spinach. Excellent.

Leftover pies can be frozen. When cool, arrange them on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Transfer them to heavy-duty resealable plastic bags and freeze for up to 1 month. To reheat, thaw the pies in their wrapping, then set them on a baking sheet and pop into a preheated 350°F oven for 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

After 6 of those I thought: Stuff It!! and shaped the rest of the dough in a ball, baked a boule. LOL.

Now.. what I should have done in the first place was “watch while knead”. Lesson #1 of baking bread. I didn’t. I assembled all ingredients in the bread machine for easy kneading, closed the lid and went merrily on with other stuff. Lesson #2 of baking bread: hold back on some of the water, especially with US recipes only add some if need be. Now I was left with that bowl of lovely looking, great smelling spinach filling. And I still needed dinner. So I cooked pasta, tossed the rest of the filling in a big pan with olive oil and quick stirred it with a little cream…. Bliss on a plate! Lovely dinner. I won’t tell you about two boys meticulously picking out all walnut pieces before proceeding to eat. I also won’t tell you about the gagging sounds they made when they discovered they missed a piece. I do love my boys. Pity they don’t love their walnuts as much as I love them.

 

Heart shaped Spinach pie. Cute!
Please check the cutesy Babes as well; they filled and formed each in their own way. Our differences make a whole:

Bread Baking Babe Bibliothécaire – Katie
blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth
Feeding my enthusiasms – Elle
girlichef – Heather
Life’s A Feast – Jamie
Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya
Lucullian Delights - Ilva
My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna
Notitie Van Lien – Lien
Paulchens Foodblog – Astrid
Provecho Peru – Gretchen

For complete details about this month’s recipe, the BBB and how to become a BBBuddy, please read:

• BBB Kitchen of the month: Tanna, My Kitchen in Half Cups Assyrian Spinach Pies February 2013

 

 

Technorati Tags: spinach,feta,dough

ABC Bakers; a recap of long lost pictures. Boston Cream Pie

 

Happens to me far too many times lately; make the challenge recipe, make pictures while and after and never write the post to go with it. Or in this case, falling in love with son #1 new camera, take pics and realise I can’t get them off camera because I miss essential parts… This was the case for the Panettone Muffins as well as the Boston Cream Pie. So my well intended plans went out the window right the first two months of the year!

This year we chose to bake from King Arthur; the website. Very happy about that because I do like King Arthur. A lot. Their blog is down to earth, filled with sound advice and do-able recipes. On to this one then. Boston Cream pie, the Pie that isn’t a pie at all. The pie that is cake. A cake filled with pastry cream and topped with a dark chocolate ganache. What’s not to like? I chose to bake the cake in a silicon sunflower pan. Silicon pans have come a long way, the first were not very good IMHO, baking cakes or bread in the early ones made for bleak results. These days they deliver nicely browned crispy edged bread/cakes. I’m a convert!

I followed the recipe on the King Arthur website for the cake, for the filling and ganache I used my own recipe. Initially I made a ganache following their lead but wasn’t satisfied at all. Probably the chocolate chips I used were off somehow, I binned it and started afresh with dark baking chocolate and got the shiny dark result I was looking for.

 

 

The cake baked and cooled and I used this handy device to slice it in half so I could fill with pastry cream. See how nice it browned and how crisp the edges are? Almost too pretty to obscure the definition with ganache don’t you think?

 

 

Sliced cake, nice and even, a tight crumb but airy enough to please. On with the filling; I used a basic pastry cream recipe but enhanced the flavor with a bit of orange liquor and orange zest.

In my Daring Bakers time we also made a Boston Cream Pie and I remember that one as a moderately stressful undertaking ;-). I remember loads of eggs, a pastry cream that wouldn’t behave but was ultimately delicious in the end. As in “eat from the pan with a spoon while it’s hot” delicious. This time around I think the cake was better, the pastry cream thickened as it should and my go-to ganache recipe is just what it is: a go-to TNT recipe!

 

 

 

Messy cut slice, the boys too eager to dive in, not waiting long enough for the ganache to harden. They were a bit apprehensive about the filling (what’s that inside Mom, pudding?) but once tasted they declared it good and went ahead… They raved about the ganache (can you tell they’re chocolate lovers?) It was exactly the right consistency to drape the cake with a smooth and rich mouthfeel.
Don't forget to check out the Boston Cream Pie of all the other ABC bakers