Culinary Agoge

Pie Dough: Fresh Baked Fruit Pie

The next chapter in Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio is about pie dough. I’ve worked with this a few times before so I wasn’t worried about failing this challenge, although previous recipes did involve volume measures and I never considered the ratio. I doubted that the ratio for this basic dough would differ much, but was eager to test it out. Pie dough is another simple ratio known as the 3:2:1 ratio consisting of flour, fat and water respectively.

When cooking, you must think with the end in mind so as to setup your mise en place and improve your chances for success. Making pie dough alone is interesting, because unlike the bread or pasta I made previously, it by itself is not a complete food item. Since the pie dough was my focus, the filling was less important to me. I had some frozen strawberries and peaches in the freezer so I opted to use those for what I hoped to be a nice fruit pie with streusel on top.

Rulhman’s initial suggestion for the 3-2-1 ratio starts with 12oz. flour, 8oz. fat, and 2-4 oz of water depending on how much water is necessary and a three finger pinch of salt. The amount of water varies depending on the type of fat and environment conditions like humidity. The result is two 9 inch pie crusts or a crust and top. I opted for a pâte brisée, also known as a short pastry since it lacks sugar since I figured the filling and top would have enough sugar as it was and used butter as my fat. Since butter is about 20 percent water, I wasn’t sure if I would need all of the measured water.

Pie Dough Ratio From The Book:

12 oz all purpose flour
8 oz butter (2 sticks)
2-4 oz water

Filling:

10 oz strawberries
16 oz peaches
2 tbs brandy
1/2 cup sugar

Strawberry Crisp Streusel Topping:
Online Recipe Obtained From Here

3/4 cup  all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon – vanilla extract
Pinch – salt

The oven was preheated to 325 degrees F while I combined the butter and flour in my stand mixer and then added water slowly until everything became sticky, but not soupy. I then folded the dough into a disc and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes after which it was rolled out, and cut in two so I could create one pie tonight and one another night. Using a disposable pie tin, I filled it the first disc to create a nice pie shell.

Pie Dough: Pie Shell

I blind baked my pie crust for 20 minutes even though I didn’t have pie weights to ensure it would be firm enough for my filling. As anticipated, it began to bubble in the center although this mattered little to me as I planned on adding the fruit filling later.

Pie Dough: Fruit Filling

I then added my filling and covered it with the streusel topping, and placed it oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. The result was an amazing pie that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Pie Dough: Fresh Baked Fruit Pie

Creating pie dough is one of those scary culinary things that few people even consider attempting. Keeping the dough cold proved to be a challenge which I combated with regular placement of the dough in the refrigerator for a few minutes at a time to keep it cool. Overall with the use of my mixer it wasn’t as hard to work with as I anticipated, and while my pie may not be store quality in terms of taste or presentation, it was satisfying to make nonetheless. An added bonus of using the mixer besides the saved energy on my part was the fact that my body heat didn’t heat up the dough. This was a key lesson for future pie dough attempts. With one more disc waiting for me, more practice awaits and I eagerly embrace it.

The bread bug has bitten me.  After experiencing my first loaf of yeast bread, I’m totally hooked. I even made the sweltering trip to Whole Foods yesterday to pick up some extra yeast in a jar this time so that I would no run out anytime soon. After making a fresh baked baguette, I wanted to employ the ratio to make something a bit different. Michael Ruhlman gives a few suggestions and so I settled on what he describes as a sandwich bread recipe which I could make in my bread loaf tin as a variation.

15 ounces of flour and 9 ounces of water are just the right amount to fill a 9 inch loaf pan while keeping true to the 5 parts flour, 3 parts water ratio. This variation also calls for the addition of 2 tablespoons of butter. I made the dough last night but ran out of time to bake it so it was left to rest and rise in the in the refrigerator over night. Tonight I took it out and let it reach room temperature before forcing out the built up carbon dioxide and redistributing the yeast. It was left to rise again for an hour as I made pasta for dinner.

Just before I filled the bread pan with dough, I removed a small portion to use as a started for a second loaf. Ruhlman asserts that yeast is not a key component of the ratio and that is why it is left out. Given enough time and the right conditions, it will do it’s leavening job, which I intended on experimenting with to find out what my results would be like.

With the oven set at 350 degrees, the bread was put into a greased loaf pan and then put into the oven. What kind of sandwich bread would this make I wondered? As I would soon find out, the answer is the most amazing sandwich bread ever enjoyed by me! Crispy, firm and slightly sweet. Absolutely delicious. The dough variation also calls for applying a light egg wash half way through baking which produced “an appealing crust” as promised. The book is exceeding my expectations already.

Sandwich Bread Loaf

With my “starter” I worked on the sandwich bread variation again using all the same measurements and procedures. With a little extra coaxing and kneading the dough rose almost as much as the first batch. Not bad at all. For flavoring I opted to add a bit of cinnamon and sugar for a tasty breakfast bread.

After spending a few hours in the kitchen on this hot summer day, the heat was noticeable and yet strangely enjoyable. An hour after I put the second loaf it, it was ready with a crispy brown crust.

Cinnamon Bread Loaf

To my surprise, after baking, only the crust was darker with the inclusion of the cinnamon. The inside was unaffected and missing the swirls of cinnamon that I expected to see. Despite my visual disappointment, the taste was all there, not as pronounced as cinnamon loaves I have had in the past, but sweet, subtle and very yummy. I’m now suffering from carb overload. It’s a tough job, but someone must endure the pain.

As an aside, the recent pictures I have taken in my kitchen for this and previous posts are not dim for effect, they just are not working properly after the power company made some “repairs” which resulted in the baking in the dark experience on my birthday. My whole apartment now flickers like a ghetto rental in some old movie. Curse them should these electrical issues extend to affect my stove and/or oven.

Sliced Baked Baguette

It’s the method that I’m after and so as I mentioned previously, I will be embarking on a journey and cooking my way through Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking in a series entitled Cooking Through Ratio. This post is my first installment in the series.

Bread is one of those things that seems so hard to make. My mother was always “scared” of making bread. She’s a great cook and so making it seemed difficult to me. It’s one of those things that only bakers seem to know how to do. Ruhlman’s  Ratio opens up with bread dough, an interesting challenge for the bread making averse. “Everyone should be able to make bread when they want to, but rarely do we because of the perceived effort involved. When you know the ratio for bread, bread is easy.” (p. 5) I was up for the challenge.

A key component of ratio based cooking is the scale. The reason for this is that it helps produce consistent and repeatable results. It takes the inconsistency out of cooking when dealing with volume based measurements which can vary greatly due to simple changes in aeration or humidity in dry ingredients for example.

The basic ratio for bread dough is 5 parts flour, 3 parts water, some yeast and a bit of salt. This produces a versatile lean dough that can be modified based on the cook’s will to produce many variations.

I had never worked with yeast or bread flour as the basic ratio calls for, and combined with a stand mixer equipped with a dough hook, this was going to going to be a unique experience for me in more ways than one.

Last night, ingredients and hardware ready, I measured out the flour and water inside of the mixing bowl, added yeast and salt and set the mixer on the correct speed (2 in my case) for mixing dough. The mixer went to work and a little over 10 minutes later my dough was mixed and ready to rise. After about an hour, I tended to the dough which had doubled in size, needed it a few times to rework the gluten and redistribute the yeast all inside the mixing bowl. I then covered the bowl with plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge to rest over night.

Tonight I took my dough out and made sure my oven was pre-heated to 450 degrees which was easy and quick to do after just having made stuffed green peppers. I wanted to make a baguette for my first attempt, so I rolled it out on the non-stick cookie sheet I planned to bake it on which was generously floured. I covered the bread with a moist towel and let it rest for 10 minutes while I placed a cast iron skillet into the oven on the lower rack to warm up. This would be used in the next step to create steam.

After 10 minutes, I poured a cup of water into the skillet to create the steam which as the book instructed would help produce a nice crispy, crunchy crust. The sound and amount of steam created was much more than I expected. The kitchen always has its surprises.

For 10 minutes, the bread baked at 450 degrees before lowering the heat to 375 degrees for the remaining 50 minutes. I took the bread out of the oven and knocked on it a few times listening for a hollow sound. The bread delivered.

Baked Baguette

Set to cool on my counter a few minutes, I sliced it open and tasted it. This is heaven. The warm slice was so delicious I was actually upset that I did not make more dough for bread later on in the week. Overall I was surprised that something that seemed so hard was actually so simple to make. For a collective 15 minutes of actual work I was able to enjoy fresh bread at home, a pleasure all should experience.

Cooking through this series is going to be a fun endeavor, one which I am glad I took upon myself.

KitchenAid Professional 600

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a KitchenAid Stand Mixer, The KitchenAid Professional 600 Series 6-Quart Stand Mixer to be precise. I have been agonizing over buying the mixer for months and figured that since I knew I was going to buy it anyway I might as well start enjoying it now. Besides the price dropped a bit so I decided to swoop in and buy it fast as a present to myself full well knowing that I’ll have to tighten the purse strings in the months to come.

It was delivered to my office to ensure that I received it without incident since sometimes missed deliveries get returned when I am not at my apartment, and despite the commentary from a few co-workers and jabs to my manliness, I proudly carried the mixer out of the office to my car and happily into my home. This bad boy/girl (it hasn’t been named yet) is big! I’ve oood and awed at it many times in various stores to get a sense of it’s size. I had read countless reviews and specs online, and even measured my counter and storage spaces, but all that did not prepare me for the actual machine out of the box gleaming in all it’s glory. I felt like a kid on Christmas filled with excitement and then for a moment, I stood staring at it blankly, paralyzed. I had this big piece of culinary machinery in my kitchen and I hadn’t the first clue of what I was going to do with it.

My options were plentiful making my problem even harder. The only logical kid-like thing to do was to make cookies. That choice became easy. The most popular type of cookie is chocolate chip, and so I resolved to make a batch. Coincidentally, I had purchased Michael Ruhlman’s latest book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking and to christen my newest cooking tool decided to try out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe, which he’s mentioned in his blog. I only had one stick of unsalted butter left and this seemed like a timely and appropriate occasion to cut the recipe in half based on the principle of ratios. Who knew that Walgreen’s and 7/11 only sell salted butter. Mise en place rears its knowing self again.

I followed the recipe as directed and was rewarded with several crispy delicious chocolate chip cookies. They weren’t perfect, took longer than expected to bake and came out with slightly burnt and jagged edges, but it’s the taste that really matters right?

Chocolate Chip Cookies: Cooling

This little guy was best of breed in this batch. I can’t wait to take a bite.

Chocolate Chip Cookie: Cooling

As much as I’d like to eat them all in one sitting, these guys are going with me on a road trip to Vermont with my family this weekend.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cassie's Peach Cobbler

As I have mentioned before, and as it has been noted by many others, food is a great way to pass down family history and convey a story. Last weekend, Cassie shared her mother’s recipe for peach cobbler with me so that I could make it at home. The recipe itself is simple, and yet what it evokes is complex and emotional. She shared memories of making it with her mom and the smells that would fill the kitchen as it baked, bringing me into her world and her family history, and now I have another recipe that I can incorporate into my own history and pass down.
One of the hardest things for me to deal with as I improve my culinary skills is inexactness. The hundreds of pages that I have read from various texts along with the countless hours of Food Network, Travel Channel and public television shows on food, as well as my basics class have already trained me to think in exact measurements and about cooking food as a science. The scientific approach to food is at odds with the pleasure of passing down simple recipes founded on intuition.
Cassie’s Peach Cobbler
Ingredients:

6 Peaches
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk

Hardware:
9×9 baking dish

Cassie's Peach Cobbler: Ingredients

Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees (F). Slice the peaches into wedges and place them into a buttered or non-stick baking dish. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar and milk together until well mixed. Pour the contents of the bowl over the peaches so that they are well coated.

Cassie's Peach Cobbler: Prepared

Put the peaches into the pre-heated oven for 1 hour or until golden brown.

Cassie's Peach Cobbler: Baked

Tomorrow is my cousin’s college graduation. I have family in town and I’m looking forward to seeing them. Getting up for any major event and getting everyone coordinated is always a challenge, let alone getting everyone fed and out the door on time. Banana bread is something I’ve wanted to make for a while and something told me that the overripe bananas would be headed to the trash soon if I did not put them to good use.

I found some recipes online, and given the fact that I had not made banana bread before, went for a recipe with a lot of comments from site visitors.

Bananas are not as uniform is size as some other fruits. I happened to have some smaller ones that weren’t quite enough for the recipe. I opted to proceed forward anyway knowing that I could learn from my mistakes if any. I got out my ingredients and pre-heated the oven.

My First Banana Bread: Ingredients

As the recipe instructed, I combined my dry ingredients in one bowl and attempted to cream my wet ingredients together with a hand mixer. This was the first time I had used my stand mixer even though I bought it 4 years ago when I moved into my apt, another reminder that cooking has only recently become a big part of my life. The hand mixer created quite a mess. Even on the lowest setting, my wet ingredients went everywhere. I definitely am saving up for a stand mixer.

My First Banana Bread: The Dry Stuff

My First Banana Bread: The Wet Stuff

Once the wet ingredients were fairly mixed together, I folded them into my dry ingredients. The batter was not as moist as I thought it would be and I started to wonder if I should add more liquid of some sort to compensate for my lack of bananas. I opted to not alter the recipe since I would have nothing to compare my results to if I made it again.

My First Banana Bread: All Mixed Up

After everything was combined, I placed my batter into my bread tin and smoothed it out with my spoon.

My First Banana Bread: In The Bread Pan

The recipe called for 60 to 65 minutes of baking time, so I set my timer and hoped for the best. At 60 minutes, I used a knife to check if the bread was ready and fully cooked through and decided to pull it out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack.

My First Banana Bread: Baked

I sliced the bread immediately and once cool, placed it into plastic bags for transport. It tasted really good, but think it could have benefited from some more moisture. Baking is supposed to be precise and I’ll be sure to measure my ingredients the next time around.

Yummy. I just baked another batch of muffins, cherry walnut to be precise.  I am sure this would not surprise you. I’ve been baking a lot and writing about it here. The muffins and the recipe are tried an true.

There is an interesting difference between baking and cooking. I live alone and when I cook, I cook for myself. Baking on the other hand allows me to create a food substance that is easier to share with people. It doesn’t have to be hot, and if properly stored can last a while. Sharing is a key component of being in the kitchen and a reason for my enthusiasm. I put my best foot forward along with my time and effort to produce items that are not only for me, but to share with others. The results have been well worth it. Sharing is something that is easier for me to do through baking until I get to the point where I am in fact cooking for others such as family and friends.

I’ve taken my muffins and bread into the office and received thanks and praise from my co-workers and my family enjoys my creations when they come for a visit. Baking is an equal part art and science as is cooking in the kitchen. It’s perhaps less forgiving than cooking over a stove  and yet it tends to be a relaxing activity employing the laws of nature and time.

As I continue my culinary education process and use the techniques I learn, I strive for balance between cooking and baking with the goal of being more well rounded with the culinary arts. Be assured though that I will continue my baking posts and share my experience good and bad. It’s just too tasty not to.

I just finished up writing about my French Apple Tart attempt.  As I read my culinary books and learn more about what it’s like to work in the industry I am more in tune with the efficiency required in the kitchen when cooking. This was a problem in last Friday’s cooking class. I am also more aware of waste and how unused food can be re-crafted into other creations to avoid waste and save money. Tonight I tried to tackle both lessons head on.

First, I was left with extra apples and pie dough from my French Apple Tart since it was smaller than the recipe called for after cutting it. The only thing that came to mind given the quantity that I had was an apple pie. I figured I had enough pie dough for one of my ramekins and I also had enough apples to fill it. I rolled out the dough and lined the ramekin and then placed the apples inside with butter and some apricot jelly.

Improvised Mini Apple Pie Filled Up

I then covered the top with the remaining dough and poke vent holes in it. I brushed the top with melted butter and placed it into the oven along with the tart with 30 minutes to go.

Improvised Mini Apple Pie Ready For Baking

It only took about 25 minutes for the pie to bake, and once the crust looked nicely browned I pulled it out to cool.

Baked Improvised Mini Apple Pie

Once it cooled enough to eat, I was able to enjoy my second gym workout-destroying dessert of the night. I was very happy with the result. The addition of the apricot jelly added some nice texture and flavor to the end result.

The second thing that I have noticed is that I create things in single batches and don’t leverage a pre-heated oven or the fact that I already have my tools and machines out for making food.  I decided to leverage this by creating chocolate-chip walnut muffins that I can eat for breakfast throughout the week. I’ve had a lot of practice making the muffins, so this was an easy task.

I had turned down the temperature in the oven to 375 degrees F as the recipe required. I then mixed up my batter and greased the muffin tin. I was feeling pretty confident with the batter and decided to put in more chocolate chips and walnuts than usual and set my timer for 20 minutes before putting the batter into the tin.

Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins Ready For Baking

They muffins were placed into the oven and set to bake as usual while I began the clean-up process. While I was more efficient with my time and tools, the kitchen at this point was quite croweded and needed to be cleaned up to make space. Cleaning up as you go is something so simple and yet so important when working in the kitchen. After 18 minutes the muffins looked perfect and I took them out to cool.

Baked Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins

I realized that after 5 minutes of cooling I had forgotten to take them out of the tin and put them onto the cooling racks. I did this as quickly as possible fearing that the hot tin would cause them to become mushy as they cooled as was stated by the recipe.

Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins Cooling

The muffins finished on the racks, but they were noticably different than previous batches. They were a bit softer to the touch and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of my carelessness with the recipe with respect to the addition of chocolate chips and walnuts without measuring or if it was forgetting to pull them out of the tin and place them on cooling racks immediately.  Luckily taste was unaffected and delicious as usual.

A few weeks ago I turned on the the TV to watch the Food Network, a common occurrence these days.  The Barefoot Contessa was on with a “back to basics” special, so I decided to stay tuned in. If only you could order a cable package with just the Food Network. One items she made caught my eye, a French Apple Tart. It looked simple to make and when done, looked delicious. I figured, why not make it when I have some free time? I bought the apples and apricot jam that I needed and put them away until I had time. Tonight was such an occasion. I don’t know why I chose to spend my time this way. My cupboards and freezer are jammed packed with bread and cookies, and now I have more items to add to them.

I created my dough and put it in the fridge to stay cool for one hour. I then started peeling the apples and realized my peeler sucks; this is the first Oxo product that I would have to say is no good. Once peeled, I realized coring them would be a problem. I don’t have a melon baller, so I had to use a pairing knife. This is the second Oxo product that I have that is no good. The handle was just too big, and the apples were just too delicate. I was able to cut my slices and get them ready. Time passed and my hour was up. My next task was to roll out my dough. The dough was tough to roll and a bit dry and started to split as it became thinner and thinner. As I pressed on,  I realized that I would have to do some serious cutting to make it rectangular and uniform. This left me with some extra dough

With the dough rolled out, it was placed on parchment paper set on top of a non-stick cookie sheet. The oven was preheated to 400 degrees F and I started to place my apples on top diagonally as described. I next placed the sugar on top and then cubes of butter throughout.

French Apple Tart Ready for the Oven

I set my timer to one hour and then placed the cookie sheet into the oven. The recipe said that it should take between 45 to 60 minutes so I figured at 45 minutes I would check in for doneness (…is that a word?). At 45 minutes, it looked close to ready so I let it stay for another 10 minutes. That clearly was too long. My edges burned and as I opened the oven door smoke billowed out causing my smoke detector to go off. I’m sure my neighbors love me. I pulled out the apple tart and set it to cool.

My Baked French Apple Tart

In the meantime I heated up some apricot jelly and rum in a sauce pan to thin it out. I then drizzled the mixture on top of the tart and let it cool before taking the first bite.

French Apple Tart with Apricot Glaze

Despite the burnt edges, the apple tart is amazing. My tart was smaller than it was supposed to be, and that might have contributed to the baking results. I also shouldn’t have let it stay for another 10 minutes, but I was afraid of opening the oven too many times and causing the temperature to drop. I envy those with a glass window in their oven doors that allows them to check their food. I also envy those with gas stoves and ovens, but I don’t want to get too greedy. One can dream.

I just got back from dinner with my cousin Gladys celebrating my birthday at Oishi, a Japanese restaurant in Boston’s South End. I was still feeling like making something, anything at all for practice. I know I am supposed to be working with eggs to further my skills, but I don’t think I can stomach another omelette, fritata, scrambled egg or anything of the sort for a while. My plans for making mayonnaise for my lunch sandwiches was thwarted by the power outage that I experienced and continue to experience as I can’t use deli meat for sandwiches anymore and need to get some more. Keeping up with the Irish theme I searched for something quick and simple and settled on Irish Shortbread cookies, what I hoped would be a great end to the evening as dessert.

The recipe for “Irish Shortbread Cookies” was simple requiring flour, sugar, salt and butter. How could this go wrong? I mixed my ingredients and rolled them. This dough was really sticky and stuck to my “non-stick” rolling pin.  The cookies were easy to cut with a pizza cutter, a trick I learned from Alton Brown on his show Good Eats and were put on a cookie sheet. The dough was pricked with a fork as the recipe requested and I set my timer.

Shortbread Cookies Before Baking

After about 10 minutes I knew something was wrong. The cookies were just flattening out on my cookie sheet and some of the thinner ones began to brown. I took them out earlier than the recipe called for at 15 minutes, flat and missing the fork prick marks with the thinner ones close to burnt.

My Flat Shortbread Cookies

Unfortunately I don’t know what went wrong, yet this incident did remind me that recipes can’t be blindly followed. I wasn’t expecting them to rise, but instead harden up as moisture evaporated from the dough. I suspect that the heat was too high causing the butter to melt faster than the moisture evaporated. On the bright side, the non-burnt cookies do taste good although they are a bit on the oily side.