Bake 52 Week 30: Lattice-Top Peach Pie

This week we made Peach Pie. I choose to make teh All-Butter Double-Crust Pie Dough. The other option "Foolproof Double-Crust Pie Dough" called for vodka and the recipe specifically said that vodka was essential and should not be substituted with water. We'll we don't drink and I wasn't interested in buying a bottle of vodka to use a quarter cup in a pie dough recipe!

The pie dough was pretty easy to make. Most of the mixing was done in my food processor. I forgot to take any pictures until I was done with the crust. When I pulled it out of the frig to thaw before rolling out I noticed I hadn't done a very good job with the mixing.

See the big chunk of butter in the dough? I ended up using quite a bit of flour when I rolled out the dough. I think I should have pulsed the food processor a few more times than the recipe called for. 

I got to use my new pastry mat for this recipe. 

It's so wonderful!  No more tape measures and I got my dough to 11" first try!

While the dough was thawing I worked on the peaches.  I used the blanching method to peel my peaches.  For the most part it worked great.  But I got water all over the place when I let the water on the stove boil away on high while I peeled one of the peaches.  After I got the temperature set up so it stayed boiling but not boiling over it went great. 

The peaches were so wonderfully sweet I later wondered if I really needed to add a full cup of sugar to them.

But since you drain off all but 1/4 cup of the juice I figure it didn't matter. 

I had a terrible time with the strips for the lattice top.  To get the dough big enough I had to roll it out really thin.  Plus I didn't take the time to use a ruler to get the width even so they are pretty ragged looking. 

After letting the peaches sit in the sugar for an hour I drained them and mixed in the cornstarch and lemon juice.  Then it was time to assemble the pie!

My dough strips were pretty stiff after being in the freezer for a half hour.  But after letting it all sit for about 10 minutes I was able to shape it and seal it. 

The crimping wasn't very easy either.  That's definitely something you'd have to practice.  The pie cooked up so beautifully!

It finished just before bedtime so I didn't get to try it until the next morning.  Peach Pie for Breakfast!!  Does it get any better than that?

I really, really enjoyed the crust, so sweet and flaky!  It wasn't soggy on the bottom or anything.  I just wish the pie was full of fresh peaches instead of cooked peaches.  They were so yummy raw.  They just aren't that good cooked...

For the full recipe check out Talesha's blog

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College Flashback

I went to the University of Utah for college.  My last year I spent all my time on campus, especially winter quarter.  I ended up eating lunch and dinner every day at the commons.  At some point during that year the commons started offering these wonderful brownies.  They were deep, rich chocolate, with chocolate chips, chocolate frosting and a caramel swirl.  They were so, so wonderful.  I got one every time they were available - sometimes two!  I bet those brownies added 10 or more pounds to my frame that year. 

Recently I started wondering if I could recreate them.  This past weekend I gave it a try.  I used this brownie recipe, with dutch processed cocoa. 

Look at all that chocolate yumminess!  I mixed the chocolate chips with the flour and then added them when the recipe called for the flour.

I read once that if you coat the chocolate chips in flour they won't all sink to the bottom of your baked good. 

Doesn't that look yummy!  I could have eaten that raw.  As a matter of fact Jonathan and I shared the bowl...

Unfortunately I tried to improve the recipe.  Instead of making a buttercream chocolate frosting I made a cooked fudge frosting.  I love that frosting but it wasn't an improvement over the original. 

Once I frosted the brownies I melted some caramel with a little milk.  I found these wonderful caramel bits for this step.

I've never seen these in Utah but they are in every grocery store here in Southern California.  It's such a break not having to unwrap caramels! 

It only took a minute or so to melt the caramel and then I just spread it over the top of the brownies.

The brownies were really good, rich, but not the same as the college brownies. As a matter of fact, not as good.  I'll have to try again some day.  I think I would have had it if I'd used a chocolate buttercream frosting.  Oh, well... next time.

Bake 52 Week 29: Cinnamon Rolls

This week Valerie picked cinnamon rolls.  I was really tempted to do the sticky buns instead because to me those are much tastier.  But I thought that wouldn't be right - it's not a variation of what Valerie picked.  Its a whole different recipe!  Plus (and this is the main reason) Jonathan loves cinnamon rolls.  I couldn't resist trying to make him some and seeing if he likes them better than Wal-marts cinnamon rolls in a can - his favorite!

I used the make ahead option for the dough.  Any time I can stick the dough in the frig overnight to raise I'm all over that!  The dough was very simple.  I used the sour milk option for buttermilk, because I couldn't find any at the grocery store.  I finally ordered some powdered milk from Amazon but it hasn't come yet.  I'm not sure if its supposed to do this but by the time I was ready to add it to the other wet ingredients all the milk solids had clumped and settled to the bottom.  It looked really gross but I just dumped it in.  :-)

The ingredients, all prepped (butter melted & cooled, soured milk warmed) and ready to go.

The first step was to mix the wet ingredients in a large measuring cup.

Then you measure out the dry ingredients and mix them in your stand mixer.

The last step is to add the wet to the dry and mix at low speed to incorporate. 

Then I up'd the speed to medium to knead the dough.  The book said it would take about 10 minutes but after 5 it looked good to me - pulled away from the side of the bowl but still sticking to the bottom and was smooth and elastic.

Then I stuck it in a bowl, covered it with Press & Seal (I love that stuff!) and shoved it in the frig.

Sunday morning first thing I pulled the dough out of the frig.  It had risen nicely.

I let it sit for 30 minutes to warm up before I started working with it.  While I waited I put together the filling.  As traditional it had brown sugar and cinnamon but it also included spicy cloves - yum!

The recipe directed me to pat the dough into a 12 x 18" rectangle.  This was the hardest (well, certainly longest) step of the whole process.  It took me close to a half hour to get it right. I really struggled to get the corners square.  Even after all that effort I still think I left them too rounded. 

It too me a bit to figure out how to straighten the sides.  As I pressed the dough to get it thinnner and bigger it naturally formed an oval.  I finally figured out that if I pushed the sides up and in I started to get more of a straight side.  The dough was also pretty elastic.  I'd stop and measure to see how I was doing and one side would be basically right but the other side needed to stretch.  So I'd work on it a bit more trying to just expand the one length but when I'd measure again the other side would have shrunk!  Like I said - a long, iterative process. 

Once I had the size right I brushed the butter on the dough and then patted the filling on. 

The recipe only said to leave an edge at the top of the dough.  Since it didn't mention it I was worried that if I didn't get the filling close to the side edges I'd end up with a couple of cinnamon rolls with no filling.  Well I didn't need to worry.

As I rolled up the dough I lost filling out the end, so I would have been better to leave more of an edge. 

The second hardest step (for me anyway) was getting the dough to seal.  I must have pinched that dough 5 or 6 different times or ways.  I even tried wetting the edge of the dough.  I worked the dough so much messing with the seal and patting the ends in that when I was done and measured it I was already at 18"!

Using my tape measure I started cutting off rolls about 1.5" wide.  That wasn't very successful. 

You can see above that every roll was a different height.  I decided I needed a different approach.  I measured the remaining roll and figured out what was half.  Then confirming that it looked like half I cut partway into the dough.  Then I did the same thing with the rest of the rolls, cutting each section in half. 

It worked pretty well and gave me much more uniform rolls. 

I sat my rolls in the sun, covered with plastic warp and about an hour later...

they were ready to go in the oven.  After I took the picture before they went to rise I read that I was supposed to put the cut side down.  I had put all my rolls cut side up.  I figured other than the two ends both sides were cut so it didn't really matter.  But I flipped the two end rolls to be safe. 

While the rolls baked I made the glaze.  After having the sour milk turn into something pretty gross when I used that for the dough I took the option to use regular milk in the glaze.  In addition to that the glaze consisted of cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.

After 25 minutes of baking the rolls looked perfect so I pulled them out and let them rest for 5 minutes

After five minutes I turned them out on a wire rack and then separated and turned them all over.  Then I spooned the glaze over each of them.

All ready to eat!

I thought the roll itself was really good.  I loved the sweet bread taste.  The cloves added a wonderful spicy taste to the cinnamon and sugar.  The glaze was very, very sweet but the recipe gave just the right amount of glaze for each roll so it just added a nice layer of sweetness to the roll.  Jonathan's review, "These are really good!"  I rarely get a "really" so I was pleased.  For me I think they are the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had.  Good enough that they changed my mind about cinnamon rolls.

Dig in! 

For the recipe check out Valerie's blog.  Thanks for hosting Val!

Bake 52 Rewind, Week 5: 7 Layer Bars

I had some time this afternoon so I decided to make one of the dishes that my Bake 52 baking group did before I joined. Since I only had a couple of hours and I have a terrible time with dough rising as quickly as I expect I decided to do a dessert recipe.

After confirming that I had all the ingredients I got started.

Several of the ingredients had to be prepped before I could use them. When I don't go through and prep all the ingredients as required by the recipe first I get in trouble with the timing of the recipe. Not a big deal with this recipe but I figure I better get in the habit for the cake and bread recipes where it does matter.

So I broke up the graham crackers, melted the butter, chopped the milk chocolate (I used Hersey Bars - 5 and a quarter of them!), toasted the pecans and the coconut. While the coconut was toasting I started putting together the crust (layer 1).

Ground chocolate covered toffee bits...

The toffee & graham crackers ground up...

The toffee, graham crackers and melted butter...

It pressed into the pan really easily.

I had taken the time to form an aluminum sling for the pan like the recipe indicated. I ended up with some space at the corners but the pictures in the cookbook showed something similar so I didn't worry about it. I should have just followed my instincts and covered the pan with aluminum foil in one piece or even better made sure there were no gaps between the to pieces. But more on that later...

Once it had cooked for 10 minutes I scattered the chopped chocolate across the top of the crust (layer 2).

The recipe directed me to "let sit until the chocolate is softened but not melted, about 5 minutes." But my chocolate had been sitting in my 80 degree house. It was soft when I chopped it. When it hit the crust it started melting immediately. So I just spread it around.

Next came the rice crispies (layer 3).

Next the pecans (layer 4). I love pecans. I think they are my favorite nut...

Next the chocolate chips (layer 5).

Next the coconut (layer 6). I really don't like coconut. Plus I didn't have any sweetened coconut, only unsweetened coconut. I don't think that made a difference. it's not the taste or the sweetness of it. It's the texture. It tastes like straw to me.

The last layer was sweetened condensed milk with vanilla (layer 7). It took a bit of work to get the vanilla blended.

It just sat on the top when I poured it in. Plus I had used a bowl that was just large enough to fit everything so I couldn't mix it very hard without making a mess - which I did a couple of times.

All ready to go in the oven...

I baked it 25 minutes rotating after 13 minutes. I looked in the window while it was baking and saw that I was getting bubbles around the edges but didn't think it was a big deal. But once it came out of the oven I saw that it had given me a weird texture, and darkened more than the rest of the dish.

Once it had cooled for two hours I tried to pull it out of the pan using the sling. This is when I realized I'd made a mistake with having a gap in my sling.

The aluminum just tore. The sweetened condensed milk had leaked through the gap and essentially baked the aluminum into the bars. Yuck!

My first piece didn't come out well at all.

The alumimum foil was all smashed up in the bar. I just threw that away. I've bitten into aluminum foil before. Not an experience I wanted to repeat.

My second piece wasn't much better.  Although there wasn't any Aluminum foil embedded in it.

Finally the third piece was perfect.

Unfortunately the coconut was much more prominant in the bar than I'd hoped. With as much chocolate and other yummy stuff I hoped I'd like them better. Although that didn't stop me from eating the whole piece. I just tried to scrape the coconut & sweetened condensed milk layer off. The rest of it was yummy. I especially liked the crust. I'll have to figure out something to make with the crust. Maybe I could do my own version and substitute the coconut with something else. Any suggestions??