“The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”

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Week Fifty-One: Grasshopper Pie

February 1, 2010 in "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book", pie, Weekly Baked Good | Comments closed

(This week’s recipe came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”.)

Despite the fact that it will be February in one hour, rest assured that my project has been completed. I’ve just been a little too lazy in posting my final two weeks.

On Christmas Eve, I baked a Grasshopper Pie to take to my sister-in-law’s Christmas Eve party. I referred to this as Booze Pie while I was baking it, because it contained a lot of booze. I had to visit two liquor stores in lovely Park Slope to procure the green Creme de Menthe and clear Creme de Cacao (which both made an appearance at our New Year’s Eve party when my husband and his friend made Ginger Mint Surprises and Cacao Zeroes (don’t ask).)

This recipe started with a Mint Oreo cookie crust that was made up of crushed Mint Oreos and butter. Delicious.

The filling was comprised of the aforementioned booze and not much else. Some gelatin and whipped cream were involved to both stabilize and lighten the filling:

The filling went into the pie crust, which was then refrigerated overnight:

The filling tasted incredibly alcoholic the night it was made, but mellowed out the next day. It came out deliciously minty with a nice chocolately finish from the crust. The party guests seemed to enjoy it.

The next post will be my last! I can hardly believe it.

Tags: grasshopper pie

Week Forty-Six: Free Form Apple Tart

December 16, 2009 in "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book", Tart, Weekly Baked Good | Comments closed

(This recipe came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”.)

Wowwww, I have been M.I.A. for some time. Sorry about that. I plan to rectify it in the next couple of days. I’ve only got a few more weeks of baking, and I need to get the blog caught up before the baking ends!

On the first full weekend of November, Rob’s sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner. We had falafel and a Free Form Apple Tart for dessert. The falafel was good, but the tart was better.

The recipe began with making a crust in the food processor:

The dough was then chilled and then rolled out in a (rough approximation) of a circle:

The next step was to layer apple slices in a circle on the dough in what I would describe as a snow-fort pattern. My first attempt was a little too tall and a little too narrow:

The next try was much better. Once the apples were down, the dough was folded over itself and then gathered around the edges:

The whole shebang was placed on a rimmed baking sheet and baked for about an hour:

Apparently the big thing with these Form Form Tarts is that they tend to leak. That’s why it’s so important to leave about two inches of the dough uncovered with apples to fold over; it acts as a barrier. I’m proud to say that my tart did not leak. And it was delicious. And even better sliced up with homemade whipped cream on top. I plan to make this again sometime soon. It was a lot of work peeling and slicing the apples, but overall fairly easy.

Tags: free form apple tart

Week Thirty-Four: Lemon Sugar Cookies

August 22, 2009 in "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book", Cookies, Uncategorized, Weekly Baked Good | Comments closed

(This week’s recipe came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”.)

This week marked the first time I’ve brought baked goods into my new coworkers in Times Square. Now that I’m not driving myself to work, the baked goods I take in for my coworkers have to be fairly easy to transport. I don’t know if any cakes will make their way into that building. Pies, maybe, but the idea of taking a cake on the subway makes me cry.

So, for the first experiment, I thought cookies would be good. And what’s more sturdy and stable than a sugar cookie? But I couldn’t make just a boring old sugar cookie – and my cookie cutters are in storage, so I couldn’t even make cute shapes. I’d have to amp up the flavor.

Luckily, “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book” had variations on their sugar cookie recipe that included a Lime Sugar Cookie. Sounded pretty delicious to me!

The recipe started with rubbing some lime zest into sugar, which the cookie dough balls would be rolled in prior to baking:

Next, a fairly straightforward cookie dough was made, with the addition of some more lime zest:

The first batch of cookies didn’t turn out so hot. I made the balls way too big and forgot to flatten them out before baking. So they turned out like this:

I made the cookie dough balls smaller the second time around and remembered to flatten them out. I also sprinkled some additional lime sugar on top to give them an extra crunch:

Much better. Unfortunately, I didn’t take very many pictures as I needed to get out the door with these cookies! My coworkers seemed to enjoy them quite a bit:

Last night, I made the next baked good in my series: S’mores Cupcakes. I plan to write about them this weekend. Highlight: Check out the reviews of Crumbs Bakery on Yelp! One of my coworkers said my cupcakes were better than the ones at Crumbs.

Tags: america's test kitchen family baking book, lime sugar cookie

Week Twenty-Three: Blue Ribbon Apple Pie

May 28, 2009 in "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book", pie, Weekly Baked Good | 5 comments

(This week’s recipe came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”.)

I can’t believe it’s taken we twenty-three weeks to bake a pie! But summer is finally here, and fruits are in season, so pie time it was.

Apple pie is probably one of my top five foods. I would love for my last meal to be stuffed peppers, apple pie with Jeni’s Honey Vanilla Bean ice cream and Framboise with ginger ale. That sounds absolutely perfect.

A couple of months ago I was watching “The America’s Test Kitchen” show on PBS and they made a blueberry pie with a pie crust that included vodka! It was amazing! The reasoning was that too much water can make a pie crust tough. Vodka, on the other hand, mostly evaporates in heat, and therefore does not make the crust tough. And the alcohol completely evaporates, so you don’t end up with a boozy pie.

The recipe started with flour, sugar, salt being processed together in a food processor:

Next, shortening and butter were chilled and cut into small pieces and evenly distributed around the flour mixture. This was pulsed together until lumps formed:

The dough was then transferred to a bowl and the water and vodka were sprinkled over and smooshed together until the dough all came together. I got very nervous at this point, because the dough was incredibly wet. I was sure that I’d messed something up. The dough was divided into two pieces and each was wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for an hour:

In the meantime, I peeled, cored and chopped ten apples! Five Granny Smith and five Cameos went into the pie. Once the apples were sliced, they went into a large pot with sugar, brown sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. As it turned out, I should not have put the lemon juice in at this point. But I don’t think it affected the pie in the least:

The apples were set over medium heat for twenty minutes so that they could cook down. Normally you do not cook down the apples before putting them into a pie. The authors of this cookbook feel that if you don’t cook the apples, when the pie is baked the apples shrink, leaving a gap between the apples and the crust. If you cook the apples down, you can fit the crust on top of the already shrunken apples and you will not have the gap.

After twenty minutes, the apples were dumped out onto a rimmed baking sheet to cool to room temperature. If I had just dumped them into the pie, the heat of the apples would have melted the butter in the pie crust. Not a good idea.

While the apples were cooling, the bottom crust pie dough was rolled out and fitted to the pie pan. The top crust pie dough was rolled out and put on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Both were then put back in the fridge to chill again.

The cooled apples were drained of the liquid that had collected and one fourth cup was reserved. This was when I should have added the lemon juice. The apples were loaded into the prepared pie pan and the reserved liquid was sprinkled on top of the apples. Then the top crust pie dough was rolled on top of the apples. The crust was trimmed and crimped, air vents were cut and I was ready to go.

But wait. Something was missing. I looked at all the scraps of dough I had left over from trimming the edges and remembered a cookie cutter that I had…

Excellent. I’m so proud of both the apple cut out and the crimped edges. I’ve always just folded my pie crust edges over into a messy seal, but I knew I had to do something fancier for my first blog pie.

The pie was baked for about 55 minutes and came out looking a little something like this:

I cut into the pie once it had cooled down and loaded it up onto a plate:

One look inside the cut apple pie revealed just how many apples went into that bad boy:

Over the weekend I had purchased some ingredients to make ice cream, but got sidelined by that nasty allergic reaction I mentioned in my last post. So yesterday morning when I woke up, I decided I would make some vanilla ice cream to go with this pie. How can you not have apple pie a la mode?

Everything was going fine with the ice cream making until I went to get the milk. I needed one cup, so I grabbed our milk carton from the fridge and realized that I had maybe one fourth cup splishing around in the bottom of that carton. Yikes.

Then I remembered I had some leftover buttermilk in the back of the fridge, thought, “What the hey?” and added in enough to make one cup. It came out delicious! The buttermilk made the ice cream a little richer and cut down on some of the sweetness from the sugar. Yum:

Next week I’m making some Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams inspired cupcakes for a friend’s birthday party. Salty Caramel Cupcakes and Root Beer Float Cupcakes with Honey Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, here I come!

Tags: apple, pie

Week Twenty-Two: Baklava

May 27, 2009 in "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book", Baklava, Weekly Baked Good | 1 comment

(This week’s recipe came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”.)

So sorry I didn’t post this recipe last week when I should have. I baked on Wednesday evening and then Thursday evening, I started itching. I spent the weekend itching in agony, and finally went to Urgent Care Tuesday morning. The doctor confirmed it was an allergic reaction (which is good, as I was starting to freak out that it was bugs or something), but couldn’t tell me to what it might be a reaction. He prescribed me some Prednisone and it has helped immensely. A lot of my spots are starting to fade, and only my left wrist is itchy.

So, as you can see, I had other things on my mind over the weekend than posting about this baklava. And I really hope it wasn’t the walnuts and almonds that set me off (I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten both before), because this baked good was a hit.

The baklava was a special request from one of my co-workers, and how can I deny my adoring crowd? So I set out on Wednesday afternoon and got to baking.

The recipe started with the honey glaze that would be poured over the baklava once it was baked. It was a mixture of water, sugar, honey, lemon zest, cinnamon and whole cloves. This was set to boil over medium heat:

Next, I had to clarify the butter that would be brushed on the layers of phyllo dough. I was scared to death to clarify the butter; it seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. I melted three sticks of butter:

And then let it sit for ten minutes once it had all melted. Then, I skimmed the foam off the top:

Then I poured the skimmed butter into a bowl, being carefully to leave the milk solids behind that had settled in the bottom of the pan:

I did a pretty good job at it! I’m sure I left some foam in my butter, and let a few milk solids squeak by, but overall, it seemed like it worked!

The next step was to grind up the almonds, walnuts, cinnamon and ground cloves in a food processor. This would be the nut filling between the layers. This mixture was ground super fine.

Finally, I was ready to start assembling! I removed the phyllo dough from the refrigerator and…what’s that? Phyllo dough needs to be thawed? And thawing takes HOURS? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

Yup, I made the vital mistake of not checking the “Phyllo Dough Phun Phacts” (my spelling) in the cookbook on the page before the recipe. I should have left that dough out for at least four or five hours before I even thought about touching it. I decided to plunge forward. What’s the worst that could happen?

Well, the worst that could happen was that I could rip up the entire package. Twenty sheets of phyllo dough, torn right down the middle, cracking and flaking every which way. I had to throw it out. I took the other package out of the box and left it on top of my microwave while I made dinner and then went to a movie with Rob. I decided I could assemble the baklava once we got home (around 9:30 p.m.)

When we got back, it was much smoother sailing. I only ruined one or two sheets this time around, and things seemed to be going much better.

Action shot of nut layer going down!

Everything was going great until I got down to the last sheet of phyllo dough and realized something was amiss. I needed about thirty sheets of dough and I had about eighteen. Apparently, I really did need that other package. I was missing so much dough that an entire nut layer would have to be left out. A very short baklava.

I went on ahead anyway, finishing the assembly and cutting the baklava into diamond shapes before baking it for an hour and a half.

Once it was golden brown, it was removed from the oven and the cooled honey mixture was poured over the lines that had been cut. It was a heavenly smell. Some reserved honey mixture went over the top of the whole thing, and a pinch of reserved nut mixture was dropped into the middle of each diamond. It was quite pretty:

The baklava had to sit at room temperature until it cooled, which was going to take about three hours. It then needed to be covered with foil and allowed to sit for at least eight hours (clarified butter is the magical reason you don’t have to refrigerate baklava. Apparently it’ll keep for ten days). It was now 11 p.m., so I set my alarm clock for 2 a.m. and ran downstairs when it went off to cover the baklava with foil.

The next day, Rob forgot his wallet at home and I had to run it to him at his work before I left for work myself. I cut a piece of baklava to take to him (and also to take photos of it):

So, as you can see, it was a lot shorter than it should have been. Being twelve sheets short on phyllo dough definitely makes a difference. But, it went over quite well at work. The co-worker who requested it said it was “Awesome”.

That’s what it’s all about, folks. Pleasing the eaters.

This is also the first week I am taking photos with my new camera! Last week I got a Canon EOS Rebel XSi. I’m already in love with it. I’m still learning how to use the manual settings, so most of my photos so far are shot with the Full Auto setting.

This week (by which I mean today), I’m baking Blue Ribbon Apple Pie. I even whipped up a batch of vanilla ice cream to go with it. More on that later.

Tags: Baklava

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“The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book”

Week Fifty-One: Grasshopper Pie

Week Forty-Six: Free Form Apple Tart

Week Twenty-Three: Blue Ribbon Apple Pie

Week Twenty-Two: Baklava

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