Lemon Cream Icebox Cake

For this recipe I ventured yet again into the wonderful world of icebox cakes. Like before, this one was also for my wife. But it’s not for the reasons you might think. Yes, she still likes icebox cakes. Yes, I still like making things for her. But, it wasn’t a birthday surprise this time. It was because of my new (un)favorite word of the day: anosmia.

It’s a condition where you lose your sense of smell, and it happens to her sometimes. As you might imagine, what comes along with it is that she also loses her sense of taste. Can you imagine not being able to taste anything? I surely can’t. It seems so integral to our experience of food. But it happens to her from time to time, and this time it hit her pretty hard.

She really couldn’t taste much of anything. The only things she could taste were very strong and basic: sweet, sour, salty, etc. I wanted to make her something, and she figured maybe the lemon would be strong enough for her to taste. She sent me a few recipes with lemons in them, and I decided on this one. It looked fairly straightforward, but it still took some time. I didn’t opt for making my own lemon curd. Maybe next time? 😉

After zesting.

As I said, it was pretty straightforward to make. I gathered the ingredients and measured things out. It took some time to zest and squeeze the lemons. (The lemons looked really bare without their peels on.) I used four small lemons instead of the two large ones the recipe called for. I used four packs of graham crackers.

I used the KitchenAid for the mixing. The butter took a while. It kept clumping to the beater without getting beaten. It probably wasn’t soft enough, but eventually I got it whipped. I put in the cream and combined it, then added the rest of the ingredients. I set the speed a little too high and stuff flew everywhere. I put it back down to a reasonable speed. The KitchenAid made quick work of it. I still love it. I was able to do other stuff while waiting: like cleaning up, getting the dish I was going to use down from a high cabinet, etc.

I layered the ingredients as directed. It’s a smart idea they gave putting a little cream down on the bottom to hold the graham crackers. I had a little trouble with the lemon curd. It was hard to drizzle. I shplooped it down and tried to separate it out. (Yes, for those keeping track, “shploop” is an industry term.) It was later that I realized that I had forgotten to warm it per the instructions. That would’ve helped.

The first layer of graham crackers.

I used one package of graham crackers per layer. I had to figure out exactly how much whipped cream to use. I was conservative at first, but then put more on so I could at least cover each layer. I’m experienced enough with icebox cakes now to know that you need a decent amount of whipped cream in between each layer to get it to work. I managed it okay, as I had enough for each layer. I had a little left at the end, so I probably coulda put a smidgen more in each layer, but I just threw it on top which was fine.

The first complete layer: graham crackers, lemon cream, and lemon curd.

Also, because of the aforementioned non-warming of the lemon curd, I wasn’t able to get it to look quite as it was supposed to on the top layer. IMHO, it still looked nice, just not super fancy. I put it in the fridge to chill as directed.

Wash, rinse, repeat, and you end up with this.

My wife helped by doing most of the cleanup. I asked her if she wanted to lick the beater. She did. And lo and behold she could taste something! At first I thought she was joking, but she could actually taste it. It tasted like something. Citrusy something. It was the first thing she had tasted in a while. It had four lemons (juice and zest) and a whole jar of lemon curd in it. So I had been hopeful that she could.

A little peek inside.

I mean, it smelled very lemony to me. I tasted a little of the lemon cream. It was strong. Good, but very lemony. I also washed my hands a bazillion times, and I couldn’t really get the smell out. After the recommended 2 hours, we tried it. It was definitely ready.

Would you like a piece?

And as for the taste? It was really good! You could taste the whipped cream and the mushy graham crackers a little, but the strongest taste was the lemon. It wasn’t super sweet, rather it was very tart. It was very good, but if you don’t like lemon, stay away. It wasn’t just a little bit of  lemon. It was a like lemon tree set up shop in your mouth. (Or punched you in the face.) In a good way.

Close-up!

And as for my wife? Well the preview was a sign of good things to come. She could really taste it! It tasted citrusy to her which was huge. She could tell all the different textures and she could feel her mouth puckering up from the lemon. Yay! Mission accomplished! Thankfully her taste has come back since then, but it’s good to know that we can turn to this if we need to.

Have you or someone close to you ever lost their sense of smell or taste? How did you or they deal with it? Do you have any recipes that are able to make a difference? It can’t hurt to stockpile them just in case. Thanks in advance!

Recipe courtesy of Bakeless Sweets, by Faith Durand, via the Kitchn.

Apple Pie – Goodbye Edition

Hey guess what? It’s another apple pie! As you might know, I’ve made a few before. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t make this because I forgot I made it before, quite the contrary. I made it for a friend. We worked together, and he was leaving to go to our company’s LA office. When I found out he was leaving I told him I would make something for him for his goodbye party. I said I could make him any dessert he wanted. He asked for apple pie.

Now if you recall, one of those previous apple pies I made (well two actually) were ones I made for work. So he’s had my apple pie before. I told him I could totally make that for him, but it didn’t have to be that. I said that I make other stuff, and he could have whatever he wanted: cookies, cake, pie, whatever. He said apple pie was his favorite dessert, and he really wanted me to make that for him. I understood. Sure, I said, apple pie it is.

We were having the goodbye party on a Tuesday. Sunday night I made the crust. Last time I made this recipe, it filled two of the aluminum pie dishes I had. Since I only needed one pie, I made half a recipe. It looked so small. A normal recipe isn’t too bad, the slab pie was one and a half times the recipe, but this half a recipe seemed like almost nothing. As usual, it was very easy to put the crust together. There was just a few ingredients and one bowl. Minimal time and cleanup. When I was done, I split it into two and stuck it in the fridge to chill.

Monday night, the night before the festivities, I made the pie. I stopped at the corner store to get some apples. After dinner I set about making it. Since I was already comfortable with the recipe, I played a little fast and loose with the directions. To fit the pie dish, I only made a half recipe of the filling as well.

I started on the apples first, as that usually takes a long time. I washed them, but I forgot to peel them before coring them. Then instead of cutting them, I used our food processor with a 6mm blade. (6mm is about 1/4 inch, which is the size called for in the recipe.) This is how I’m going to make all future apple pies. Normally making an apple pie is so labor intensive, what with peeling, coring, and chopping all the apples. This was so much easier.

I used about a pound of Granny Smith apples and a little over 3/4 pound of McIntosh apples. When I bought the apples, I had just guessed at the amounts. I had another McIntosh, but rather than cut up half an apple, I decided to go with the amount of full apples that was closest.

This wasn’t too long after my last baking extravaganza, so I had some lemon juice leftover from making the glaze for the cherry slab pie. I used that and zested a lemon which I still had. After mixing those into the apples, I rolled out the dough.

I wasn’t exact, but rather I just guessed at the dough size, and I was pretty close. Since this was a smaller pie plate, I knew the dough didn’t have to be quite as big. After mixing the spices into the apples, it smelled like apple pie. I poured the apple mixture into the pie plate with the dough. It looked like a little too much, but I piled it up in the middle like they suggested. And it worked out okay.

I rolled out the second piece of dough. Again I wasn’t being too exact. I guessed, and it was a pretty good guess. I used scraps from the first piece to fill in a couple of spots on the crust which needed it. (Some of the apples were kinda poking through on the top.) I folded up the dough and fluted it. I was very happy with the fluting. I impressed myself a bit. I guess I’m getting better, what with the rolling and guessing the right size and the fluting and such.

I cut slits in the top. I used heavy cream as a wash (leftover from the cherry slab pie and teddy bear hot tub s’mores) instead of an egg wash. I didn’t have any eggs handy and I didn’t want to get any just for this. (Thank you internet for the tip.) I didn’t measure how much, I just guessed. I sprinkled it with sugar, again using half. I figured that since it was a smaller and shallower pie, it would still make sense to use half, even though the surface area of the pie wasn’t half.

I followed the instructions for baking temperature, although I didn’t put the sheet in the oven ahead of time. I just put it in when I put in the pie. I covered the baking sheet with foil, too, just to be safe. Since the pie was a little bit smaller, I cooked it on the shorter side. The first round was about 22 minutes. I rotated the pan 180 degrees and cooked it for the second round, about 28 minutes.

I could smell it all along the way. It smelled awesome. And after it was all said and done, it looked fantastic. I could see the juices bubbling, although not bubbling over this time. The crust was a nice color. I could see steam rising up. Wow, it was a nice looking pie. I put it on a cooling rack to cool. It was done around midnight. 

At this point, I’d like to say a big thank you to my wife who again did the cleanup both along the way and at the end. Thanks, hon! It saved me a lot of work.

I took the pie in to work the next day. We actually didn’t get to it until the day after. (Turns out crowded bars aren’t always the best places for pie.) When we did get to it, people ate it up. They ate it up so quickly, I didn’t really have a chance to take pictures of how it looked on the inside. In any case, it was delicious and thoroughly enjoyed by all. It was on par with any of my previous apple pies. And my friend was happy with the send off.

How happy? Well, we have regular conference calls with our LA office. Word has now travelled there about my apple pie. The LA office is all abuzz, and they keep asking about making a pie for them. Will I bring them one? Will I send them one? The pie has now taken on mythic proportions.

Do you have a recipe that people like so much they ask you to make it again and again? Do you have a favorite dessert you make over and over? What’s your signature dish?

Pie recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen. Crust recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Apple Pie – Work Edition – Part 2

So as you may recall from last week, I made a yummy apple pie to bring into work. The story did not end there, though. As I mentioned, there was a second pie involved. I know you were waiting on the edge of your plate to find out what happened. This is that story.

I had made the first pie (on a Sunday), and since I brought it in to work, I had used an aluminum pie pan which was smaller than the size the recipe required. That means I had a bunch of dough and filling left, and I was determined to use it. Also, my friends had seen the first pie before I brought it into work, and they were salivating over it, so I promised that I would make another one so they could have some.

As I mentioned last week, there was a delay in getting to the pie at work. So instead letting that one go bad, I brought it home to eat. (Yum!) That means I had to make the second pie to bring into work.

So late Tuesday night, just after midnight (technically Wednesday morning), I started on the second pie. I don’t know about you, but there’s something fun and perhaps revolutionary about baking late at night. Perhaps it has something to do with breaking conventions and rules?

I was pretty sure there was enough dough and filling left for another whole pie. I hadn’t been sure how soon I would get to it so I had put the remaining dough in the freezer after making the first pie. I had taken it out around 10:30pm. I was worried that it wouldn’t defrost in time but it did.

I followed the directions from memory. Although since I had done all the hard work the first time, I didn’t have to do that much. I just assembled it. I referenced the recipe just to check on the time & temperature at the end.

I preheated the oven. I floured a surface and the dough and rolled out the bottom crust. It wasn’t exactly right, but it was close enough. I put it in a pie pan which was the same size as the one from the previous day. I let it sit and chill while I rolled out the top. It didn’t get to chill as long as it should have, but I left it in as long as possible, and I think it was okay.

I rolled out the top. It also was not exactly right, but close enough. Once I knew I had it decent, I took the bottom out of the fridge, brought out the leftover filling, and filled it up. I didn’t use all the liquid, cause it seemed like too much. The pie wasn’t filled up as much as the first one, but it was pretty much filled.

I topped it with the top crust and curled it under. I had to patch in some of the dough where the bottom wasn’t wide enough in a few places. (I used dough that I ripped off from the overhang to patch it.) When I was done there were a couple of tiny scraps. As my mother’s son, I wanted to hold onto them, but I knew there was nothing I was actually going to do with them and got rid of them. Then I fluted the crust. (“Fluted” is such a great word.)

Almost ready to bake!

I cut the slits in the top of the crust and did the egg wash. (Like last time, there was too much flour on the crust, which made it hard to do the egg wash.) Then I sprinkled it with sugar. I tried to do it a little more evenly than last time. When all that was done, I turned down the oven and put the pie in around 1am.

Ready to bake!

After the first part, I rotated it and turned down the temperature. I only put it back in for 27 minutes. Last time it was maybe a teensy bit too brown, and this one seemed a little smaller. It still smelled great and warm and yummy.

After the first round of baking.

I took it out after the 27 minutes in the second round. The filling was a little bubbly, and the crust was definitely done. (Maybe too done.) A little bit of the filling oozed out this time, but not nearly as much as last time. I put the pie on some paper towels, to deal with the oozing, and then set it on top of a rack to cool.

Voila!

It smelled like apple pie should. I could see the steam coming off of it. The texture was lovely. I took some close-up pictures. I finished up a little before 2am.

After making arrangements at work, we agreed that Thursday would be pie day. And so it was. We had pie. With ice cream. We meaning me and some of my co-workers. In the middle of the day. For no other reason than we had just decided to. It wasn’t someone’s birthday. No one had gotten a promotion. It was just because.

One guy had a very specific plan for the pie, and since the whole thing was kinda his idea, we followed it: we microwaved the pie for 20 seconds and topped it with Haagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream. The ice cream was good. It went well with the pie. We got a lot of interested looks from passersby. I’m not surprised, as it was kind of a spectacle.

Look at that crust!

I thought the pie was equally as good as the first. But don’t take my word for it. Here are some quotes from others about the pie:

“This is really great.”

“This apple pie is bangin’.”

“Amazing crust.”

“I don’t really like apple pie, but this has changed my mind.”

“This is the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted.”

Check out that filling!

So there you have it. An unexpected second round of apple pie awesomeness from a single recipe. Have you ever gotten an unexpected or bonus round out of a dessert? Have you ever brought desserts into work? Fill us in!

 

 

Pie recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen. Crust recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Apple Pie – Work Edition

Some desserts are born of planning. Some are born of desperation. This particular dessert was born of casual conversation.

One day, I was talking with some colleagues at work. One mentioned a particular dessert that he enjoyed: apple pie with a particular ice cream. Nonchalantly, I said I could make the apple pie. We set a date for a little over a week later so I would have time to make it, and he would still be in town.

I wasn’t bluffing. I knew I could make apple pie. But in actuality, I had only made one before. This salted caramel apple pie. But I needed a regular pie, so I poked around at some apple pie recipes a little bit. I decided to go with this one from smitten kitchen as her stuff always rocks. I didn’t want to at first because the crust she mentioned in the apple pie recipe had shortening. But I decided to go with her later crust info, the one I use for many of my pies, and use it with this apple pie recipe.

Hey look, I made some pie crust!

I made the crust in the late afternoon. It was easy. I’ve made it a few times before. I love having a pastry blender, as it makes short work of these types of things. (I’ll admit that at first I didn’t want to get one, because I didn’t know how often I would use it, and who needs more useless stuff around. But it has come in handy on so many occasions.) After making the crust, I took a little break. I probably started too late though because…

Okay, actually two pie crusts. One for the bottom and one for the top. All wrapped up and ready to chill.

The apples took forever. (But thankfully not forever and a day, because then I would have been a day late and a dollar short.) Because they were bigger than called for in the recipe, I had slightly too much Granny Smith apple, so I used fewer of the McIntosh (not to be confused with Macintosh) apples. They were smaller than the size mentioned, so I just went with weight. I washed, peeled, cored, sliced, sliced, sliced, and sliced. And then I sliced some more. I used two bowls, which made it much easier. But since my McIntosh apples were a little smaller than what they were expecting, I should have modified how I sliced them. They got too small to work with. I took a break for dinner in the middle of working on the apples, that’s how long they took.

So. Many. Apples.

Also at some earlier point while working on the apples, I took a different break because the dough had chilled enough (almost 2 hours). So I rolled out the first half. I put it in a pie plate and refrigerated it as suggested.

I listened to some fun stuff on NPR while working on it. This led to a great discussion with my wife during the dinner break. We talked about education, poverty, low self-esteem, college, mentors, etc. It was really great.

After dinner I continued. Then came the lemon. Oh the lemon! I zested and squeezed the whole thing even though it was a little bit too much. And the spices, yum! They smelled like apple pie. (Different than the salted caramel apple pie, but still yum!)

With spices.

I realized that I had way too much filling because the pie plate I was using was smaller than 9 1/2 inches. I put in as much filling as I could, and I refrigerated the rest of it to use for a later recipe. I kinda knew it was too small going in (the pie plate was an aluminum one so I could bring it in to work and not worry about it), but I figured it couldn’t hurt to have some leftover filling, and that way I wouldn’t have to worry about futzing with the recipe. (Futzing, it’s an industry term.)

So full of apples.

I then rolled out the second piece of dough. (I did a regular pie top, not a lattice top.) I tucked it and the bottom one under and fluted it. I had accidentally tucked the bottom crust under first, as I was following the pie crust recipe and not the pie recipe, forgetting that I had the other crust to go on top. When it was all done up right, with the double crust tucked under, it was thick, which is how you want that part of the crust to be.

I cut slits on top. Fun! I brushed it with egg white. It was like I was painting. (You can call me the Matisse of apple pies.) I had a lot of flour on the dough, as suggested, but I probably should have brushed some off, as it was hard to brush on the egg white. I sprinkled sugar on top. More fun!

All ready to bake.

I didn’t preheat the oven as early as suggested. I waited till much later in the recipe. It was still ready a few minutes before I needed it. It was interesting that they ask you to make it too hot at first and then turn it down. I guess that makes it a little bit hotter for the beginning.

It smelled amazing while it was baking. When the first part of baking was done, the crust looked kinda awesome. It was nice and golden brown like they said. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to interfere with the baking process.

It smelled exactly like you would imagine apple pie should smell. I finished baking it for 30 minutes in the second half. It didn’t need more. It was very brown, but not too brown. I peeked by turning the oven light on with a few minutes left just to see how it was going. I was worried it might be a little bit too brown, but it came out looking good. The crust was a different recipe (from her other page), so in the back of my mind I was concerned that it might cook differently. It turned out looking okay.

Fresh from the oven.

It was supposed to bake until “juices bubble”, but in this case the juices oozed a bit. You could see them a little bit under the edge of the crust, and when I went to lift up the pie, you could see they had oozed out a bit underneath it. It was a gooey mess. Not horrible, but enough that I had to put paper towels down underneath it before putting it on a wire rack to cool. It reminded me a little bit of how the salted caramel apple hand pies had oozed out.

Note the oozing filling.

I’m wondering why the pie oozed out a bit. Maybe I filled it too full? I knew it wouldn’t all fit in, but I wanted to use up a bunch. Maybe I cut the crust too short? I didn’t measure the 1/2 inch overlay exactly, I just guessed. Maybe I didn’t close it up enough? It seemed some of the apples were almost kinda poking out a bit. Maybe apple pie always oozes a bit. I don’t know. Do you?

Still looks kinda awesome though, right?

I left it to rest. It said it needed to rest for four hours. It was almost midnight when it was done. I left it till the next morning. I was bringing it to work anyway. A while ago, I mentioned writing up some “rules” for baking. If I do, one rule will likely be: never start apple pies after 3pm.

So I brought the pie to work. There was a lot going on at work. The people I was going to eat it with at work were busy, so we had to delay. I left it in the fridge at work. One day. Then another. At that point, I didn’t know how long it would last. Since I had so much filling left over, I ended up making another pie. I brought this one home, and I brought the 2nd pie into work. I’ll fill you in (no pun intended) on the details of the second pie soon.

Yum!

Not wanting it to go to waste, we ate this pie at home. It was at room temperature. It looked and smelled how apple pie should. And it tasted that way too. Delicious. It had a good flavor, like you imagine it should. (Well, like I imagine it should. I don’t want to presume what you might or might not imagine.) It was not some pale comparison, it was the real thing. I remember growing up that recipes often didn’t turn out looking like the pictures, but this one did. It had a good crust. It cut very easily. It was a really truly amazing apple pie. Smitten kitchen does not mess around. If you want a good apple pie recipe, this is it. You will not be disappointed. That is, unless amazing apple pies disappoint you.

One other note: while it was waiting around before I brought it into work, a friend had been by and seen it sitting on the counter. I was out, but my wife explained that this pie was not for general consumption because I was bringing it in to work. It almost didn’t make it in though. Our friend said, “It’s one of Carl’s magic pies. I can’t resist.” We had to fight him off to save the pie. And thankfully we did.

Pie!

It was not a difficult recipe in terms of complexity. It was just time-consuming because of the apples. Next time, I think I might try a food processor to cut down on how long it takes to make. Do you have any time-saving tips for making apple pie? Any idea on how to get it to not ooze? A favorite apple pie recipe of your own? Share the wealth! Let me (and the rest of us) know. And stay tuned to find out what happened with the second pie!

Pie recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen. Crust recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Caramel Pecan Pie

You know what happens when you start doing a good thing? Sometimes it’s hard to stop. What I mean by that is that this week’s post is another birthday dessert request. Well, birthday request isn’t quite accurate. But it was a request, and it was a birthday dessert.

Here’s the story. Another friend’s birthday was coming up, and I thought it would be fun to make him a dessert. He didn’t ask for one. And I didn’t ask him for his favorite dessert. But he had sent my wife an email a little while before with a link to the recipe and a subject of “Carl. Must. Make.” So I figured it was a good bet. And by not asking him, I figured I could keep the surprise.

Before I started making it, my wife had gotten some of the ingredients because I had had a long day at work. (Thank you, hon!) I thought I might have had some almond flour for the crust, but it had gone bad. So I went with a known entity for the crust. Ye old smitten kitchen favorite (which I used for the pumpkin pie and chocolate pretzel pecan pie). Plus it makes two crusts, so this way I would have an extra one left for something else.

Pie crust dough. (Two, actually.)

The crust took about a half hour from start to finish. While making the crust, the recipe asks for ice water. I didn’t have ice handy, but I let the water sit in the fridge so it would be cold. It also asks you to cut the butter into 1/2 inch pieces, which I measured more carefully this time. It was pretty easy to put together, and I let it refrigerate over night, so I could make the pie in the morning.

Boiling the cream.

Fast forward to the next morning when I put the pie together. The caramel was interesting. I have made caramel a lot (particularly for my millionaire’s shortbread), but this time was different. Maybe I used too big of a pan? It said to use “moderate heat”, “stir sparingly”, and add the sugar “slowly”. Needless to say, it took a while to make.

Making the caramel.

It also then said to “add the hot heavy cream”. I was a little confused, because it had said earlier to “set aside” the cream after I heated it. To me that meant take it off the heat. I could have left it on the heat, but since the caramel took a while to make, I was concerned that it would get heated too much. 

Still making the caramel.

I cooled it. I thought that maybe the thermometer was incorrect because when it got to the “right” temperature it was as hard as a rock. (I have since learned that my thermometer doesn’t measure accurately, so it was indeed incorrect.) In order to be able to stir in the eggs and butter and vanilla, I had to reheat it. That made it liquid enough. But then the eggs kinda cooked and it was still a little clumpy. I was afraid it would be too hard when it cooled, but it looked to be okay at that point. (By the way, it never mentioned putting the salt in. Oh well, I didn’t use it.)

Done with the caramel. All the other stuff mixed in.

I followed the instructions for the pie crust from smitten kitchen. Twice actually. I had to do it twice, because the first time was just a mess. It was uneven and too thin in places. The second time was much better. I had to do a little patching on some parts because I had made a rectangle more than a square, but it was good. And then, per the recipe’s instructions, I did end up refrigerating it for a few minutes. (I figured even the dough was different, it couldn’t hurt for it to cool a little bit.)

Pie crust!

I put parchment paper on top and then used our new pie weights to weigh it down. We got them at a great Brooklyn kitchen supply store, aptly named the Brooklyn Kitchen. We had registered with them for our wedding and also ended up getting some gift certificates as presents. Many years later, we finally got around to using them. One of the items we got was a set of pie weights. This was the first recipe where I used them.

Pie crust with weights!

I cooked the crust for 10 minutes. The crust wasn’t really that brown. But again I figured the crust was a little different, and I didn’t want to overcook it. It puffed up a little bit. Maybe I needed more pie weights?

The recipe said to start with “4.5 ounces of the caramel mixture”. Let’s just say that it was fun to measure. It wasn’t that much of the mixture, maybe because it was still clumpy. I put a bit more in to cover the bottom of the pie. They said to use 1/3 of the pecans, and I guessed at how much that was. When I got to the top of the pie, I started by arranging the halves nicely. But then I decided to just throw them on and arrange them because there wouldn’t have been enough to make nice circles like in the picture.

I baked it for 15 minutes at first. I think my oven cooks a little hot, and the crust was different so I wanted to make sure I didn’t overcook it. It wasn’t ready after 15 minutes. I put it in for 5 more minutes. It still didn’t look ready, so I put in for an extra 2 minutes. At that point the caramel kinda looked like it was setting and I figured it would set more as it cooled.

It’s pie!

The crust might not have cooked all the way though. So I guess that’s why it needed to be pre-baked. Also the crust slipped a little bit so some of the filling oozed out, but thankfully not out of the pan. I don’t have a fluted pie plate, and since I was making it as a gift and it needed to travel anyway, I just used a regular 9″ aluminum pie plate.

I told him about it that night. I said I had made a dessert for him. I told him that I wasn’t sure how it turned out, but that if it was bad I could make him another. He said if I made it, he was sure it was good. (He’s had some experience with my baked goods and knows what he’s talking about. In fact, he has jokingly said he wants to bankroll a bakery for me in the future once he’s rich.) I thanked him for his confidence and said that while normally I would agree with him, this time I had a fight with the pie and I wasn’t sure who won.

By the time I got back from the birthday celebrations, the pie had set. Somewhat to my surprise, it actually seemed like a pie. I put it in the fridge, and decided to wait and see what he would say about it. The next day he came over to have some birthday dessert, not knowing what it was. He was very surprised.

I warmed it up a bit because it was cold from sitting in the fridge, but it’s possible I warmed it up a little too much. It ended up being gooey, maybe a little too gooey, but it was really good. The thing is, it wasn’t exactly caramel, it was more like toffee. I had kinda accidentally made toffee. Oops. But as it turned out, the toffee was nice and crunchy and gave it a good texture. Bits of it were like I expected and then bits of it were hard and crunchy. I liked it, the birthday boy liked it, everyone liked it. It wasn’t exactly the pie that it was supposed to be, but it was a new and maybe better pie? Or maybe this was the pie it was secretly, deep down, always supposed to be?

My wife reminded him that I had originally offered to make something else if it wasn’t good. She then jokingly asked what he thought of the pie. “It’s terrible,” he said. (I didn’t make him another pie.)

Yum!

So despite the thermometer issues and the instruction issues, it was still yummy. Maybe not how they intended, but good nonetheless. If you try it out, let me know how it goes for you. I’d also love to hear about any other happy mishaps you’ve had with recipes. Ever accidentally make something (possibly) better than the original? Let me know, and happy baking!

Recipe courtesy of Breads Bakery via Gothamist. Pie crust recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Kouign-Amann

To paraphrase, these aren’t the pastries you’re looking for. I mean, they are. They are buttery, flaky goodness. But they’re not some fly-by-night pastry you can have a passing fancy with. If you want these, you need to make a commitment to them. You don’t have to move in with them or marry them. But you have to be committed to going the distance. They’re a lot of work. I’m sure it gets easier as you make them more often, but there’s no getting around it being a lot of work. So why would I spend many hours slaving over this delicate pastry?

One reason is that I like a challenge. Another reason is that I enjoy learning how to do new things, like adding new recipes to my repertoire. But primarily, this is something I made “because you asked”. Well not “you” the reader, but “you” my friend who asked. It started with an innocent enough post on Facebook a little while back which said, “I am not a baker. Will someone who is PLEASE make this for me?”. To which I responded, “Oooh! That looks fun and yummy. I will totally make those.” And so a few months later, when I had time to, I did.

Actually, there’s one more reason. As some of you know, linguistics is one of my other interests. And a French pastry with a name that most English speakers would find unpronounceable piqued my interest. For those of you wondering how it’s pronounced, it’s roughly “queen a-mahn”. Why the interesting spelling and pronunciation? Well it’s a specialty of the Bretons, a Celtic people who live in northwestern France. Say what? That’s right, Celtic. If you’re interested (as I am), you should definitely research the history of these fascinating people and their language. (I did.)

It’s also worth seriously researching (by which I mean trying) their food. It’s delicious, as I can attest to from the kouign-amann. So on to the pastries! Which reminds me. I guess I should mention that this post inaugurates a new category on the site: pastries. Yum!

My friend had originally posted a particular recipe for kouign-amann. I looked at that one, but then I also looked at some other recipes to see if there was one I liked more than the others. I stumbled across one that looked good from Bon Appétit. But what really made it stand out was this cool feature they have which has step by step instructions. Instead of having to go back and forth between the ingredient list and the directions, they have a step by step guide which walks you through it, listing the ingredients with the exact amounts right in the directions. It’s kind of awesome.

I’ve linked both the main recipe and the step by step guide below. I’ll also link the step by step guide here, in case you want to follow along. Just click on “Step-By-Step” at the bottom of the page. Where I mention particular steps below, I’m referring to the steps in this guide. Because this recipe has a lot of steps, a lot of this post will be about the details of making it. I also took lots of pictures, so you have fun stuff to look at as well as read.

Thankfully, I had most of the ingredients on hand. Despite its richness and complexities, it uses very few, simple ingredients. That’s a testament to those who created this pastry, as they managed to turn the mundane into the amazing. I did have to get yeast and Kerrygold butter. Well, I didn’t have to get Kerrygold per se, but I needed to get high-fat butter. And Kerrygold seemed like the way to go in that regard. Maybe it was something subliminal about the Celtic connection.

There was a lot of fun measuring in this recipe. It was awesome. It was all about the grams. I love me some metric system for measuring. It made everything so much easier.

So, the saga begins: I started about 4:40pm.

A little flour fell in the yeast while I was measuring it. (Oops!) Thankfully, it didn’t seem to make a difference. The yeast didn’t exactly foam up like they said. Maybe the bowl was too big? Maybe I don’t know what they mean by foam. I let it sit a few more minutes than they said. When it came to kneading the dough, It wasn’t quite five minutes that I kneaded it before I thought it was ready. It took about 45 minutes for this first part (up until the proofing in Step 4). Then I cleaned up the mess I had made so far.

The dough about half way through proofing.

I let it proof for about 1 hour until Step 5. Then it was just a couple of minutes for that step. Then I let it sit for 45 minutes in the fridge.

It wasn’t a lot of work up until this point. But there was a lot of waiting around. I did other work in the meantime, including writing up other recipes. (In retrospect, maybe I should have done more writing then on this one, as this one is quite a lengthy one.)

After Step 5.

Step 6 took just a few minutes.

6×6″ square.

Then I let it chill for 30 minutes. I worked on the butter block (Step 8) while it was chilling.

The butter block took forever! (Okay, about 40 minutes. But it seemed like forever.) The dough had finished chilling. I had to take it out of the freezer and put it into the fridge, so it wouldn’t get too hard. Then I had to put it back in the freezer once the butter went in the fridge.

Here’s what happened with the butter block: I cut up the butter. Maybe it wasn’t small enough, but it was tough to blend. It got stuck. I had to turn the mixer up to high-speed to flick it off. Then I went back to mixing it. I had to do that a few times. Eventually, I got it all mixed. Maybe I mixed it too much. It was closer to whipped than waxy. It wasn’t quite 3 minutes mixing.

I wasn’t sure how big a piece of parchment paper to use for the butter block, but it ended up being too small, or else I didn’t place it right. It took a long time to mush the butter into place, and by then it was melting. The parchment paper kept rolling up. I tried weighing it down. It didn’t work. I ended up taping it down. Then I ended up taping it down again with bigger pieces of tape just to keep it down. I then tore off the pieces of parchment where the tape was so the parchment I ended up with would still be clean.

At this point there was lots of measuring. And then mushing. And then measuring again. And mushing again. (I had misread it as 12×16 instead of 12×6 in Step 9.)

Butter block.

Because the parchment paper was too small, I had to use more when I folded it over. But then when I was rolling it out, it got kinda messy getting out the air bubbles, because it wasn’t one solid piece. It leaked out a little. I eventually got it into decent shape. But I had trouble closing it up, because of it being multiple pieces. I used some butter to try to keep it together. (Tape didn’t work on the outside.) I didn’t measure it, so I didn’t know if it was 1/4 inch like it was supposed to be. I just had to assume. I chilled it for 25 minutes.

Step 11.

Step 12.

Starting Step 13.

Finishing Step 13. Butter burrito, anyone?

Step 14. (I’m sorry it’s a little blurry. I must have been either tired or excited.)

Step 15 done.

Step 16. In retrospect, I don’t think that looks right. Oh well, too late now. 🙂

Moving on a bit: I wasn’t quite sure what they meant by flap. Maybe I had accidentally folded it over. I didn’t turn it (Step 19). It was hard to maneuver. It was very sticky at Step 21. When rolling it out in Step 22, I had to fold it over to get the right size. I ended up with layers. I’m assuming that was intentional.

Step 22. Rectangle, slightly larger than 16×12.

Step 22. Trimmed to 16×12.

In Step 23 it was hard to get the excess flour off of the dough, but I did my best. I didn’t bother so much with removing the flour from the surface.

Step 23. Squares!

In Step 25, I was 10 grams of sugar short. I didn’t feel like opening up another bag of sugar just for a few grams. I figured it was okay, as lots of it fell off anyway.

Squares. Extreme sugar close-up.

Before their good night’s sleep.

For Step 26, I let it sit for 10 and a half hours, starting at 11:50pm. My wife helped clean up from this round. (Thank you!) We were done with cleaning up around 1:20am. We had also managed to have dinner and watch a movie during the time while it was chilling. (We didn’t finish cleaning up until after the movie which is why we finished so late.)

This is what my work surface looked like at the end of the night. Before cleaning, obviously. 🙂

The next morning, I continued. For Step 27, I used just 23g of sugar. (I know! The sorrow. The deep, deep sorrow.) I didn’t want to open up a new package of sugar for such a little amount, so I used some sugar packets that we had.

More sugar.

While the oven was preheating, I put the pastries back in the fridge. That’s because Step 28 said to bake them while they were still cold.

They smelled awesome while baking. (Otherwise the kitchen smelled a little yeasty, if that’s even a word.) I baked them for 28 minutes. After 25 they looked brown, but the sugar didn’t quite look caramelized enough. After 28 minutes, they still didn’t look super caramelized, but I think they were caramelized enough. I didn’t want them to burn.

Fresh from the oven!

Tray 2, fresh from the oven!

I pulled them out with two forks. (Thank you to this other kouign-amann recipe for the hint.) I let them cool. They smelled kinda like croissants.

Just hanging out. (And cooling.)

I tasted the remains in the muffin tins. You know, the little bits that don’t come out when you pull the baked goods out. Some of the sugar was definitely caramelized, some of it was definitely not.

My wife came home and almost lost it. (In a good way.) She was like, “Oh my god, it smells amazing.” To which I replied, “You live in a French pastry shop now.”

Once they cooled, we tried them. Much happiness commenced. Some reactions to eating them from those who tried them:

• Wow.
• Phenomenal.
• These are 7 dollar pastries.
• This was definitely worth skipping lunch for.
• They’re crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.
• They are delicious.
• Great texture. Great taste.
• Kinda like croissants, but a little sweeter and more substantial.

I recommend that you eat these quickly. (I don’t imagine you’ll have much trouble.) After about two and a half days, the flavor was still very good, but the texture changed. They started to dry out a little.

So how about my friend who suggested them in the first place? What did she think? Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to have any. There was a scheduling conflict, so I couldn’t get them to her in time. I will have to coordinate better for next time.

Speaking of next time: one of the other versions of the recipe I had found was a much easier recipe. I will have to try that one next time and see if it tastes as good. I knew this one would be much more work, but I wanted to try it first, so I could see how it’s “supposed to” be done.

I had thought the apple pie recipe was a lot, but this takes the cake. The pie? The pastry? Well, you know what I mean. It was a lot. And it was spread out over more time.

I hope I haven’t scared you off of making them, though. They’re a lot of work, but they’re definitely worth it. Please give them a try, and let me know how they turn out. I’d also love to know if you’ve ever done any other recipes that were equally ambitious.

Recipe courtesy of Bon Appétit. (Step by step instructions here.)