My Go-to Pie Crust with a Secret Ingredient

Pie crust can so easily go wrong. One week, your favorite recipe yields a flaky, tender pie crust. The next, an overworked, tough crust that distracts from the pie. The crust might crack while rolling out or break apart when transferring to the pie plate.

Cook's Illustrated just wasn't alright with the major variations that crop up when pie crust recipes are made on different days. They set about creating a foolproof pie crust, and, I think, they nailed it.

They use a combination of butter and shortening. Butter has a lower melting point and a higher water content than shortening. Shortening is just the opposite. Shortening provides that great, flaky quality in a crust, but butter contributes rich flavor.

They blend their flour into the fats in two batches. The first batch of flour is blended thoroughly with the fats, creating a fat/flour paste. The rest of the flour is barely pulsed into the fat/flour paste, ensuring that there are still bits of flour that can bind with water to form gluten.

My favorite pie crust recipe calls for a secret, surprising ingredient: vodka. Yes, you read correctly. Traditionally, pie crusts use water (in addition to fats) to bind the flour. Gluten forms as water mixes with flour. Unfortunately, too much gluten makes pie crust tough, and not enough water makes the pie crust impossible to roll out.

That's where the vodka comes in. Vodka is eighty-proof, meaning it's made of 60 percent water and 40 percent alcohol. Gluten has a hard time forming in alcohol. Vodka works perfectly because even though it provides 4 tablespoons of liquid to bind the pie dough, it only contributes 2 1/2 tablespoons water, limiting gluten formation and ensuring the crust stays tender.

This month's issue of Cook's Illustrated had a great Quick Tip for getting that ice water you need for your pie crust. A home cook suggested filling a cocktail shaker with the desired amount of water, adding ice, shaking vigorously, and then pouring the water through the shaker. You get the water you need, sufficiently chilled, and the ice is left behind. If only the issue had arrived before I made this pie dough!

This pie crust rolls out like a charm. Deb from Smitten Kitchen recommends rolling the pie dough out between layers of plastic wrap. This technique made the crust easy to roll out and easy to transfer to the pie plate.

A special thank you to Nancy Jean Home for a delightful feature on my fresh fruit fraisier! Visit Nancy Jean's blog to read the delightful feature, learn about new artists and blogs, and see her beautiful art! You can also visit her Etsy page to see her delightful farms and little bird nest paintings. 

Chocolate Pot de Creme

My copy of Joy of Cooking is missing. Worse, it's been missing for a while. I think it's been missing since I received it as a present for Christmas several years ago. Is it in a box, packed up in the basement at my parents' house? Or did I leave it behind one of the four times I've moved since I received it? I may never know the answer.

Either way, Irma Rombauer and her influential text, Joy of Cooking, are never far from my mind.

Gourmet Magazine named Irma S. Rombauer number nine on their list of 50 women game-changers in food history. In selecting Rombauer, they wrote, "In all its eight versions, and in all its 75+ years (and counting), Joy of Cooking is arguably the essential American cookbook. Irma wrote (and published) the first version in 1931, giving birth--literally--to a culinary dynasty."

Knowing Rombauer's influence on American cuisine and her ability to capture and translate restaurant staples for our home tables, I turned to her when attempting my first pot de creme.

Pot de creme seem like the current dessert of choice at many new American restaurants across New York City. I had a delicious chocolate pot de creme at James. Rose Water Restaurant served us a chocolate cardamom pot de creme with a citrus whipped cream and an orange pistachio biscotti (definitely worth the trip!). A visit to Maze during Restaurant Week finished with a chocolate pot de creme that was complimented by a small scoop of green cardamom, caramel, sea salt and almond ice cream. Dreamy, to say the least.

I decided to keep my first attempt simple. I would just make a chocolate pot de creme. I'd prepare a simple cookie crumble to go with it (more on that later).

I prepared an easy water bath for the custards, lining the pan with a towel, adding the custard dishes so they did not touch each other, and carefully, oh, so carefully, pouring in the boiling water so it didn't spill.

Rombauer would call my custard a compromise custard. It's not quite as delicious as the full-fat version, made with half-and-half, but it's not as weak as the low-fat version made with low-fat milk and egg whites. I tried to strike a happy balance with the use of whole milk and egg yolks.

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who cooked recipes by Irma Rombauer this week!

Val -  More Than Burnt Toast   Lemon Meringue Pie

Joanne - Eats Well with Others  White Gazpacho
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden  Swedish Meatballs
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey       
Heather - girlichef  Oatmeal Molasses Bread
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney  Hushpuppies
Janette - Healthy Living Chicken Breasts with Tomatoes, Capers and Basil
April - Abby Sweets
Mary - One Perfect Bite  Shrimp and Grapefruit Cocktail
Kathleen - Bake Away With Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island Lightening Cake

BBA #2: Greek Celebration Bread

Bread number two in the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge is the Greek Celebration Bread. While it certainly won't become my everyday bread, the combination of spices and sweeteners really grew on me.

The dough includes cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, orange extract, almond extract, eggs, honey and olive oil, all of which contribute something slightly different to the bread. Once it's removed from the oven, it's glazed with sugar, honey, orange extract and sesame seeds. The glaze is thin, but it adds just the right amount of sweetness to the bread. 

I added the spices to the flour in different locations so I could make sure I had them all before mixing. 

This bread required me to make a poolish, a simple to make and delightful to say wet sponge that serves as the starter for several of the breads in the book. 

Reinhart says that every 17 degree change in temperature effectively doubles or halves the proofing time. For example, if a bread doubles in size in 90 minutes at 70 degrees, then it will only take 45 minutes if the temperature is 87 degrees. So when it's in the 90s, as it was while I was baking this bread, the proofing time is even quicker. I think it proofed a bit too much because I didn't realize this would happen until after!

This dough was a joy to work with, soft and supple and with so many added ingredients that the dough stayed moist. I had to add almost 1/4 cup more flour so that it didn't stick to the counter! 

Cook's Illustrated this month had a tip about bread kneading. They suggested just adding a teaspoon of vegetable oil to the counter instead of flouring the surface. That way the bread doesn't absorb any unneeded flour. Has anyone tried this? I'm curious as to how it would work!

The finished bread was great toasted or just served warm with butter. 

As part of the BBA Challenge, we're not posting recipes from The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. If you are interested, get the book and bake along with us!


I'm also having a little trouble getting Blogger to cooperate. It keeps inserting these extra empty lines into my posts, often between paragraphs. Does anyone know why they are there or how I can remove them? Thanks!

Baked Sunday Mornings: Mom's Olive Oil Orange Bundt Cake

If a pound cake married a spiced cake doughnut, this olive oil orange bundt cake just might be their first child.

Its got a doughnut's thick crust, the result of a long bake in the oven in a lightly oiled pan. The inner cake is moist due to the addition of olive oil, yogurt and eggs. Baked in a tiny bundt cake mold, it has a hole in the center and rounded edges so it almost resembles a doughnut in shape.

A high-quality fruity olive oil, some grated orange zest and vanilla give this cake its mild yet alluring flavor.

I scaled down this recipe to 1/4 the original size, and I baked it in my tiny bundt cake molds. 1/4 of the recipe yielded 3 mini cakes, so you could get 12 mini cakes out of the whole recipe.

I enjoyed these cakes with my coffee for breakfast. Sprinkled with a bit of powdered sugar, they were just delightful.

Visit Baked Sunday Mornings to get the recipe and see the other bloggers who cooked this delightful cake! Consider getting the book and baking along with us: Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented. 

my first souffle

It seems only fitting that I take my first souffle recipe from Judith Jones, the woman who discovered Julia Childs, helped bring her cooking into our homes and served as her editor for years.

She's also the woman who rescued Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl from the rejection pile.

She's number eight on Gourmet Magazine's list of 50 women game-changers in food history.

She's a careful writer of recipes, turning it into a genre of writing (Here are three recipe phrases she just can't stand).

And she's a New York City resident and part-time cattle rancher.

I think Michael Pollan and Judith Jones would get along, and perhaps they do. In his book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Pollan lays out his guidelines for better eating. He tells the story of an elderly woman who has so much respect for herself and the food that she eats that she still sets the table each night even though she eats by herself. She will not so much as eat a carrot without first placing it in a cute little dish.

What better book to assist us in that process than Judith Jones with her book The Pleasures of Cooking for One. After the early death of her husband, Judith initially thought she wouldn't be able to muster the desire necessary to cook for one. However she quickly realized that eating well alone could be pleasurable.

Of the experience, Judith is quoted as saying: "Learning to cook alone is an ongoing process. But the alternative is worse."

This souffle comes from her effort to cook herself the foods she wanted to eat. After trying a cheese souffle at a restaurant, Judith rushed home, scaled back and slightly modified a Julia Childs' recipe, and created this treat. It is light and airy, and it's the perfect size for a dinner for one.

Be sure to visit all the other bloggers who cooked recipes by Judith Jones this week!

Val - More Than Burnt Toast Potatoes for Julia Child
Joanne - Eats Well with Others Vegetable Sushi Rice Salad
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef Zucchini Pancakes
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney Linguine with Smoked Salmon Sauce
Jeanette - Healthy Living Penne with Tuna Plum Tomatoes and Black Olives
April - Abby Sweets
Mary - One Perfect Bite Frenchified Meatloaf
Kathleen - Bake Away With Me Summer Pudding
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen Roast Pork Tenderloin
Sue - The View from Great Island Chicken Salad

      

Fresh Fruit Fraisier

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.


Daring Bakers brings cooks from across the world together once a month to create a common dish and try out recipes they might not have dared attempt on their own. The thing about Daring Bakers is that you never quite know what your challenge will be. Last month, bakers were challenged to make baklava by making their own phyllo dough. When I saw Jana's choice this month, I considered myself lucky.


A fresh fruit fraisier.

The fraisier Jana challenged us to make had a chiffon cake base, split into two parts, soaked with simple syrup to create a sponge, and then filled with homemade pastry cream. The finished cake could be topped anyway we desired (I opted for hulled, halved strawberries glazed with a cherry-orange marmalade) and had to stand without any supports. A trio of fruits--strawberries, blueberries and fresh picked black raspberries--finished the cake off perfectly. 

Not only was the Fresh Fruit Fraisier she challenged us to make adorable, it was also the perfect dessert to serve at the shower my mom and I threw earlier this month.

French Potato Salad

It is only in the past two years that I learned potato salad is not synonymous with mayonnaise.

Growing up, I detested mayonnaise. I could just handle it in tuna fish salad. I couldn't imagine having it spread across a sandwich.

And I couldn't fathom the fact that my neighbors up the hill coated their pizza with mayonnaise before eating it. Wasn't pizza greasy enough to begin with?

So when I discovered that potato salad could be tossed in a tasty vinaigrette and freshly chopped herbs, I was delighted. My roommate made this salad for a Fourth of July picnic, and after she gave me a taste, I just had to recreate it.

Boiling the potatoes and then steaming them ensured that the potatoes cooked fully without becoming mealy or crumbly. The vinaigrette had a light flavor that was enhanced by the white wine and vegetable broth also coating the potatoes. A quick chop through some fresh herbs brought the whole salad together.