One of life’s selfish pleasures, for me at least, is rescuing that last lonely piece of pie, (a leftover from the night before), grabbing a fork and with a fresh cup of coffee, calling it Breakfast.
BLUEBERRY – NECTARINE PIE
This week’s TWD/BWJ recipe choice was Blueberry-Nectarine Pie, a big-buxom double-crusted dessert brimming with seasonal fruits. As for the morning-after pastry? Never happened. Gone. Nada.
One-half the fruit filling with sugar, flour and lemon zest added is brought to a soft boil over medium heat on your stove top.
This recipe, which Julia baked at the elbow of Leslie Mackie, a California Culinary Academy-trained baker of some repute, is all about the fruit. Because the filling is cooked briefly on the stove top, you can adjust the fruits’ flavor combinations before the pie goes into the oven.
As Dorie explains it, that’s “a good idea and guarantee of success from pie to pie, no matter the sweetness, or lack thereof, of a particular bunch of fruit.”
Time to chill-out and take a nap in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Hilary and Liz hosted this week’s Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia so check their amazing blogs for the complete recipe. Then I suggest you make these changes:
1. After combining the softly cooked fruit mixture with the uncooked half and cooling it to room temperature, strain the released juices/liquid into a small bowl.
2. If this is an “adult-only” pie, add 1/8 to 1/4 cup of Licor 43 (Cuarenta Y Tres) to the liquid. I met this light-bodied, sweet liqueur through food blogger Susan Lester who suggests it as a subtle punch to baked goods. Made from citrus and fruit juices, it’s flavored with vanilla and other aromatic herbs and spices, in total 43 different ingredients.
3. Return half to three-quarters of the liquid (with or without alcohol addition) to the fruit mixture. Save the remaining liquid for a smoothie (I could become addicted to Licor 43 Smoothies but that’s another Blog Post story.)
In the oven, lookin’ happy.
I used my tried-and-true crust recipe from my food processor pamphlet and baked this pie for 50 minutes until the crust was golden and fruit bubbling. Let the pie sit for an hour or two before cutting so both crusts have a chance to set.
Hold your breath. Cut the first slice. Smile broadly.
If you have a slice or two left, be sure to cover it tightly and stick it in the refrigerator. Fat chance of that happening…………….
Although there was juice seepage, my crusts never were soggy and each slice was intact for presentation. I think reducing the liquid by one-half was key to my pie’s success. This will depend upon the fruit used, however.
Sunday morning began, to use a bread term, rather crumbly.
This week’s Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia recipe, Semolina Bread. Ohhhhh, it’s so yummy.
Up early, as usual, to watch the 14th stage of the Tour de France. Sadly, the 150-some racers met Trouble. Towards the end of the race and just before the brutally steep Mur de Péguère summit, some idiot tossed tacks onto the road. Bicycle tires don’t play well with upholstery tacks. That appalling act of sabotage resulted in at least 30 riders suffering 48 punctures and one sustaining a suspected broken collar bone in a crash.
Defending champion Cadel Evans suffered three different punctures which stopped him cold and would have put him out of the competition. However, Tour leader Bradley Wiggins, a Brit now wearing the yellow jersey, drew approval and accolades for sitting tall on his bike, slowing the pace, and waiting for the defending champ and others to regroup and join the peloton. Score One for the Good Guys.
Watch Magic Happen: Start with a Sponge. Mix Warm Water, Yeast, All-Purpose Flour and Give It 2 Hours to Rise.
Following that drama it was on to this week’s Tuesday with Dorie/Baking with Julia. This week it’s a quickly and easily mixed Semolina Bread. As I walked into the kitchen, the tour over, I decided if Bradley could rise to the occasion,I could rise to the occasion, making bread that would, uh, rise.
Two hours later, the Sponge plus flours, salt and olive oil make this cute little ball of goodness. Don’t you love making bread?
Famed baker Nick Malgieri showed Julia how to make this deliciously nutty-tasting bread. If you’re thinking Semolina loaves are more Italian than French, you’re right. This flour is milled from durum wheat, the flour used to make pasta.
It takes ten minutes to whisk together the sponge and two hours to let it double in size. Once mixed together with flour, olive oil and salt, it turns into a lovely dough that needs another two hours rising time. Then you form the dough into a loaf, transfer it on to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet lightly covered with corn meal, and for the next two hours let that baby rise again.
Here, I admit to a little error . When I shaped and prepared the dough for the second rising, I “slashed” prematurely. Should have waited until after the rising. Whoops.
Slash and bake.
This is a tasty but unassuming and rather plain loaf of artisan bread. It’s color, a wonderfully warm golden brown, is what separates it from the crowd. Enjoy.
If you’d like to make this bread, I encourage you to jump to this site. To read what other Dorie/Julia fans baked this week, go here.
Hungarian Shortbread Bars with Blueberry Preserves Filling
For the record, I spent four glorious days in Budapest last Fall. Cruised on the Danube. Stuffed myself with pierogi. Hiked up Gellert Hill and crossed the Chain Bridge. Nowhere was I offered Hungarian Shortbread.
Those Hungarians don’t know what they’re missing!
Mise En Place, The Ingredients and the Box Grater
This week our TWD/BWJ group is baking shortbread bars. These delicacies are delicious and a bit of a smile to make. Have you ever grated cookie dough? For this recipe, we needed to pull out our box graters, choose the side with the largest holes, and go crazy. If grating is your technique of choice and you wish to make this bar cookie, find the recipe directions here or here. This week’s hostesses, the gals who did the heavy-lifting, are Lynette and Cher. We thank both of you.
Instead of making the traditional rhubarb jam filling, I used a jar of organic blueberry preserves. Although there’s nothing unusual about putting together the dough mixture, the next chill-and-grate step may give you pause……. but charge right ahead. The filling goes in the middle and is covered by more grated dough. Immediately after baking, dust the top of the shortbread heavily with confectioner’s sugar.
Grating the first ball of frozen shortbread dough into the pan
After carefully spreading blueberry preserves over the shredded dough, I grated the second frozen dough ball on top.
Although my batch was delicious, they were a tad chunky because my baking pan wasn’t large enough. This is a rich cookie. My portions should be smaller. I think I’ll perfect this recipe and use it on my cookie platters during the upcoming Christmas holidays (okay, still 8 months away). If the filling were homemade raspberry or cherry preserves, it would look very festive.
After slipping it into a 350 degree oven, I just had to catch a picture of the preserves seeping through the dough.
Do we think I was a bit heavy-handed with the confectioner’s sugar?!?
When life hands you lemons, forget the lemonade, vodka or tequila and salt. Here’s an idea…….Lemon Loaf Cake. (You can thank me later.)
Happy Easter. Pina, with her Sicilian candy, Torrone Siciliano, meets my very American Lemon Loaf Cake.
I’m a lucky woman. If I cannot join my kids for a holiday celebration, I am always invited to join neighbors Adriana and Bobby Scrima, and their extended family. I’ve been adopted. This Easter my kids were in Hawaii so I was asked to join the Scrimas for dinner.
Adriana and her family immigrated to the United States from Sicily forty years ago when she was 8 years old. Their story deserves a Post of its own but today’s TWDorie/BWJulia is about food so I’ll stay with that subject. Her mother, Pina, still cooks in the European tradition. Her food is fresh, what’s locally available, and absolutely delicious. If Pina’s cooking, there’s not an empty seat at the table. This year, as usual, Bobby’s boyhood friend, Joe, his wife, Amalia and their 8-year-old son were joining us. What made Easter 2012 special was the presence of Amalia’s parents, Maria and Fernando, who were visiting from Madrid.
Tony, Adriana’s father, keeps me stocked with ground Italian oregano and sundried tomatoes.
Clockwise, Tony, Fernando, Maria and Pina. A four-language conversation!!! A joyful Easter.
As far as languages go, here’s the lineup, who speaks what:
Maria – Spanish
Fernando – French, Spanish
Pina – Spanish, Italian, and English
Tony – Italian
Amalia – Spanish and English
Joe – English, English and English
Adriana – Spanish, Italian and English
Bobby – English, English and English
Yours Truly – English and French
Although we considered charting who could understand whom, we decided to throw all those languages into a pot and let it boil. It worked.
Bobby, by the grill, with Joe. And, the English-speaking guys stand alone.
Lemon Loaf Cake, Tuesdays with Dorie, Baking with Julia
Usually, at Easter, I give my hosts chocolates and wine. This year I decided to bake this week’s recipe, Lemon Loaf Cake, a scrumptious citrus sidebar to the traditional pound cake. Developed by Ritz Carlton’s corporate pastry chef, Norman Love, I found this cake to be moist, firm and rich.
Just out of the oven. No added attractions. The color is nice.
This cake is simply made and easily eaten. The most difficult technique is grating the zest of 3 large lemons! The other ingredients can be thrown together in ten minutes. Bake it for 60 minutes. That ubiquitous toothpick, to be inserted into the center, must come out clean. Although I sprinkled confectionary sugar on this loaf, it requires no special embellishments. Simply standing on its own or with the fresh fruit and sorbets we offered as toppings, this Lemon Loaf Cake is a winner.
Zest three large lemons.
Ready for the Oven.
Everyone tried, tasted, and had an opinion about my dessert. In Italian. In Spanish. In French. In English. What I know for sure is that the English-speaking crowd loved it. My international friends wrapped up the leftovers, to enjoy a bedtime snack. Food has a universal language all its own, doesn’t it?
I want to whisk together a bowlful of gratitude to Marilyn, http://cookteachgrow.wordpress.com/about/, a Colorado baker who is part of the Tuesdays with Dorie/Baking with Julia group. Marilyn, aka Piebird, has just given me a Liebster Award, a fun recognition of food blogging sites. It’s nice to realize we high-altitude bakers are hanging together, Marilyn. Thank you.
Don’t you just love to be vindicated in your rightness? The issue was Irish Soda Bread vs. Cardboard. Since ISB is this week’s Tuesday with DorieBaking with Julia recipe choice, I stood firmly (and, alone) in the beleaguered bread’s corner. My family crowded themselves into the opposite one. Now, look below at my first photo, snapped as I pulled the ISB loaf out of the oven. Add butter and preserves. Is there any question who carried the day?
And, the Winner is Irish Soda Bread.
Moral of the Story: Never bet against Dorie, Julia, and the Lady of this House (me).
ISB is just four ingredients. Most important is the non-perishable bicarbonate of soda (ie bread soda), developed and introduced in Ireland in the early 1800s. Since most Irish families had no ovens, this meant they could make bread in a bastible (lidded, cast-iron pot), laid onto the turf fire. With buttermilk from Bossy the Cow, wheat from their fields for the flour, and salt, an Irish family, for the first time, could make good bread very cheaply every day.
FOUR Ingredients: Flour, Baking Soda, Salt and Buttermilk
I mixed one cup of raisins, a non-traditional addition, into the dough.
It’s easy to put together the dough which is sticky, soft and malleable. It’s more difficult to turn the dough onto the lightly floured work surface and NOT knead it to death. Think: one minute, knead gently. Ça suffit.
Continuing in the gentleness-mode, pat the dough into a 6-inch disk and slide onto a greased pan or baking sheet. Slash a 1/2-inch deep “X” across the top. The reason for the slash? Take your pick: a religious symbol; to let the fairies escape; to let the devil out; or, to more easily expand and divide into four quarters. As for me, I’m going with the fairy theory.
Ready for a 350-degree oven
“X” marks the loaf.
Three-hundred–fifty degrees and fifty minutes later, the bread was golden brown, the “X” had expanded, and the fairies had flown. Here is when I totally broke the rules. Although Dorie suggests we allow the bread to cool , I decided bragging rights were far more important. Not a crumble was lost in the slicing. Breakfast was glorious. I tried not to gloat.
To Let It Cool or Not To Let It Cool, that is the question????
Not a crumb in sight
Here, I think, is the reason ISB gets such a bad rap. Because there is so little fat in this bread, it turns, Dorie explains, “as hard as the Blarney Stone” by the end of the day. For this reason, I wrapped up the remaining 1/2 loaf, grabbed a slicing knife, butter and preserves and dashed to my nearby beauty shop. It was St. Patrick’s Day, after all. I saw there was enough bread to share with all six beauticians and their clients before disappearing into a room with Christine for my own manicure.
What followed, that next hour, was a steady stream of visitors, all throwing accolades and food memories my way. One gal, eyes a-puddle, stepped into the room. “I am channeling my Mother and all the years I spent with her in the kitchen making Irish Soda Bread,” she said. “She has been gone three years but I remember her making it every St. Patrick’s Day. Back East, we’re all Irish, we even have two Irish cops in the family.”
When I asked how mine differed from her mother’s, she replied, as she started to leave the room. “There’s no difference. It’s identical, even the aroma. That’s why I’’m leaving right now…….to cry.”
All in all, it was the perfect bread for the perfect day.
All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. Oscar Wilde, an Irishman
