(new year's res) Baking Bread #1

One of my (many) new year's resolutions is to bake four loaves of bread in 2016. And since I love nothing more than making a brash justification and blurring the definition of what "bread" really is just to be able to check off another item on my personal resolution list, I spent an afternoon baking an Americanized version of an Irish bread shaped like a British pastry. Why, you ask? Well, it all started with a deep moment of nostalgia for the Irish soda bread I grew up eating at my best friend Terri's house at their annual St. Patrick's Day dinner. While my Sicilian/Italian family paid more attention to the following day's St. Joseph's Day celebrations, Terri's family was more than happy to indulge in their Guinness-drinking, limerick-making Irish heritage. And as a result, each year her mother would make the entire traditional feast - corned beef and cabbage, potato soup, and the heartiest soda bread this side of the Atlantic. I haven't been able to partake in their dinner in quite some time (thanks, work schedule), but I found myself thinking of those nights around her dinner table in anticipation of this year's St. Patrick's Day.

I had to work on SPD this year and knew that I wasn't going to be able to commit to the full menu - but the soda bread was something I could handle. This would be my first time making the heralded bread, so I took to the internet for guidance and inspiration - only to discover that there are about a million different "authentic" family recipes that each claimed theirs was the "true" Irish soda bread. Ok, so I'll just ask Terri's mom for her recipe, that'll solve my problem! But I unfortunately didn't plan ahead and decided to start looking up recipes about five minutes before I left for the grocery, and didn't have time to wait for a response. I started to fret. How was I going to pay my respects to the patron saint of Ireland?? Then I remembered the gold mine that is Smitten Kitchen. Ahh yes. That's where I'll find my recipe!

And find a recipe I did - one that looked delicious, not-too-complicated to make...and was for an Americanized version of Irish soda bread. In scone-form. But whatever. I've learned to put my trust in the wise words of Deb Perelman, and figured that if this soda bread was good enough for her, it'd be good enough for me (which, obvi, it so was). So there you have the story of my first of four loaves of bread made in 2016, even though the loaf of bread I made was neither a loaf nor a bread ;)

Holiday bark

 I decided to jump on this season's bark train and make my own version of this holiday treat (is it only at the holidays one can eat bark? Note to self: make bark in July, be a rebel, enjoy.) I made two kinds: Pumpkin Pie Bark (pie blog...) and Cranberry Bliss Bark (because it sounded good). One thing about the Pumpkin Pie Bark - pumpkin puree doesn't freeze well, so resist the urge to add a lot into your chocolate mix. Compensate for the lack of puree with a healthy shake of the spice jars. Happy barking!

Presidential Pie

This Monday is President's Day. I know this because that's what the mattress commercials tell me, and nothing makes me think, "yeah, I guess I DO need a mattress at 40% off!" like a holiday to celebrate our nation's leaders.

And because it is the American thing to do, I've made a pie in honor of this sacred day.

I know what you're thinking: oh, she's going to make a blueberry pie and dot it with red berries and whipped cream because it'll be all red, white and blue. Or: oh, she's going to make a cherry pie because George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and could not tell a lie.

Amateurs. I would never be so obvious! (and those are really good ideas for the 4th of July pie. please remind me of that sometime around June 30th.)

A history lesson, if you will:

Zachary Taylor, America's 12th president, was a man's man. Known as Old Rough n' Ready (an early precursor to his later nickname, New Pop n' Fresh), Taylor served in the military during a bunch of those wars you learned about in grade school that used dates like 1812 and vaguely racist Indian names. He was also from Louisville, KY, a town where you can drink copious amounts of bourbon and then sober up the next morning with a plate of Bourbon Ball French Toast. During his presidency, for which he was the second-to-last person to successfully run under the Whig party, Taylor hung new curtains and organized the Department of the Interior, told the inhabitants of that area they were calling California to apply for statehood, and established a policy that forbade both the US and Great Britain to control any canals being built in Nicaragua. Known as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, it is thought to be Taylor's most lasting foreign policy move. Sadly, Teddy Roosevelt superseded that policy 51 years later in a fit of manifest destiny with the equally well-known Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.

Zachary Taylor, though a true stalwart in the oval office, had an unfortunately weak digestive system. After the Washington Monument groundbreaking ceremony on July 4, 1850, he sought refuge from the swampy DC summer heat by consuming cold milk and cherries - too many, that is. He quickly came down with a horrid stomach ache, which turned into cholera and ultimately, death. He had been in office only 16 months. [Disclaimer: I hastily threw this summary together after quickly reading the Zachary Taylor wikipedia page.]

All this is to say - here's my great recipe for Cherry Pie!

Ingredients
Crust - I doubled my usual recipe and added sugar to compensate for the tartness of the cherries
2 cups flour
2/3 cups Crisco shortening
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Iced water for mixing

Filling
2 pounds pitted cherries - I used Dole frozen cherries because it's February and I live in New York
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon, allspice (combine to taste)
1 tbsp butter
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1 egg for egg wash

Bowl of frozen cherries

Cinnamon/Allspice/Salt, Cornstarch, Sugar, Vanilla

Slivered Almonds

How to
Prepare the dough as normal; cut in half and form into two balls, wrap and refrigerate each ball for at least 30 minutes.

If using frozen cherries, defrost them in a large bowl. If using fresh, rinse and dry the cherries.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Add the sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, allspice and vanilla to the cherries, mixing thoroughly until all the cherries are evenly coated. It won't look too pretty.

Roll out one of the balls of dough and neatly place in the bottom of your pie tin. Pour the cherries into the tin, sprinkle with the almond slivers, dot with butter, and brush the exposed edges with egg wash.

If you're pressed for time, you can add the top crust as you normally would, covering the pie and sealing the edges. I chose to attempt a lattice crust, or that woven-crust-look that all the pretty pies get to wear.

Here's how that happens: Roll the second ball of dough as normal. With a pastry cutter, cut an equal amount of strips, each about 3/4" wide.

Ok so my strips aren't equal in width. It was my first attempt at this. Don't judge.

Lay half the strips vertically on top of the pie. Peel back every other strip, (the "even numbered strips") lay the first horizontal strip, then replace the vertical strips. Repeat this process, switching between the even and odd strips until you've laid all the horizontal strips.

Step 3.1 of Lattice Pie Crust

Seal together the edges of both crusts by rolling them underneath the outer edge. Brush the top crust with the egg wash.

Unbaked cherry pie

Bake for about 30-45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Be careful though - the juices from the cherries WILL run over the edges of the crust. Thanks to the suggestion of my roommate (who frankly is getting quite tired of my cooking experiments exploding all over our NOT self-cleaning oven...sorry, Amanda), I covered a cookie sheet with tin foil and put the pie on top of that for baking; this way all the juices ran onto the foil and made for a pretty easy cleanup. 

Cherry Pie

Also -  I'd like to take this most presidential of holidays to shamelessly plug a great project. If you or anyone you know is part of a theater company and still figuring out the remainder of your 2012 season, or if you're a teacher and looking for a fun way to teach your class about this election year check out 44 Plays for 44 Presidents - it's an exciting mash-up of short theatrical pieces performed all over the country that culminates in one giant ball of theater fun on Election Night. Do it for your children. Do it for your country. Do it for Zachary Taylor.

Presidential Cherry Pie

For this recipe I sought the advice of the Queen of Baking, Martha Stewart. Thanks M!

She's my cherry pie/Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise

One more picture? Oh, ok.

Tastes so good, make a grown man cry/Sweet cherry pie

Romantical V-Day Pie Pops

This recipe will be useful to you if:

A.) You want to show your sweetie how much you love him/her this Valentine's Day by showering him/her with sweet, bite-sized treats that are cute, heart-shaped, and every other cloying adjective that can be used to describe the Feb. 14th holiday.

B.) You're (still) single (again) and need an unhealthy dessert to accompany the bucket of Chinese food you'll be consuming while wearing black and watching Fatal Attraction at such a high volume that it drowns out the sound of your roommate making heart-shaped french toast for her "romantic blinner date."

C.) You appreciate the food-on-a-stick genre. Examples include shish-kabobs, lollipops, popsicles, and anything found at the Wisconsin State Fair.


Ingredients 
3-4 oz. fruit spread/jam/jelly/preserves. I used Hero Strawberry Preserves because frankly, it's the best out there
Unbaked pie crust (Here's my recipe!)
Flour to use in dough-rolling process
Wooden sticks/skewers to use as popsicle sticks, these will get baked in the oven with the pies
Cookie cutter - heart-shaped if you're in a relationship, pentagram shaped if you're not and all sorts of bitter
    **I discovered too late that I did not own any cookie cutters, so I cut a heart out of a thick piece of posterboard and used it as a stencil.
1 egg, for egg white wash

Glaze
4 oz. white chocolate chips
2 tbs. milk
1/3 cup confectioner's sugar

How to
Roll out your dough to about 1/8" in thickness. I suggest spreading more flour than usual on the rolling surface, this will help to lift the cut dough without it breaking. Using the cookie cutter (or stencil) cut out an equal number of shapes.

Strawberry preserves, rolling pin and flour, pie crust with heart stencil

Place half the hearts on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press the wooden skewer into the bottom of each heart. Add a dollop of the fruit spread in the center (but only a small dollop! A little goes a long way), then top off with the second half of the hearts. It helps to run a little water around the edges of each bottom piece before sealing with the top half, as you want to make sure to firmly press the two edges together. Use an extra skewer to press a decorative edge around the heart.

The Four Stages of Pie Popdom

I found it best to work assembly-line style, performing one step to all the slices before moving on to the next step. Once you're close to finishing the last of the pops, preheat the oven to 375 degrees (there's no need to preheat the oven at the beginning of the process, I found the first few pops to be a bit time-consuming as I was still figuring out my system and finding my groove.)

A Pie Pops tryptic

Brush a coat of egg white wash over the top of each pop and bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

While the pops are cooling, make the glaze - whisk together the chocolate, milk and sugar until creamy. Drizzle over the pops in a fun, decorative fashion.

If you're feeling creative, you can add a bow, glitter, paint or sparkles to the sticks. The amount of flair you add to the pops is in direct corelation with the amount of love you have for the recipaint of the pie pops. My pie pops did not have any such embellishments.

Pie Pops!

I got my inspiration for this post from three different sources - the William-Sonoma catalogue, my roommate who flipped through said Willam-Sonoma catalogue, and this site, which apparently came up with the idea for heart-shaped pie pops before anyone else.