Cherry Red Raspberry Pie

Can she make a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Bill!y Boy?
Can she make a cherry pie, Charming Billy?
She can make a cherry pie,
Quick as a cat can wink an eye,
She's a young thing
And cannot leave her mother.

I'm no young thing, and I've long since left my mother, but I made a cherry pie and it was awesome! (/Chris Farley)

For the recipe, I will thank Phyllis Bartholomew for her "Best of Show" Cherry Red Raspberry Pie. And as we all know, if your name if Phyllis, chances are, you can make a mean pie. Pie to me is a celebration of the past, a hallmark of a good cook, and a most virtuous dessert (Hey, you're eating fruit with pastry. How bad can it be?). When paired with ice cream or whipped cream, it has all the components of a great dessert: warm/cold, creamy/crispy, and tart/sweet.

Sorry chocolate satin and banana cream, but this is everything a pie should be. Tart and sweet, the raspberries give the filling an richer taste (although many didn't notice the raspberry) and a pretty dark red color.

Cherry Red Raspberry Pie

Filling
1 10-oz pkg. frozen red raspberries
2 c. canned sour pitted cherries, drained (reserve juice) (Note: 2 cans of cherries equals about 2 and a half cups. I added the extra 1/2 c. cherries.)
1 c. sugar
3 T. cornstarch (If you like your filling to hold up more, add another T of cornstarch.)
2 T. butter
1/4 t. salt
milk and sugar (to top the crust) (I used 1 egg whisked with 1 T cream instead of milk.)

Thaw frozen berries (save the juice) and add enough of the juice from the cherries to make one cup of liquid.

In a saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch and salt. Stir in one c. of the cherry/raspberry juice. Add cherries and cook over medium heat until thick and clear. Cook one more minute. remove from heat and very gently fold in raspberries. (Note: I did this the day before and cooled in the fridge.)

Pour into pastry-lined pie dish. Add top crust. Seal edges and brush top with milk or cream and sprinkle with sugar. Cut seam vents if necessary. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Crust
2 c. flour
1 c. cake flour
2 T. sugar (This is my addition. I like a little sweetness in the crust.)
2 T. super rich butter powder (I did not have this, but swapped out 1/2 of the shortening for butter.)
1 c. Crisco (I used 1/2 shortening, half butter that had been cut up and frozen for a few minutes.) 1 T. cider vinegar
1/2 t. salt
1/3 c. ice water

Mix the flours and sugar and cut in the shortening and butter (I use a food processor). Pulse or mix until you have butter pieces the size of peas.

Beat together wet ingredients. Gradually add until mixture begins to look like curdled cheese. Stop before the dough forms a ball around the blade. Form into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill at least 1 hour.

The Power of Exploding Dough

After posting my initial recipe for Pullman Bread, my friend Carrie asked a very relevant question:
What happens if you fill a pan with too much dough and it tries to ooze out from under the lid while baking?I'm only asking because I KNOW that would happen to me since I'm such an amateur!

Of course I had the arrogance to ignore that question. After all, I've been baking for years and such a thing would never happen to me. Until I checked the oven to discover that the dough had risen so much as to blow the lid off the Pullman pan and turn the whole loaf on to its side.

So Carrie, to answer your question, the dough does not gently ooze - it explodes. And why did it explode this time for me? I used the same recipe, but I ended up with more dough since I decided to use the full amount of flour and use extra water. (The seasoned readers of my blog know that I'm very obsessive about adding too much flour. I think due to our dry climate, I almost always hold back the full amount of flour and see first how the dough comes together.)

I did not think that the extra dough would be that significant, but note that this recipe also calls for a higher percentage of yeast than the wheat Pullman bread. Oddly, the wheat Pullman can take about 3 lbs 3 oz of dough per pan. The white Pullman exploded using about 2 lbs of dough and change.

For future reference, I will not double the amount of yeast when doubling the recipe (more like 1.5 times). And, I will add full amounts of all ingredients and hold back a little flour as usual.

Happily, the dough lids were not damaged and the bread, although slightly underbaked, tasted fine, supporting my theory that even bad homemade bread is good.

Finnish Pulla Bread

While I don't wish bad luck upon others, I do see some misfortune as an opportunity to make something that would bring comfort to someone. I know this will make my old Weight Watchers teacher's head explode, but food is comfort, both literally and emotionally (reason #37 why I'll never be skinny).

So when my Finnish neighbor fell and broke her hip while shoveling snow last week, my first thought was, "Oh how terrible!" That quickly jumped to "Ooh I have an excuse to make Finnish Pulla Bread!". (I know, I'm going straight to hell.)

Pulla is similar to Challa and other egg and milk-rich celebratory breads (although I'm told that Pulla is eaten frequently). It has crushed cardamom seeds mixed in the dough, which makes it unique. The recipe emphasizes using cardamom that has been freshly ground, so I broke out the mortar and pestle and ground some up. It smelled amazing, and I'm determined to put the remainder of the cardamom to good use, perhaps in an Indian-spiced rice pudding.

Anyway, this is a really easy bread to make. I've never braided a loaf into a circle before, so that was a little stressful. I wish I could tell you how it tasted, but you'd have to ask my Finnish neighbor.

This recipe is from Baking with Julia, a great book based on the PBS series where different chefs would come to Julia Child's kitchen and bake different things. It was one of my favorite shows.

Finnish Pulla Bread

1 c. milk

1 T. active dry yeast

1/4 c. warm water

1/2 c. sugar

1 t. crushed cardamom seeds (from about 7 pods) (Note: I had to crush way more than 7 to get a t. of seeds.)

1 t. salt

2 large eggs

4 1/2 to 5 c. flour

1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, melted

Glaze: 1 large egg beaten with one T. milk

Sliced or slivered almonds for topping

Pearl sugar, for topping (Note: I used coarse sugar)

Scald milk and cool to lukewarm. In large bowl, whisk the yeast into the warm water. Set aside for 5 minutes, or until the yeast has dissolved and is creamy. Whisk in the milk, sugar, cardamom, salt, and eggs. Switch to a wooden spoon, add 2 c. of the flour, and beat the mixture until smooth. Beat in the butter and then add as much additional flour, 1/2 c at a time, as you can until the dough is stiff but not dry. (You can also make this dough in a mixer fitted with the dough hook. Follow the procedure for hand mixing, adding the ingredients in the same order.)

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 15 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until it is smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes. (Or knead in mixer about 5 minutes. Stop short of a satiny dough and finish kneading by hand to avoid overmixing.)

Shape dough into a ball and place in lightly oiled bowl, turning dough to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temp. until doubled.

Line a 14-inch pizza pan or large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Lightly oil a cook work surface.

Turn the dough out onto the oiled surface and knead it lightly and briefly, just to deflate it and release the air. Divide the dough into thirds, and roll each third into a rope about 36 inches long. Braid the three strands, braiding as far down to the bottom of the strands as you can. Lift the long braid (and try not to have a nervous breakdown) onto the parchment-lined pan, shaping it into a circle as you place it on the pan. Snip about 1 inch of the dough off each end of the braid and fuse the ends together, pressing and pinching them (if necessary) to fit. Roll the trimmings into a rope about a foot long and twist the rope into a bow shape. Place the bow over the seam you created when you fused the ends.

Cover the wreath with a kitchen towel and allow it to rise at room temperature until it is puffy but not doubled, about 45 minutes.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375. Brush the egg glaze over the bread. Sprinkle the wreath with sliced almonds and pearl sugar.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes (mine baked for 30), until golden, taking care not to overbake. Transfer the loaf to a rack to cool before cutting. Contributing baker: Beatrice Ojakangas.

Maida's Big Apple Pie

"To make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan

It's pie season, baby! I've already made a few pies to cull down the long list of Thanksgiving pie possibilities. My dad prefers pies to cake, so on a recent Sunday get together I tried out two: Sour Cream Apple Pie and Maida's Big Apple Pie. They are both from Nick Malgieri's new baking book, The Modern Baker. I really like his books, and he seems like a nice enough guy. You know, someone you could sit down and eat a piece of pie with.

Maida's Big Apple Pie (pictured above)

This is a galette (free form pie), but there's nothing "ette" about it. It's really big, almost twice the size of a normal pie. Like many apple pies, the filling is cooked a little beforehand as to eliminate the excess moisture. I also think that the use of half Golden Delicious apples is important here, as this type of apple breaks down in the pre-cooking process, binding the sturdier Granny Smith apples in a chunky applesauce.

Apple Filling

4 T. unsalted butter

2.5 lbs Granny Smith or other tart apples, peeled, halved, cored and each half cut into 6 wedges.

2.5 lbs Golden Delicious, prepared as above

1 c. sugar

1/3. light brown sugar

1 t. cinnamon

One double batch Rich Pie dough

egg wash (one large egg well beaten with a pinch of salt)

sugar for sprinkling

1 round pizza pan

1. Prepare and chill pie dough (see recipe below)

2. For the filling, melt the butter in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven or other large pan with a cover. Add the apples and sprinkle with the sugars and cinnamon. cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, until the apples have exuded their juices. Uncover and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the apples are tender. About 1/3 will have disintegrated, and the rest of the apple slices should remain intact. Cool the filling. The filling may be made several days ahead and stored, covered, in the refrigerator.

(Cathy's note: I've made this pie twice. The first time I discarded the extra apple juices after cooking and the filling came out a little dry after cooking. The second time I added a little flour to the pan an the end of cooking and kept the thickened juices. I preferred the result of the 2nd effort.)

3. Set a rack on the lowest level and preheat the oven to 375 F.

4. Roll out the Rich Pie Dough into a circle about 16 inches in diameter and center it on the pan. Spoon the filling into the middle, leaving a 2.5 inch border of dough uncovered. fold in the uncovered dough toward the center of the pie, leaving an uncovered space in the center. Brush the top of the folded-over dough with the egg wash and sprinkle with the sugar.

(Cathy's note: the 2nd time I made this pie I somehow ended up with too much filling, so I made another small pie with the dough scraps.)

5. Bake the pie until the dough is a golden color and the filling is bubbling, about 40 minutes. Cool on a rack.

(Cathy's note: the Sweet Pie dough is pretty fragile and more difficult to work with than a traditional pie dough. It also cracked a bit [see image]. The second time I made the pie, I used a more traditional pie dough. Both were good, the firs crust being more sweet and crumbly and the second more sturdy and flaky.

Rich Pie Dough
Note: this recipe is a double batch
3 c. flour
1 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
2.5 sticks cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces
1 lg. egg
1 lg. egg yolk
1. Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Add the butter and pulse about 20 times to finely mix in the butter.
Add the egg and egg yolk and pulse until the dough just begins to form a ball.
2. Invert the food processor bowl over a floured work surface to turn out the dough. Carefully remove the blade and transfer any dough on it to the work surface. Use your hands to press the dough into a disk about 1/2 inch thick.
3. dough disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to 2 days.