Showing posts with label pastry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pastry. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie

Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan

Just before I travelled to the USA with my husband (then boyfriend) and sister-in-law, we had communally watched the movie Waitress. Which, if you haven’t seen it, has a large portion of energy devoted to making and naming pies. We had also just finished watching the tv show Pushing Up Daisies, which we referred to as “Piemaker” after the main character who (amongst being able to bring people back from the dead temporarily) makes pies. It’s worth noting, in America “pie” is a dessert. Embarking on a 2 month trip around various US cities, we were primed and ready to indulge in as much pie as we could. And we found the mission impossible.

Back then, my food knowledge wasn’t as developed and my knowledge of good places to eat in the US was non-existant. So partially it could have been where we chose to eat. I think a large part of it is that our trip consisted almost entirely of big cities – not the kinda places that would have the diners and pie shops I’d seen so often in US movies. But it left us with a sense of desperation with every failed attempt to find a restaurant that would serve what us Aussies thought of as quintessential American food. In a twist of irony, literally the ONLY piece of pie we ate in the whole two month trip was in Canada, when we visited Niagara Falls. Despite being good pie, the mere fact we weren’t in America eating it somewhat lessened it as an experience.

Since then, the desire for pie still comes and goes in waves. Sweet pies and in particular fruit pies don’t seem to be as big of a thing here in Australia – meat pies obviously are ubiquitous! Certainly in my family, the custard pie was king growing up. Mum also made apple pies and lemon meringue pie (a personal favourite) but they don’t hold the same comforting sense memories for me as other baked goods. Not wanting to waste all our mulberries on cocktails, I decided to make an apple and mulberry pie. Upon tasting it, Lance’s reaction was ‘you know what, when we spent all that energy looking for pie in America – I think this is exactly what we wanted’. High praise, indeed!

If you don’t have mulberries, you can sub other berries – blackberry would be quite nice. I like the tart/fresh depth of the berries amongst the sweeter, more predictable apple. The cardamom plays particularly well with the mulberries. The pastry is the simplest of pastries, just flour, butter, salt. I like the sweetness of the filling to shine, with the crunch of the dusting of sugar before baking. Feel free to use frozen pastry if you can’t be bothered making it yourself. And finally, the best part of this pie is the thin disc of marzipan hidden in the bottom, which adds another level of flavour with the sweet almondness a lingering background flavour.
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan

Apple and Mulberry Pie  with Hidden Marzipan

Pastry

3 cups plain flour
3/4 cup rye flour
200g butter
1 tsp salt
8-10 tbsp cold water
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tsp water (eggwash)
sugar to sprinkle

Filling

4 pink lady apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices
250g mulberries, stalk removed
6 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp corn flour
5 cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed in a mortar and pestle
1/2 tsp cinnamon
100g marzipan


For the dough – cut the cold butter into small squares and place in a standmixer. Mix the flours and salt together well, then add to the mixer. On a slow speed, mix together until it forms a sandy consistency. Add the water, 1 tbsp at a time until the dough comes together. Try not to mix more than is necessary. Separate into two even pieces, form into discs, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least an hour to rest. (I made mine in the morning, and baked the pie that night).


Prep the apple as described above. Place pieces in a small saucepan with the corn flour, cardamom seeds and cinnamon. Mix well to coat the pieces. Add the maple syrup and stir to coat. Places over a low-medium  heat and cook for 5 minutes, just until the liquid goes sticky and apple pieces start to soften. Set aside to cool.

When the dough is ready, preheat your oven to 170C.

Grease your pie dust lightly with butter. Dust your work surface lightly and gently roll out the two discs into rounds of pastry big enough to fill your pie dish. Carefully lay one piece into the bottom of the pie dish, ensuring there is no tears. Cut shapes into the second piece (alternatively, just slash steam holes when it's formed).

Between two pieces of baking paper, roll out the marzipan into a thin disc the size of the bottom of the pie dish. Lay this on top of the bottom piece of pastry. Pour over the apple pieces, then scatter the mulberries over the top.

Carefully drape the second piece of pastry over the top, crimping the edges to seal. Brush with egg wash, sprinkle with white sugar and pop in the oven for 35 minutes, or until the top is golden.

Set aside to cool 10 minutes, cut and serve with ice cream, cream, custard or a combination of all of the above!

Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan
Baking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden MarzipanBaking up a Storm - Apple and Mulberry Pie with Hidden Marzipan




Sunday, March 1, 2015

Secret Cake Club (Take Two) - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie


Secret Cake Club (Take Two) - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie
Secret Cake Club (Take Two) - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie


So, given that I don't bake a huge amount, I decided to bake a few things to take to the French Secret Cake Club. Just in case my cheesecake was a massive fail. It wasn't, but I still decided to take my back-up dish as well. Having a whole batch of profiteroles in the house just for Lance and I is never the best idea in the world.

My second French dish is an actual French pastry, with a Skamp-twist. Again, I stuck with the cheese theme, and made a Camembert Creme Patisserie to fill my profiteroles. Fragrancing it with a touch of cardamom and drizzling some dark chocolate ganache over the whole affair.

I remember my nanna making choux pastry when I was little. I didn't know back then that it WAS choux pastry, I just remember it being crazy. Pastry, cooked in a pot? What!? Then when it's baked it turns into Chocolate Dog Bones! Or at least, that's what my brother used to call Eclairs. Then when I was in my early twenties the croquembouche as birthday cake and wedding cake really took off in Perth. I know some people were paying $3.50 per profiterole on the cake, and I automatically assumed that must mean that it was difficult to make a profiterole. I know my nanna used to be a great cook, so it made sense that it was something she'd practiced and perfected. Turns out, profiteroles are actually easy. Like, really easy.

The way the pastry is made requires a little elbow grease, but it comes together pretty simply. Boil the water and butter. Stir in the flour. Cool briefly, stir in the eggs. The hardest part is that the eggs won't immediately want to combine, but they do with a bit of stirring. It takes around 5 minutes of stirring with a wooden spoon. The water in the dough does the rest of the work for you, puffing up the balls into lovely airy pillows.

Make the filling first, so it can cool.


Camembert Creme Patisserie

1 3/4 cups milk
3 cardamom pods
80g camembert, rind removed and chopped
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup + 2 tbsps corn flour, sifted

Warm milk and cardamom pods until a simmer, and add the camembert pieces, stirring to melt the cheese. Whisk yolks and sugar together in a bowl. Add the flour and whisk well.

Sieve the milk to remove the pods and any unmelted lumps of cheese. Pour over the egg mix in a thin stream, and whisk to combine.

Return the whole mix to the saucepan over a medium heat and stir for 5 minutes, until mixture thickens. Pour into a glass bowl and cover surface with plastic wrap. Cool in the fridge.


Secret Cake Club (Take Two) - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie
Secret Cake Club - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie


Profiteroles

(makes about 24)
100g butter, softened
1 cup water
1 cup plain flour
4 eggs

Preheat  oven to 200C

Combine butter and water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring to melt the butter.

Add the flour in one go. Stir with a wooden spoon to incorporate fully and continue beating mixture until it pulls away from the side of the pan. Remove from heat and set aside to cool 5 - 10 minutes.

One by one, beat the eggs into the mixture. Making sure the first egg is fully incorporated until you add the next.

If you'd like you can pipe the balls, but I just form balls with 2 tablespoons, rolling a bit of dough between the two, then placing on baking paper lined trays. Should make around 24 balls. Sprinkle a bit of water on the trays.

Bake for 15 minutes without opening the door. Then remove, pierce the bottom of each one with a knife or skewer to remove steam. Lower the oven temperature to 170C then bake an additional 5-10 minutes  until golden and dry.

Cool on wire racks before piping the filling in through the hole you made with the knife earlier.

Chocolate Ganache

50mL cream
100g dark chocolate, chopped

Heat the cream in a small pot to a simmer. Take off the heat, and drop the chocolate over the top. Let stand 30 seconds, then stir to a smooth mix. Drizzle over the top of your profiteroles.


Secret Cake Club - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie
Secret Cake Club - Profiteroles with Camembert Creme Patisserie