Purple, glazed

I've been talking a lot lately about raspberries, because it is summer, they are in season, and delicious.  Also, I remember when I was a kid and Dad would take off with two or three of those gallon ice cream buckets and come back hours later with each one piled high, even spilling over, with raspberries.  Later in the summer, it was blackberries.  At the time, I accompanied him sometimes, but not always.  Now, I wish I'd done more of that.  Dad goes to farms to get his berries now, because the wild bushes have been choked out by honeysuckle.  When he told me this, I finally understood his complete enmity for this invasive species.  He missed the berries; I do, too.  The bowl in the picture below has about two quarts of berries in it, all from Dad's yard in a single morning.  Honeysuckle is not welcome in Dad's yard.

If you finish picking black raspberries and your fingers aren't purple, you're doing it wrong, or not enough.

On the off chance that you've never picked your own raspberries, this is all you need to know about selection: try a couple off the bush.  If they are delicious, keep picking the ones that look like what you just ate.  If they look dried out, forget them.  If it looks like eight bugs have each chewed a tunnel through it, skip it.  If the berry is so plump and wet-looking that it falls off the stem, it's too far gone.  There should be just a little resistance, and they should look like this:

...unless they're red raspberries.  Then they'll be bigger, longer, red, and have different leaves.

Got it?  Great.  Go pick some berries, and I'll wait here.  If you only want to make this recipe, you'll need about 1 1/3 C of black raspberries.  If you want pie, get more berries.  It's ok to overshoot--you can just eat the surplus.

A few months ago I discovered Smitten Kitchen, who does all of this better than I do, and has a book out to prove it.  I don't remember what originally brought me to the site, but I know that my attention was focused on this phrase: Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls.  I wasn't sure I should go sticking bacon in them, but I wanted to try them, and I was going to buy a pie pumpkin anyway.  The results were so good that I made them again a week later to share with Dad.  Thinking of the bounty of berries in Dad's fridge this July, I was struck with an idea: swap pumpkin goo for mashed berries.  I also thought I should throw in some walnuts, because "raspberry-walnut cinnamon rolls" sounded pretty good.  This recipe is almost identical to SK's, because it's a first draft, and I knew that formula would work, but I already have some ideas for changes.  Instead of telling you what I changed, I'm going to leave that link for the original above, and write what you need for my version here.

Dough:

4 T butter, melted

1/2 C whole milk, warmed

2 1/4 t (one packet) active dry yeast

3 1/2 C flour (plus extra for kneading and rolling)

1/4 C granulated sugar

1/4 C packed dark brown sugar (you could use light brown, but why bother?)

1 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t ground ginger

1/8 t cardamon (I might have had closer to 1/4 t in mine--I'm usually pretty generous with spices)

2/3 C mashed berries (you will need about twice this much pre-mashing)

1 large egg

oil or shortening for coating bowl

Filling:

2 T melted/really softened butter

3/4 C dark brown sugar

1/4 C granulated sugar

1/8 t salt

2 t cinnamon

crushed/chopped walnuts (about half a cup, but do whatever you want)

Note: I think I would have been fine with about half as much of both sugars, and it probably would have been a little easier to roll)

Glaze:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

2 C powdered sugar

2 T milk

1 t vanilla (optional)

How to make the purplest things you will ever bake:

• Combine the warmed milk and yeast in a bowl.  Set aside for 5-7 minutes.  Meanwhile, get a big bowl and combine flour, sugars, salt and spices.  Make a well in the middle and dump in the melted butter.  Mix in some of the flour from the sides of the well.  It will look like this:



If you change your mind about the rolls, this might work as wallpaper paste.

• The yeast should be pretty foamy by now.  Add it to your big bowl, along with the egg and mashed berries.

This spoon may never be un-stained.

• Mix the whole mess together.  This is about when I started laughing, because I really didn't expect the color change to be so striking.

If this were normal dough, you'd never notice all those unmixed white bits of butter and flour.

• Knowing I had reached a point where the spoon wasn't going to cut it anymore, this is about when I took the dough out of the bowl and started kneading it.  It is really sticky dough, and I handled this in the usual way: gradually adding flour, a little bit at a time.  I ended up working in 1/3 to 1/2 C of additional flour by the time I could easily handle it.  Grease a large bowl, and stick the purple Play-Doh doughball in to rise.  Cover it and give it about an hour, until it doubles in size.  Luckily, it will not double in purpleness.

I started laughing while mixing.  I continued to laugh at every stage of the process after that, including while I ate them.

• Just before you're ready to work the dough again, mix the sugars and cinnamon for the filling.  DO NOT mix in the butter.  You can mix in the walnuts, but I don't recommend it; it will be hard to spread.
• Punch down the dough, flop it on a clean counter (SK and others will advise a floured counter, but I've gotten by without the flour on every occasion I've ever made cinnamon rolls), and flatten it using hands or a roller to a rectangle that's about 15" x 10".  I'll level with you: I've never measured that rectangle.  I eyeball it, and if the rectangle is a little longer than my 9x13, I'm happy.  I've reached a point where I know the rectangle is the right size because of the dough thickness and the length, and I let the width take care of itself.

The flash pooched the picture, but that's a lot of purple.

• Drizzle your butter over the dough.  Using a spatula or butter knife, spread it over the rectangle's entire top surface except for a 1-1.5" margin along the back side (it will make it easier to seal the rolls later).  Do the same thing with your cinnamon-sugar mix.  If you decided to add the walnuts, sprinkle them on now, trying to get even coverage--don't forget the left and right edges, or you'll have a couple little rolls without much (or any) filling.

If anything spills off, or out of the ends while rolling and cutting, scoop it up later and dump it across the top of the rolls.  It will get hidden under glaze, and nobody will know.

• Starting at the long edge closest to you, roll the dough into a long cylinder.  It will look like a spiral from the end.  This recipe has a lot of sugar in the filling, and my walnuts were in pretty big pieces.  Both factors made rolling tricky.  The sugar layer was so thick that I had to be careful to not just push it ahead of the roll, and it kept the layers of dough from sticking to each other as well as they do with my other cinnamon roll recipe.  Be warned.
• Did I mention you should grease your 9x13?  No?  Ok, do that, then get a sharp serrated knife (I like to use a bread knife, but a steak knife will work, too) and carefully--using little to no downward pressure--saw the purple log into 15 roughly equal segments.  As you cut each one off the end of the roll, turn it on its side and put it in the 9x13.  You should get three rows of five rolls.  There probably won't be much room between them, and that's ok, because it means that as they rise, they will get taller.  When you have the rolls in and the extra sugar sprinkled over the top, you have two options.
• cover tightly and let them rise for 45 minutes
• cover tightly and stick 'em in the fridge overnight (so you can have fresh, piping-hot rolls for breakfast) and pull them out an hour before you want to start baking them.  Keep the baking time in mind when you tell people when breakfast will be.

just before baking.  You can see some of the surplus sugar in the second row.

• Take any covers you might have applied off the pan and bake at 350F for 25 minutes.  This is a good time to make the glaze.

Almost ready to devour.  The whole kitchen smelled like raspberries.  It was outstanding.  If they had turned out to taste terrible, I probably would have cried.

• Cream the cream cheese.  I know, it sounds weird, but it will make mixing easier.  Add the powdered sugar and mix this as well as you can.  It won't really go together well at first, but don't lose hope.  Add vanilla, if you feel like it.  Add the milk that you need (up to 2 T) to get a good consistency.  I only needed 1T this time to get a spreadable glaze.  More might get you a drizzly consistency.  Do whatever you want, then apply generously to the rolls.  Remember that they'll be easier to serve if you can see the edges of individual rolls.

No tears necessary.

However good you think these look, I promise that they tasted even better.  It's just as well that we live in an apartment and don't have a yard full of raspberry bushes, because if I were able to make these things all summer, I'd have a very hard time thinking of any reason at all why I shouldn't.

Pump up the Jam

The recipe said jam; the results were more like jelly.  Dad suggested it could be easily salvaged by calling it an ice cream topping, but I haven't yet tested that application myself.

As you might already know, we ran into a glut of berries while I was visiting Dad.  We were going to take down some trees that needed cuttin', but as Dad sagely pointed out, berries are in season now, and we can cut the trees any time we want.

What choice did we have?  We went berry picking.  Dad's yard can provide more than enough for a pie every couple days at the season's peak, but we went to the pros.  When we arrived at the farm, we chose the divide and conquer method.  Dad took black raspberries, I took red.  When both flats were full (a total of about 27 pounds of berries), we collaborated on a smaller flat of gooseberries (8 pounds).  Gooseberries are weird.  Beware the thorns.

We left most of the harvest with a friend for freezing and pies later in the year, but at Dad's suggestion, I scooped out enough red raspberries (8 cups, or 4 pints) to make a batch of jam.  I wanted to try making it anyway; the flavor was his choice.

According to the ancient and reliable tome in Dad's kitchen cupboard, this is what you need to make jam:

8 C raspberries, washed and drained
7 C sugar
3 oz pectin
jars, new lids, clean rings

I was concerned about things the book mentioned like "canners" and "boilers" and "not poisoning people," but my aunt assured me that all I really need to do is wash the jars well, and boil the lids and rings.  Don't reuse lids.

Start by mashing your clean berries.  The book I had suggested running half of them through a strainer to remove some of the seeds, but I'm lazy and don't mind the seeds.  Red raspberries are plump and have a big hollow inside, so they mash very easily and rapidly lose volume.  By the time I had no recognizable fruits left, I was down to about 4 C of fruit without removing anything.

They looked a little more red than this, but the shots with flash just got glare from that puddle of juice in the middle, so I stopped trying.

Put the berries in a big pot on the stove.  Remember, you're going to add 7 C sugar to this and get the whole mess boiling, so if you pull out a pot and think, "Hmm, some sugar will be absorbed, and there's only 4 cups of fruit, so this one's probably big enough," get a bigger pot.  I didn't get a bigger pot, and I think that may have caused some of my trouble.  More on that later.

Berries, sugar, and an inch or so of room at the top of the pot.  Not quite enough room.

While I cooked the berries, I had a shallow pan on a back burner slowly boiling lids and rings.  Mix all the berries and sugar together well and cook it until it boils.  Boil it hard for a minute, stirring constantly.  This is where I had trouble.  Sugar-berry slurry doesn't boil like water; water bubbles, but berries foam.  When the pot was on the burner, the foam dome rapidly rose until I lifted the pot (we had reached a point where turning the heat down didn't help enough), but then it wasn't really boiling, was it?  I juggled for a minute or so, letting the pot heat until I could tell it was about to boil over, then lifting until the foam sank back, stirring the whole time.  You'll understand why there are no pictures of this phase of the operation.

After you've boiled a minute, remove the pot from heat and stir in the pectin.  There will still be a lot of foam; skim this off with a big spoon and discard it (not the spoon--you can keep that, but wash it soon, ok?).

I have no idea whether foam is good for anything.

Now you can start filling jars.  If you're working alone, fill one jar at a time.  Use a funnel if you have it.  When the jam level is just below the jar threads, remove the funnel, get a lid from your shallow boiling pan (don't use your fingers.  It will hurt.) and slap it on top.  Then crank on a lid and push the jar to the back of the counter.  I saw something that said I should push down the button on the lids, so I did.  Later, somebody told me I wasn't supposed to do that, because they'll snap down on their own as they cool.  I've never done this before, so I told Dad to stick all the jars in the freezer after they had cooled and use them soon after thawing.  Three buttons popped back up before they went to the freezer.  Oops.

this place looks seedy.

I mentioned earlier that the result was pretty runny.  I'm used to jam you can scoop up in fat wedges on your knife, and this stuff almost requires a spoon to get it out of the jar (almost).  I think it's because of my boiling biff.  If I had been using a bigger pot, I could have kept it directly on the heat the whole time, and it might have thickened better.

A final word: that pot of jam is hot, and it will stick to you.  Keep kids securely locked in their cages during this operation.

Shrimp Creole

I first made this about a year ago, and before I allowed the Chief Taster to try hers, I warned that I hoped she wouldn't like it.  "Why not?"  "Because I can't afford to buy this much shrimp again."  After we started eating, she declared that she would knock down an old lady to eat it again.  I'm pretty sure she was kidding, but I've seen her take candy from actual babies, so who's to know?

the "holy trinity": onion, garlic, bell pepper.  Also some celery.

I can usually find peeled, deveined frozen shrimp at the grocery, which saves me a couple hours of work, because I'm not good at that part.

veggies, tomato stuff, seasonings.  I added a dash or two of hot pepper sauce, too.  It is Creole, after all.

When I made it this time, it was supposed to be for a birthday dinner (months before this post went up), but nobody we invited could make it, so it was just the two of us and a great big pot of delicious shrimp.  I hate when that happens. [delighted giggling]

gray shrimp: not cooked.

pink shrimp: cooked.  Easy!

When it's all done, serve it over rice.

Fun variation: I've also made a thicker creole sauce, and used it with grated parmesan and cooked shrimp to make a creole pizza.  I biffed the crust that time, but it tasted so good otherwise that I didn't care much.

Raspberry Pi

No, not that one, you nerds.

Dad has a bunch of raspberry bushes in his yard.  They arose, unbidden but welcome, from an unknown source (probably bird poo) several years ago, and have been spreading ever since.  We like raspberries, so he has seen no reason to stop their profligation, but they've reached a point where we might need to at least cut some rows between them so we can get at all of their delicious fruit.  After GOBA, I knew I had some time off from my usual butlering duties in Virginia, so I stayed with Dad to help with some chores and repairs, but when I saw all his ripe black raspberries, I knew that something had to be done.  Preferably something round, encased in pastry.

Yes, this will do nicely, thank you!

Thanks to Sam, I now know that I can post any recipe I want here; it's my commentary that's copyrighted.  So here's the recipe I used, and in the interests of fairness, here's the source (caution: annoying popup ads).

Crust:
2 C flour
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
3/4 C shortening
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 T cold water
1T white vinegar

Filling:
1 1/3 C sugar
2 T quick-cooking tapioca
2 T cornstarch
5 C fresh or frozen-and-thawed raspberries
1 T butter

• Combine flour, sugar, and salt.  Cut in shortening until texture resembles coarse crumbs (see below).  If you have a pastry blender, this is when you use it.  If you do not have a pastry blender, and plan to make five or more pies in your lifetime, this is a good time to go boy a pastry blender.  Get a strong one.  Dad's is formed from sheet metal.  Ours has wires.  I like Dad's better, but they both work fine.



"Coarse crumb" texture.  Thumb shown for scale.  Your thumb may vary.

• Combine egg, water, and vinegar.  Add to pastry mixture.  You may have to work it with your hands a little in the bowl until you get a cohesive ball.  The original recipe advises separating the dough now and wrapping both pieces in plastic wrap, but I just put a sealing lid on the mixing bowl and stuck it in the fridge.  The fridge is the more important part here.  Cooling the dough for about 30 minutes will make it easier to handle later.
• See the filling ingredients?  Mix everything but the butter in a big bowl and let it sit for about fifteen minutes.  The timing works out well on this, because the dough will be ready at about the same time as your filling.

mmm, filling.  It's ok to lick the spoon, I promise.

• Roll out the dough using your favorite method.  I still can't get cohesive dough on a floured surface (although this is a new pastry recipe for me, so maybe I could have), so I tend to use two sheets of plastic wrap on a very slightly damp counter (to help the plastic wrap stick to it).  I know it's wasteful, but I was pressed for time that morning, so I wasn't up for experimentation.  Use the larger dough ball first and line a 9" pie pan with it.  Dump in the filling.  Cut the butter into little pieces and sprinkle them across the top of the berries.  Roll out the rest of the dough and seal your pie.  Trim the edges if necessary.  I had some dough left over, so I tried to make little decorative pieces with them.  They didn't look very good, but as I tend to aim for taste over appearance, that didn't bother me much.  Cut some vents in your top crust, brush with a little milk, and sprinkle with some sugar (a tablespoon or less each.  It doesn't take much.)
• Bake at 350F 50-55 minutes, until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly.

see the bubbly filling?

• Let cool (it will hold together better when you serve it--you can reheat slices if you like) and eat with vanilla ice cream and friends.  Interpret that however you like.

As frequent readers here will know, I've reached a point where I often consider recipes to be more like guidelines than hard-and-fast rules, and I'm prone to substitution experiments.  They will also know that when you cook without a safety net, you're bound to make a few small mistakes.  These are usually edible (I still haven't posted about my colossal failure with Hudson Bay Bread--my annoyance is too great), so it's ok, but I thought I'd share what I did differently here, because that's the whole point.

When you cook in someone else's kitchen, you use what they have.  Dad had some pearl tapioca, and I thought it would be pointless to go buy some quick-cooking tapioca when I only needed two tablespoons.  No worries!  The recipe called for 1 1/3 C sugar (plus one tablespoon for topping), and it turned out that Dad had exactly 1 C of sugar left.  I used brown sugar for the remaining 1/3 C.  When I make apple pie, I use brown sugar almost exclusively these days, and in the filling, I didn't see how it would matter. It didn't sprinkle very well for the topping, but that's ok, too.  I also substituted apple cider vinegar for white vinegar. I can't think of any reason that this would matter.

The sugar substitution caused no trouble at all.  The pearl tapioca might have been a very small mistake.  If you look closely at the mixed filling (pre-baking), you can see the little white spheres in there.

you can taste the filling if you lick your screen hard enough.

The downside is, I think quick-cooking tapioca would have gelled better and given me a more cohesive result, instead of Lake Berry Juice, seen below.

It's a pie AND a dessert topping!

The good news is, it was still very tasty, and since you probably aren't one of the three people who got to eat this pie, there's no way you can prove me wrong.  HA!!