Serve with warning labels

Remember our good friend the Model Bakery Cookbook?

We do. The Chief Taster now tells people about running the Napa Valley Marathon not because she got her best time there, but because the next day we bought this cookbook, and she wants everyone to know about this cookbook. Seems weird, coming from someone who loves to brag about herself, but maybe it's her way of bragging about what she gets to eat.

This summer, we went to a friend's birthday cookout. They requested that I bring "something yummy for dessert." I didn't get any further clarification except "brownies?" I couldn't remember ever baking brownies that weren't from a mix (when I want hand-edible sweet treats, I usually bake cookies), but as the Chief Taster tells everyone, "everything from that book is amazing," so I checked the Model Bakery index.

There was one little problem: the book calls for an 8x8 pan, and I was serving around 20 people (plus some smallish humans I hadn't anticipated), so I first made a test batch of the prescribed size, then increased the recipe to fit in a 9x13 for the actual party. Both batches happened in the same week, and by the time we got to the actual party, I was already saturated with brownie, and couldn't bring myself to eat them anymore.

Which isn't to say they weren't good.

I was a little thrown by the texture; it wasn't what I had expected, and maybe wasn't what I had in mind, but they were ridiculously popular, possibly for the same reason. These aren't your usual box-mix, flaky-topped brownies. These are more like fudge and brownies had a baby, and it ate all your chocolate chips. They are thick, rich, a little dense, and as we learned after the cookout, should not be fed to gremlins after 7 PM. I called them:

Weapons-Grade Brownies

3/4 C plus 1 T unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
unbleached all-purpose flour for the pan
1 C cake flour (I used all-purpose)
3/4 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
10 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (the book says "no more than 55% cacao," and wants you to buy a bar and chop it up. I just bought a bag of chips. Their cacao rating was not labeled. I live dangerously.)
1 C sugar
3 T espresso (in my case, 1 1/2 t instant espresso dissolved in 3 T boiling water)
1 t vanilla
3 large eggs
1 1/3 C semisweet chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Butter an 8 inch square pan. Dust with flour, shake to coat, and dump the excess. The book said to line the bottom with parchment paper, but I can't think of any reason to do that.
• Put the the chopped chocolate (or 10 oz of chips, you dangerous rebel!) into a large mixing bowl. We're going to do a slow melt in it later, so make sure the bowl has plenty of room above the chips for stirring.
• Heat the butter, coffee, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. When the butter is melted and everything has blended, pour it over the chocolate and let it set for a minute or so until the chocolate has softened. Add the vanilla and mix until the chocolate has melted.
• Beat the eggs into the chocolate. Mix in the flour, powder, and salt. Make sure you get the bits that stick to the bowl; we want it all blended. Fold in the chips. Spread batter evenly in the pan.
• This is where I ran into problems with my test batch. The book said to bake for 35 minutes. I did. I even did the toothpick test. Everything looked fine until I tried to serve myself a delicious, oven-warm brownie, and a thick, muddy landslide oozed into the space I had opened (see bottom left corner of picture). The "brownie" I tried to pull from the pan was a formless glob of (delicious, decadent, dangerous) goo which flopped wetly from the spatula and onto the counter, plate, and my hand. It was far too warm for my hand, but that's another issue. The pan had been out of the oven 15 minutes by then, but I stuck it back in and waited patiently. I really don't remember how long it finally baked. but I let it cool until after dinner (a few hours) before trying to serve more.
• Since this was my test batch, I was concerned about the "real" batch I was going to make later, by doubling the batch size and using a larger pan. I baked that one for 55 minutes, and didn't touch it until hours later, at the party, giving it plenty of time to finish setting outside the oven and cool to a more cohesive temperature.
• How long should you bake it? Hell if I know. Figure it out. Worst case, cover it with ice cream.

I mentioned that they are unusually thick, rich brownies. On the email chain about food people were bringing to the cookout, I labeled my contribution "Weapons-Grade Brownies," and this naturally invited some questions. Hours after the party, I got this email from a mother of three who attended with her husband and gremlins:

I now understand that "weapons-grade," when used in reference to brownies means "one twin will be so wound up she will throw her bottle on the floor and have pretend conversations on her lego car/telephone, while the other twin will throw her arm around your shoulder and sing ribald songs of the sea while kicking twin #1 and fending off random hits from the car/telephone."  One of them is still talking.  I'm not going in there to find out which.

 In case you are wondering, this was the ribald song of the sea. I did not teach it.

Like, totally rad

I've been working my way through the Model Bakery cookbook, in no particular order.  So far, I have completely failed to find a recipe therein which does not meet with high praise, muffled by being spoken with a full mouth.  The book is outstanding, and not just for the full-page shots of food porn.  The recipes themselves are great, although they sometimes call for weird ingredients, or have directives I don't understand (I always work by hand, but the primary directions are for food processors. The oven temperatures are conveniently listed with three settings: Fahrenheit, Celsius, and "gas," which is always a single digit number.  I have a gas oven, but this digit means nothing to me.)

One of the recipes I've wanted to try since buying the book finally got its day this winter.  The picture of the Chocolate Rads shows an enormous, highly textured macro shot of a single cookie, whose diameter nearly spans the page.  I came to discover that this is a life-size shot.  Be warned: these cookies are not only very large, they are very rich.  They're not cookies so much as blocks of chocolate and sugar supporting a thin matrix of flour.  That's the good news.  The bad news is, I think they dry out too quickly.  My recommendation is to either bake them in batches as needed, or bake them for a large gathering.  The book says you'll get "12 large cookies."  I think my count was closer to sixteen, and they were still plenty big.

Chocolate Rads

2/3 C flour
2.5 t baking powder
1/4 t salt (the book says "fine sea salt," but I'm not that picky)
1 lb semisweet chocolate (55% cacao or less), chopped.  I used a bag and a half of chips.
4 T unsalted butter, room temp.
1 2/3 C sugar
4 large eggs (the Model Bakery is really big on using eggs at room temperature.  I usually forget that part.  Do as you will)
1 T cold brewed espresso, or 1 t instant espresso dissolved in 1 T boiling water, cooled
2.5 t vanilla
2 C chocolate chips
1 C chopped walnuts (I was out of walnuts, but we had some "white baking chips" left over from another recipe that I wanted to get out of the kitchen)

1. First thing is melting the chocolate.  There are many schools of thought here, but I think the prevailing method is some sort of double-boiler arrangement.  I don't have a double boiler, I finally succeeded in convincing the Chief Taster to get rid of hers to gain some room in the cupboards, and I've read that double boilers really aren't that good at double boiling, anyway.  If you have a metal mixing bowl that will rest over a saucepan of simmering water, use that.  If you don't (my mixing bowls are all glass), then wrangle something else.  I found that I can rest my smallest saucepan inside the next largest, and the protruding lip keeps it from resting a bottom edge in the larger pot, which would make a hot spot.  But I digress.  Melt the damn chocolate.  Stir occasionally, just until smooth, then remove from heat and stir in the butter.
2. Beat the sugar and eggs together.  Add the espresso and vanilla.  It should be pale yellow and a little fluffed before the bean-based ingredients, and darker after.  Stir in the melted chocolate, then the flour, baking powder, and salt.  When the batter is homogeneous (and honestly, kind of gross-looking), add chips and nuts.  Or chips and chips, if you're cleaning out the fridge like I was.  This dough is really soft, so let it stand 20 or 30 minutes so it can firm up a little.  By the way, I hope you  (I told you n're not excited to eat these bad boys right away, because...
3. Lay a big piece of parchment paper (about 1x1.5 feet) on your counter.  Spoon big globs of dough onto it in a line parallel to the long side.  Get it all on there.  Spatula your bowl clean, if you have to.  Wet your hands, then form the dough globs into a big smooth log, about a foot long and 3 inches in diameter.  Smooth the ends so it's a nice, neat cylinder.  I'm laughing as I watch you do this, because it will be a big, sticky mess, and you're going to do your best, but you'll have doubts about the entire enterprise by now.  Stick with it.  It's worth it.  Wrap the paper around your goo-log and twist the ends shut.  Put the log on a baking sheet and stick it in the fridge 2 to 24 hours. (I told you not to get anxious)
4. Heat the oven to 350F (gas 4, if you're curious).  Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Pull the log out of the fridge.  It will be a little flat on the bottom side, so roll it a little to smooth it and re-round it.  It won't make a difference in a moment, because the shape will get mangled when you slice the log, but just fight the good fight as long as you can, ok?  Unwrap the dough and wet a thin, sharp knife.  Cut 1" slices and arrange them on your baking sheets.  This is important, so listen up: the book says four cookies per baking sheet.  They are not fucking around.  I think I managed to get 6 on my sheets, but a couple of them became a mega-cookie, and these are already really big cookies.  You get four, maybe six to a sheet.  That's it.  Whatever doesn't fit on the baking sheet goes back in the fridge.  The sheets bake about 20 minutes.  The tops of the cookies will crack and the edges will crisp.  Swap the sheets top-for-bottom and rotate them 180 about halfway through to get more even cooking.  When you pull them out, let them set on the pans about five minutes before moving them to whatever cooling surface you prefer.  Repeat with remaining dough.
6. NOW you can eat.  Pace yourself.  It's really easy to make yourself sick by eating only five or six of these.

That's my hand for scale.  You probably haven't met my hand, so I'll tell you that the palm part is about 3" by 3".  The cookies were bigger.

gooey chewy fruit madness

Last year, the day after I clawed my way out of the Pit of Despair which still held the Chief Taster in its slavering maw, I discovered that I finally felt well enough to go to the Cookie Exchange that evening.

Ever been to a cookie exchange?  The name should tell you everything you need, but I'm going to lay it out anyway, because it is magical.  Remember the old days, when people would try to impress other people with their culinary skill and baking mastery by single-handedly making and delivering several dozen different kinds of cookies to every person they knew?  It's the edible version of the annual Christmas letter.  Look how great I am!  I made thirty different kinds of cookies in just under two weeks, and here's your share!  some of them might still be fresh!  Enjoy reveling in my awesomeness!  WHOOOOOOsnorecollapse.

Then the Interwebs happened, and people learned to crowdsource holiday baking, giving rise to the noble Cookie Exchange.  You make one kind of cookie.  Two, if you feel ambitious.  Then you take your cookies to someone's house, which in my case was packed full of strangers, four people I knew, and a dog which ignored me when the children began to arrive.  Everyone puts their cookies on a great big table, and when you're ready to leave, you take a few cookies from each of the piles, and you get to have all the tasty variety of baking lots of different cookies after only making one or two recipes.  Brilliant!  Plus, if the people you invite to your exchange are the ones you would've given all those plates of cookies to anyway, you've not only shared your baked bounty with them, you've tricked them into baking part of it!!

The Chief Taster, as I mentioned, was still coughing and sneezing, and thus opted to stay away from other people's food, but I went with another friend, and learned the real secret of cookie exchanges: stay until the end.  Most people left early, and felt bad taking too much, so by the time there were only six or eight of us left, the table was still groaning under the baked burden.  I had to borrow an extra container to take my share of what was left.  On the other hand, the hosts had already learned the other lesson of cookie exchanges: be careful with the invitations.  They mentioned one person who had come the previous year and took all of a couple varieties of cookies, thereby completely missing the point of the exchange, and absconding with far more than they had provided.  They weren't invited to the exchange I attended.

I took one of my all-time favorite cookies.  The Chief Taster told me what she wanted to take (even though we both knew she wasn't going), but the invitation had specified that we were to bring four dozen cookies, and her recipe had a yield of 16 bars.  I didn't want to make three batches of them, so I made one, and didn't take them to the exchange.  That meant we got all the bars, which wasn't a bad idea.

Brandied Cranberry-Apricot Bars (From a very old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook)
2/3 C golden and/or dark raisins
1/3 C dried cranberries
1/3 C snipped dried apricots
1/3 C brandy or water
1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
1 1/3 C packed brown sugar
1/3 C butter
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1/3 C chopped pecans
powdered sugar

you need this much fruit

• Combine fruit and brandy in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and let stand 20 minutes before draining.

• In a medium bowl, mix 1 C flour and 1/3 C brown sugar.  Use a pastry blender to cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.  Press mixtures into an 8x8 baking dish, then bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until golden.
• While the bottom crust bakes, make the filling.  Beat the eggs in a medium bowl.  The book told me to use an electric mixer on low speed for four minutes, but I used a whisk or a fork, because I really only use the electric mixer for whipped cream and waffle batter.  Add remaining flour and brown sugar, and the vanilla, stirring well.  Stir in the fruit and nuts.  Pour over hot crust, spreading evenly.

Real fruit filling!

• Bake 40 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test.  (you can cover with foil for the last 10 minutes to prevent over-browning, but that wasn't a problem for me)  Cool on wire rack, dust with powdered sugar, cut into bars.

This is what mine looked like, after baking but before the powdered sugar.

These are really tasty bars, and on a few morning I had them for breakfast, but the really astounding part is how long they lasted.  I baked them a  few days before Christmas, we took them with us to Ohio, the Chief Taster brought some of them back from Ohio, and they were still waiting for me when I returned in the second half of January.  I had a bar tat night, and they were still good.  Keep them sealed, and keep them away from me, because although they survived a solid month with the Chief Taster--who had specifically requested them--they were gone within a couple days of my return.

'Chess Pie

When Mom used to make Chocolate Chess Pie, I was always puzzled by the name.  I asked her once why it was called Chess Pie, because it was all one color, not a checkered pattern (I was pretty young when I asked.  Cut me some slack).  She told me that it was something baked by settlers, and they didn't always have fruit to put in the pies, so they made this out of relatively common ingredients that everyone had handy.  When asked what kind of pie it was, they'd respond, "oh, it's 'chess pie."

I'm pretty sure she made that up, but who cares?  It's delicious.

1.25 C sugar
1/4 C cocoa
1/4 C melted butter
2 eggs
10 T (5 oz) evaporated milk
1.5 t vanilla
1/8 t salt

5 oz evaporated milk.  Who wants to measure that 1 Tablespoon at a time??

Combine first three ingredients in medium bowl.  Add eggs, beat well.  Blend in last three ingredients.  Pour into unbaked pie shell, and bake at 350F 35-45 minutes.  Serve with whipped cream, ice cream, or coffee.  Hell, serve it with cognac.  Trust me--people dig this pie.  It doesn't really matter what else is on the table.  I served it on the same night we celebrated the Chief Taster's last school loan payment, and I think she liked it even more than the far more complex fish stew.

Just something I cobbled together

Last summer, when Dad and The Lady came to visit, they brought with them a delicious bounty: a shoebox full of peaches.  We ate them every morning for breakfast, but we weren't sure we'd finish them before they got too mushy.  Something had to be done!

Cobbler had to be done.

Fresh Peach Cobbler
1/2 C sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/4 t cinnamon
4 C peeled, sliced peaches
1 t lemon juice
1 C all-purpose flour
1 T sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 t firm butter
1/2 C milk
2 T sugar

1. Heat oven to 400F
2. Mix 1/2 C sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon in 2 qt saucepan.  Stir in peaches and lemon juice.cook over medium-high heat 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly, until it's thick and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Pour into ungreased 2 qt casserole.  Keep it hot in the oven.
3. Combine flour, 1 T sugar, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl.  Cut in butter with a pastry blender until it looks like fine crumbs.  Stir in milk.  Drop by spoonfuls over hot peaches.  (I worked with the peaches and dough simultaneously, so the peaches didn't rest in the oven.  Still worked.)  Sprinkle 2 T sugar over dough.
4. bake 25-30 minutes or until topping is golden brown.  Serve with whipped cream, or iced cream, or brandy, or something.

go bananas

When I unloaded the car from a recent "camping" trip, I discovered that the bananas which made it all the way home were in no fit state of banananess.  The backs of two of them were very soft from bruising, probably a result of fitting three adults and their collection of food and winter gear into my fierce but tiny car.  It's a wonder we didn't all have soft spots.  My revulsion at sinking into the fruit was short-lived; soft bananas means it's time for banana bread.

I used to use a recipe from Betty Crocker when I made banana bread, but it called for buttermilk, which I never have, and always substituted an equal amount of milk, curdled with the addition of 1-2 t lemon juice and half an hour of time.  Now I prefer the recipe from The Complete Family Cookbook, a tome Dad has in his kitchen, and which, after extensive searching, he found in a secondhand bookstore.  He got copies for my brother and I, and despite the age-yellowed pages (the only date I can find on it is 1969), my copy seems untouched.

Many years ago, before I moved to Oregon, I was talking to a  co-worker about my plans to make banana bread that night (still using BC's formula), and I mentioned that I wasn't sure I had chocolate chips.  He was appalled, certain that chocolate chips in banana bread would be a mistake.  I was equally appalled, as I knew from years of Mom's baking that chocolate chips belong in banana bread in the same way that cheese belongs in an omelet; it can be done without, but why would you bother?  My plan this time hinged on the bag of morsels I knew was on the bottom shelf of the fridge, but I was sidetracked by one of the variations suggested in the cookbook: prune nut banana bread.  Thing is, I'm not crazy about prunes, but I knew we had dried apricots, and I love those little buggers.  We also had pecans, but I toyed with the idea of going apricot-chocolate chip.

Prune Apricot Pecan Banana Bread
3/4 C sugar
1/2 C oil
2 eggs
1 C mashed bananas (wait until they're bruised badly or WAY too ripe--it makes for easier mashing)
1 3/4 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C chopped dried apricots (coarser chopping means larger chewy chunks later.  Keep that in mind if you like larger chewy chunks, but don't just throw them in whole, because you still need to slice the bread, you animal)

Two bananas mash into one cup.  Your results may vary according to bananas.

• Preheat oven to 325F.
• Combine sugar, oil, and eggs in large bowl. Beat until frothy.  Add fruit and nuts, mix well.  Mix in dry ingredients.

Add apricots, pecans, and bananas; mix well.

• Pour into greased 9" x 5" loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour, until brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (As the loaf bakes and expands, it will develop a crack running along the middle of the top of the loaf.  If appearance concerns you, poke the toothpick in here, where it won't disturb the crust and leave a nice-looking loaf intact).  Let it cool ten minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack.  You may need to run a butter knife around the loaf inside the pan to loosen it a little.

One administrative note: if you follow my other blog, you know that I'm going to spend a good chunk of this year backpacking.  Monday will be my first day on the trail.  Backpackers eat a lot of crap, and do very little actual cooking.  Most of the time it's a matter of boiling water and adding carbs.  If I get creative, I'll stir some peanut butter into my noodles for calories and protein, and pretend it's Thai food.  Suffice to say, most of you won't be interested in my food over the summer unless you already follow my other blog.  But fear not!  Knowing this day would come, I've been stockpiling lots of posts to get you through the summer, although we're switching from Weekly to Bi-weekly until I return from my trip.  I did get a little ahead of myself, though, so the bi-weekly schedule won't start for a couple weeks.  We still have to try beef stew and some cookies (no surprise there).  And I still might wedge in a couple food-related posts from the trail.  Check back often, or Follow this blog to get all the updates.

Happy Trails,
Ryan

Pumpkin Bread Another Way

As I mentioned, despite my best intentions, I keep screwing up the amounts of thawed pumpkin I have on hand.  When I went to make the pumpkin pie for the Chief Taster's family's Thanksgiving, I read the recipe card (in my own handwriting, thus removing my last excuse) and found that I didn't need 2 C of puree, but 1.5.  This explained why my previous pie barely fit in the crust--I had used 2 C for that one.

I did it right for Thanksgiving, but then I had a tiny portion of leftover pumpkin, and I wasn't really sure what to do with it.  A couple weeks ago, I remembered it was still in the fridge, and I figured I should use it or toss it, and I hate to throw food away, so I decided to make pumpkin bread again.  I was all wound up for it when I remembered that I needed 1 C for a half-batch, and I only had 1/2 C.  Then I measured it (good call), and found that I really only had about 1/4 C.

But I still wanted to bake something, because it had been raining all day, and I was done working on Plan B for a while, and I had Spanish Chicken simmering away in the Crock Pot for five more hours, and it felt like fall, dammit, so I wanted to bake something.  Still, I only had 1/4 C of pumpkin puree.

Of course, there's also some leftover sour cream in the fridge that will pass its Use By date in a few more days.  Pumpkin puree is sort of creamy.  Sour Cream Pumpkin Bread doesn't sound like a bad idea, per se.

Kids: this will NOT taste like a creamsicle.

So I did it.  What follows is a sort-of recipe, or at least a record of what I did.

3/4 C pumpkin puree/sour cream slurry (I had about 1/4 C puree and 1/2 C sour cream.  I might have gone with 3/4 C sour cream, but that was all I had.)
1/2 plus 1/3 C sugar
1/3 C vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
2 large eggs
1.5 C flour (you can use whole wheat if you want.  Go ahead.  Pretend this is healthy.)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 C chocolate chips

1. Move oven rack so the tops of the loaves will be in the middle of the oven, and preheat it to 350F.  Grease just the bottom of an 8x4 inch pan.
2. Combine pumpkin slurry, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Really well.  Don't leave any lumps of sour cream.  Add everything except the chips. Mix well.  Add chips.  Mix again.
3. Pour batter into loaf pan.
4. Bake 50 to 60 minutes (I was closer to 65 before the toothpick test passed).  Check with a toothpick (inserted in the center, it should come out clean.  If it doesn't, give it a few more minutes).  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

Pumpkin bread the (almost) right way

Around the same time we went apple picking, I bought a couple small pie pumpkins at the grocery.  We had just had our first day of fall weather (it dipped below 60F for almost an hour one afternoon), and I was all fired up for warm baked goods, stews, soups, and cocoa.  Plus, we were going to go share a cabin and some hiking with friends who had requested pumpkin pie.  I had big plans for apple butter (check), pumpkin pies (multiple requests to fill), pumpkin cinnamon rolls (pending), and I had theorized a formula for apple walnut cinnamon rolls (still just a theory--I ran out of apples).  Then, because it's Virginia, temperatures climbed back into the 70s and 80s for several weeks.  I've lived here for almost two years, and I'm convinced that there are two seasons: Way Too Warm, and Slightly Less Warm Than The Other Season.

But I digress.

After roasting and pureeing the pumpkin, I sealed it in handy 2 Cup portions and tucked them away in the freezer.  I got three or four portions of that size, and an additional 2/3 C, which is coincidentally the exact amount that I need for SK's pumpkin cinnamon rolls (I've made them before, and sometimes find myself in mid-July wishing fall would hurry up and fall so I can make them again).  I took this as a sign of kismet smiling upon me: I was meant to have those cinnamon rolls.

Naturally, after making a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (1C pumpkin required), I screwed up and grabbed the 2/3 C portion when I wanted the 1 C leftover portion and... anyway, despite my luck in picking pumpkin puree portions, I've been doing ok--except that I was excited about all the 2 C portions, perfect for pies, before I realized I only need 1.5 C for a pie.  I didn't look too closely at the recipe when I made that first pie, and was puzzled when I barely got the filling to fit in the crust.  In fact, I didn't figure that out until just before I sat down to write this post, four pumpkin recipes later.

One of those recipes was pumpkin bread.  I knew I had that 1 C of leftover puree in the fridge (when I realized I had the 2/3 C portion thawed, I just made pumpkin pretzels, only to realize I couldn't taste the pumpkin at all.  Whoops), and I had already checked the recipe, so I knew that would work.  Except I forgot that I had determined it would be enough for a half recipe, and didn't halve anything else as I happily dumped ingredients in a great big bowl, so I had to thaw a 2 C portion and make a bigger batch of bread.

For someone who used to be good at math, I've been terrible at tracking pumpkin fractions this fall.

Pumpkin Bread (adapted from Betty Crocker)

2 C pumpkin puree (or one 15 oz can--don't use the pie mix.  Just pumpkin puree)
1 2/3 C sugar
2/3 C vegetable oil
2 t vanilla
4 large eggs
3 C flour (you can use whole wheat if you want.  Go ahead.  Pretend this is healthy.)
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 C chocolate chips
1/2 C chopped pecans (the original recipe called for 1/2 C each of raisins and coarsely chopped nuts, but I wanted chocolate.  I threw in the pecans more because I had them handy than because Betty told me to.)

1. Move oven rack so the tops of the loaves will be in the middle of the oven, and preheat it to 350F.  Grease just the bottom of a 9x5 inch pan (or two 8x4s).
2. Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla, and eggs.  Mix well.  Add everything except the chips and nuts. Mix well.  Add chips and nuts.  Mix again.
3. Pour batter into loaf pan(s).
4. Bake a 9x5 for 70 to 90 minutes.  Bake 8x4s 50 to 60 minutes.  Check with a toothpick (inserted in the center, it should come out clean.  If it doesn't, give it a few more minutes).  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

The recipe says you should let it cool completely (around 2 hours) before slicing, but seriously?  You're going to look at this thing of beauty and think, "nah, I don't need to stuff that in my face right now, while it's still warm and the chocolate's gooey, and it smells so good and--" (furious chewing noises).

Night at the Improv, Part I

As you may know by now (if you've been reading this blog for a while, and have paid any attention at all), I'm a big fan of faking it.  Sometimes that just means trying a new ingredient in a well-used recipe (adding cumin and curry powder to Betty's brown rice and lentils was brilliant.  Betty's diverse, but her recipes tend toward the bland and basic), but sometimes I make dinner winging it all the way.

Sometimes, I have no choice in the matter.

This story actually happened last year, but since I knew I'd be hiking by now, I figured it would be a good post to delay until I couldn't be relied upon to update regularly.  The next post is a continuation of the same afternoon in the kitchen.

First, the cookies.

I have this great book for chocolate chip cookies.  All the recipes were culled from a contest to find "the best" chocolate chip cookie recipe, possibly the most subjective idea since Miss Universe (click the link, or you can't really appreciate the joke).  I first liked it because I got it when I was still beginning to learn how to cook and bake, and there was a lot of good information in how the ingredients worked, and enough variety in the recipes to see those theories in action, assuming you eat an awful lot of cookies, which I arguably do.  Since I got the book, I haven't even hit the halfway point in trying all the recipes, but I have found a few very good ones, and this is one of them.  That should come as no surprise; it was a finalist.

Joyous Chocolate Chip Cookies (submitted by Robin Joy Minnick)
3 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 C butter, softened
1/4 C shortening
1 C brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
1 T milk
3 T dark corn syrup
2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 C pecans, broken

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream butter, shortening, and sugars.  Add vanilla, eggs, milk, and corn syrup.  Gradually add flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add chocolate and nuts.
3. Drop by teaspoon-sized balls onto parchment-paper lined baking sheets (the original recipe says greased sheets, but greasing a baking sheet recently removed from a 350F oven will either be exceedingly painful, or a fire hazard.  Maybe both!  One sheet of parchment paper will last through an entire batch of cookies, and nobody get third-degree burns.).  Bake 7-10 minutes, until cookies are golden brown, and slightly darker along the edges.

I'd made it two or three times before, and didn't think much of launching into it that afternoon, but after I had reached the Point Of No Return on making a batch, I realized that I had a little less then half as much brown sugar as I needed.  And about a third of the corn syrup.

The dark glob is molasses.  Don't tell anybody.

Fine.  I'll fake it!  Instead of a cup of brown sugar and half a cup of granulated, I had almost half a cup of brown sugar, and just used enough granulated to make up the difference.  (Still 1.5 C total sugar)  When I realized I didn't have enough corn syrup, I used molasses for the rest.  I've made lots of cookies with molasses.  It's dark and sweet.  That's sort of like corn syrup.  Plus, it smells nice baking.  Besides, the recipe actually calls for dark corn syrup, and I'd always used the light corn syrup we had, so strictly speaking, I'd never made those cookies right, anyway.

The results were pretty great.  The Chief Taster, who was already a big fan of the original recipe, raved about this batch.  I might even make a note in the cookbook to try this variation again.

Snickerdoodles

My usual uniform is shorts and a T-shirt.  You can tell when I'm being dressy because my shirt has buttons, and if I'm really serious, it's tucked in, too.  For me, the first real sign of winter's arrival is the day when I realize that I have to start wearing pants again (jeans) and store the shorts for a few months.  That day was about two weeks ago.  Truly, a sad day for me and anyone who enjoys gazing upon my hairy kneecaps.

This Monday, driving back to our place after the fourth wedding we've attended this fall, I got another inarguable sign of winter: snickerdoodle craving.  Out of nowhere, I could taste them in my mouth, and feel the perfect snickerdoodle texture smashing between my teeth.  I warned the Chief Taster that we'd have a batch in the next few days.  She sighed her resignation, hoping that she would be able to bear the threat of more baked goods.

The last time I made snickerdoodles was over two years ago, when I still lived in Bend, and winter arrived much earlier than here in Virginia (I still have trouble with the knowledge that, for the first time in my life, I live south of the Mason-Dixon line).  When I pulled them out of my pack as Summit Cookies, my Scotsman friend laughed at the name.  He'd never heard of them before, and I thought that was odd, because I had grown up with them.  On the other hand, he'd never heard of zucchini bread either, and raved about it the first time he had mine.

I realized while making this batch that snickerdoodles are a primordial cookie; the most basic cookie form, before it gets tarted up with chocolate chips, nuts, bits of fruit, icing, bacon, or all of the above.  If you want to try your own batch, I suggest this recipe from Ms. Crocker.  I think my doughballs were a bit smaller than she suggested, and I used a very small bowl for the sugar mix, because it gets used up and spread out easily, and it's easier to get the doughballs coated when the sugar mix is piled up.  I also used a spoon to scoop some over the top of the dougballs.  I just said "doughballs" an awful lot, and the software tells me I spelled it wrong every time.

Tiny Tart

Ever make a pie and have a little dough left over?  You could use it to decorate the top crust with pretty or lewd shapes, or you can fake a little dessert.  That's what I did.

When I finished assembling my chicken pot pie, I rolled out the little bit of dough I had left and put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Then, guessing at all of the amounts, I topped it with a small handful of berries the Chief Taster had already washed, some granulated sugar, and a little cinnamon.  Maybe some nutmeg.  I don't know, it was back in July.

variation on the naked pie: tiny naked pie.

Fold up the edges around the filling and seal it as best you can.  It will probably leak.  That's ok; you have parchment paper.

Oh, yeah.  That leaked.

I already had the oven going for the chicken pot pie.  I just slipped this on to the other rack and kept an eye on it.  When things looked brown enough (see above, and below), I pulled it out.  Somehow, the Chief Taster managed to arrive within a bout 47 seconds of the tart's extraction.  She ate it before dinner.  I didn't get any.  I guess that means it was good?

aerial view.  Next time, I need enough dough to make two.  Or I just won't tell her about it.

pound it down

Sometimes my epicurean choices are dictated by what we have handy.  For instance, I have never found a can of evaporated milk with exactly the amount I needed, so I had a little leftover from a recent batch of soup.  My go-to recipe for excess evaporated milk?  Pound cake.

As luck would have it, I also had the last bit of a large jar of poppy seeds, and half a lemon that was left from... something.  Who knows?  Point is, I figured I could fake my way through a lemon poppy seed pound cake.  Then I checked my pound cake recipe, and found a lemon poppyseed variation on the same page that made my exciting experiment for the afternoon a pointless exercise in Following Directions.  Almost.

Betty Crocker's pound cake
3 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2.5 C granulated sugar
1 C butter, softened
1 t vanilla
5 large eggs
1 C milk or evaporated milk (I used a mixture, because I didn't have quite enough evaporated milk)

for lemon-poppy seed variation:
substitute lemon extract for vanilla.  Fold 1 T grated lemon peel and 1/4 C poppy seeds into batter

Grease bottom and sides of two 9x5 loaf pans (there are size variations, but they don't mean anything to me because I don't have those pans, so I'm skipping them) and lightly flour the pans.  Heat oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in vanilla and eggs.  (Or lemon extract and eggs.  I didn't have lemon extract, so I squeezed the bejesus out of the lemon half I had, and poured the bejesus into the batter.  Boom.  I extracted it!)  Add dry ingredients gradually (and poppy seeds, if you're into that), and alternately with milk.  Beat just until smooth. Pour into pans.  Bake 55-60 minutes and test with a toothpick in the middle of the loaf (if you don't know this one, stick a toothpick into the center of the cake.  If it comes out clean, you're done.  If it comes out goopy and covered in batter, it needs to bake longer.).

Cool 20 minutes and remove from pans.  Cool completely before storing (the book says about 2 hours.  I have never in my life let a fresh pound cake sit that long without trying a slice or two).  You could top it with a bit of powdered sugar, but if you have some leftover raspberry jam, that's good, too.

Flantastic!

You've heard the expressions "piece of cake" or "easy as pie"?  Forget them.  Flan is easier.  I don't know how the International Flanmakers' Union has managed to keep it a secret for this long, but the word is OUT, people!

I needed to make something for dinner.  I chose chicken adobo, because "adobo" is fun to say.  Then, as I procrastinated the walk to the grocery, I figured I should make a dessert, too, and chose flan.  I thought it would fit well with the theme.  (Yes, I know that flan is Spanish/ Hispanic, and even though adobo is Spanish, I linked to a Filipino adobo recipe, and Filipino adobo isn't even true adobo, but I would like to argue that with two points.  First, maybe the theme was "things I don't know how to do yet."  Second, I just made you say "adobo" a whole lot, if you were reading out loud.  I was right, wasn't I?  It IS fun to say!)  I found two good contenders.  This one, and the one I used.  Why the second one?

1. I don't actually have ramekins, and I didn't have enough of the things I was going to use instead.
2. I've never made flan before.  I've never carmelized sugar before.  The second recipe uses one big dish instead of six little ones, so I don't have to work quite as quickly, which is nice if you're unfamiliar with the process, would like to avoid third-degree sugar burns, and have a tendency to take lots of pictures while you cook (you're welcome, food-porn enthusiasts).

I know I said it was super easy, but there was one part that intimidated me (a little) and one part that was really difficult.  The intimidating part was melting the sugar.  I'd never done it before, and the very first review on the recipe mentioned how difficult it was to clean the sugar off of everything when they finished making it. That caveat, coupled with my low confidence, made me pretty sure I was going to ruin the saucepan, so I used one of the Chief Taster's.  Don't tell her.  It was the only one she believes capable of boiling eggs.

I don't know whether you're supposed to stir sugar as it melts, but I did.  I was also preparing the custard portion at the same time, so I wasn't stirring constantly, and think that maybe I should have been.  You can see clumps here because it isn't melting evenly.

Luckily, I didn't ruin the pan, and it cleaned very easily (as soon as I poured the caramel glaze into the pie pan, I put some hot water in the pot.  That probably helped.).  It still takes a little time for the sugar to melt.  Don't sweat it.  Keep the heat low, and be patient.  Even the lumps you see in the picture above thinned out eventually.

one cup of sugar, melted.  Makes me wish I had some ice cream.

As the sugar becomes more liquid than solid, give it more of your attention.  Do not let it burn, and keep stirring it to get a nice, even consistency.  Then pour it in the baking dish, and tip the dish around to coat the sides a little.  I didn't have a 9" baking dish, so I used a 9.5" pie pan.  Close enough.

The sugar cools and solidifies quickly, so it's hard to get a coat of even thickness or  uniform height on the sides of the dish.  Call this "artistic license," and people will let you get away with it.  If they don't, then don't let them have any of your delicious flan.

I finished beating the filling ingredients together while the caramel glaze cooled a little in the dish.  That's fine.  The worrisome part is when you pour the filling into the dish and hear tiny crackling noises like fractures in glass.  More on that later.

Filled flan.  Cover it with foil, bake at 350F for an hour.

I had stirred the sugar with a normal metal tablespoon.  When I finished scraping the caramel into the dish, I looked at the spoon and thought, "mmmm, tasty," but instead of licking it, I set it aside and finished assembling the flan.  This provided two excellent benefits: I did not burn the ever-loving shit out of my mouth, and I got to witness something cool and science-y.  Remember before that last picture, when I mentioned the glass-breaking noises I heard when I added the filling?  It wasn't the glass*.  It was the sugar!  When I stuck the flan in the oven, I could still hear tiny cracking noises, like someone carefully stepping on tiny Christmas lights.  Then I saw the spoon I had used earlier, sitting on the counter with a thin glaze of sugar on it.  And I actually saw cracks form with those noises.  I was pretty excited about it, but I wasn't able to find a good, concise article explaining why it happened, so there's no link here, even though I wanted one.

Yes, after it had cooled sufficiently, I did chew on the spoon for  awhile.  I am not as ashamed of this as I probably should be.

Right out of the oven.  You can't tell, but some of the sugar was still bubbling a little at the edges.

I let the flan cool for a while before trying to remove it from the pan (it even spent some time in the fridge).  That's normal, but I wonder if I should have flipped it over a littler sooner, while it was still a little warm.  Tough call, since I don't know what I'm doing.

Thoroughly cooled, not as tectonically active.

I ran a knife around the edges of the pie pan to loosen things a bit (I was worried about the sugar gluing the whole damn mess inside), and turned the whole dish upside down over one of our biggest plates.  And waited.  A while.  I got worried, and a little annoyed, and went to go watch Futurama or something, and checked on it later to discover that it had mostly fallen clear.

works for me.

For a first effort, I was thrilled with that.  I scraped up what was still inside the pan and ate it straight, and cut a chunk of the flan out to have an actual serving.  Although the sugar glaze was crackling-hard when it went into the oven, it came out as a soft, syrupy caramel layer (it dripped off the pan and onto the counter--be aware).  The flan itself was rich in flavor, light in texture, and pretty damn good as far as I'm concerned.  Plus, I discovered that when I had it for breakfast, my morning run went really well.  Considering I had flan for breakfast, it's probably good that I went for a run an hour later.

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!!

Ass-Kicking Apple Pie

For a while now I've had a goal of devising an Ass-Kicking Apple Pie.  I managed a pretty good first draft a few weeks ago when I made this naked apple pie.

It had great apple pie flavor, and what I thought was a pleasant amount of heat.  The Chief Taster had only one piece, which makes me think the heat might have been too much for her delicate German palette, but perhaps she was just eschewing extra servings of dessert.  Problem is, I failed to take notes on what I did, and couldn't remember the ratios well enough to duplicate it this time.

But I still gave it another try.

We had a couple friends visit recently.  We knew they'd be in for several days, and I opened up food requests long before they arrived.  They only specified pie, which is how we entered Round Two.

Sadly, there isn't much food porn for this post, because I was talking the husband of the pair through making a batch of Bacon Cinnamon Rolls while I made the pie.  There was just enough room in our tiny kitchen for both of us to work, and my usual ritual of taking pictures was forgotten.

whole-wheat bacon cinnamon rolls, pre-baking

Two-Crust Pastry:
2 C all-purpose flour
1 t salt
2/3 C shortening
2 T oil
4 to 6 T cold water

This uses the same ratios I tried with the quiche crust earlier; just double it to make a two-crust pie.  I wanted to see whether I'd get the same effect I found in the quiche, when the crust pulled away from the pie dish.  If it did, it was nowhere near as pronounced, but apple pie is a much wetter dish than a baked quiche, and I think that played a big role in weighing down the pastry.  I also had a little trouble extracting pieces intact from the pie dish, but I later realized it's because we didn't allow it the specified cooling time.  Leftover slices lifted out easily, but at the time we weren't willing to give it the two hours cooling time called for in the original recipe; classy presentation is hardly a reason to wait before dessert.

Mix flour and salt in a medium bowl.  Cut in shortening and oil using a pastry blender.  Add water 1 T at a time, sprinkling it over the dough and tossing the mix with a fork until all flour is moistened.  I'm going to add a little to BC's notes here.  As you add oil and water, tossing all the time, larger clumps of dough will form.  Eventually, as with all dough, your hands are going in there.  This is that time with pie dough.  No matter what I'm making, I tend to use my non-dominant hand to get in the dough so my more capable hand is left clean for fine motor skills like adding a teaspoon of vanilla, or cracking eggs, or whatever is called for in that particular recipe.  If this works for you, do it.  If not, find your own favorite method.  In any case, when you start to get clumps of pie dough larger than aquarium pebbles and closer to marbles, it's time to stick a hand in there and squish stuff together.  You should be able to work all the flour into a single cohesive dough ball.  It will feel slightly oily; that's ok.  It's pie crust.  The oils make it easier to work and roll when you reach that point.  For now, make sure you can get that cohesion, and try to avoid adding too much water.  If you grasp your doughball tight enough to sink your fingers in a little and liquid dribbles out, you've gone too far.  If you're worried about hitting that point, add water in very small increments.  You'll get a good feel for it as you make more pies.  When you have a nice, cohesive doughball, put in a sealed container in the fridge for an hour or so and get started on the pie filling.

That's also when I opened a beer, but that step is optional.

Ass-Kicking Apple Pie, Draft 2:
1/2 C brown sugar
1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 t ground cinnnamon
1/2 t ground nutmeg
1 t cayenne
dash of salt
6 C thinly sliced baking apples (see notes, below)
2 T firm butter (optional)
1 T sugar (approx.)

I used Granny Smith apples, mainly because I know that Mom tended to use Granny Smith apples or Macintosh whenever she made pies, and Macs aren't in season right now.  The original recipe says to peel the apples.  I didn't.  Numerous sources tell us that the peel carries a significant amount of an apple's nutritional value, and we want a healthy decadent dessert, so leave the peel.  There's a reason most recipes specify peeling the apples first: apple peels don't soften much when they cook.  If you slice your apple so that you end up with a full section, with peel surrounding the flesh, you'll have a ring of peel that will come out in one piece when someone tries to get a simple bite of pie.  Don't do that.  When you slice the apple, do it in thin little wedges, so that none of the slices have a large section of peel.  I promise I'll illustrate this fully the next time I make a pie.  For now, you'll just have to trust me.  Or peel the apples.

Throw all your sliced apples into a large bowl.  Put the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt in a smaller bowl and mix them well, then add them to the apples and toss to coat.  When the filling's ready, set it aside and get the pastry out of the fridge.

Separate the pastry into two roughly equal parts.  One should be slightly larger than the other; we want that one first.  Cookbooks will tell you to flour the work surface, roll out the dough, and lift it up to put it in the pie dish.  If you can do that, more power to you, and my congratulations as well.  I'm not that cool yet.  I use plastic wrap, despite my continued inability to handle it without swearing.  Protip from my aunt: wipe down the work surface with a damp cloth before laying down the bottom sheet of plastic wrap.  That will help the plastic cling to the work surface and keep it from moving around under the dough as you roll it.  Flatten the larger dough ball a little with your hands, then put a second sheet of plastic wrap over it.  Use a rolling pin (or a wine bottle) to roll out the dough.  Move the pin as you work, crossing the center of the dough from several angles to maintain a round shape and uniform thickness.  When it is a little larger than the diameter of the top of your pie pan, remove the top sheet of plastic.  Slip one hand under the bottom sheet of plastic, and lift it from the work surface, and turn it into the pie dish, keeping it centered.  Work your fingertips around the bottom, pushing any air bubbles out from under the dough, then carefully peel off the plastic.  Press the dough to the sides of the pie dish, and make sure no air bubbles get trapped.

Spoon filling into the pie.  Next is the step I nearly forgot: cut those 2 T butter into little pieces and sprinkle them over the apples.  I forgot until the top crust was in place, but it hadn't been sealed yet, so I just folded it over, buttered half the pie, then flipped the fold to butter the rest.  No worries.  If you forget it entirely, it's optional anyway, so don't sweat it.  Roll out the second doughball, and put it on top of the pie.  Remember to remove all the plastic before baking, or it will smell bad while baking, and possibly kill people when they eat it.  Seal the two crusts together with your fingers, working your way around the pie's top edge.  Pierce the top crust with a sharp knife in several places (write your initials or draw a picture if you want, but keep it simple).  Brush a little water over the top, sprinkle with some sugar (about 1 T), and bake in preheated oven at 425F 40-50 minutes.  The top should be golden brown, and juices will bubble up through the crust vents, possibly drawing your initials in dark, sticky apple goo.

As you can tell, the separation between crust and plate wasn't as pronounced as it was in the quiche, but it's there.  A handy trick, and it originally came from a last-second substitution when I ran out of Crisco halfway into making a quiche.  There's probably a lesson in that, but I'm not going to guess what it might be.

What about the goal of making an Ass-Kicking Apple Pie?  The wife half of the couple who visited us said, "This pie is a Forget You Pie,"  (except she didn't say Forget You) "Because at first, you think 'This is really good apple pie,' then the pie is all, 'Bam!  FORGET YOU!'"  The pie did not say "Forget you," either.  She's still right.  Do you have to add cayenne to make a tasty pie?  Of course not.  But even our guest, who is more averse to spicy food than the Chief Taster, admitted that while she would not have considered adding it to an apple pie, she thought it was a great idea after tasting it, even if it was a little strong.

In this case, the cayenne is the crux move.  In climbing, the crux is that one move that can make an otherwise moderate route a difficult, beastly climb.  Or at least the hardest part of the route.  It's the part of the route that gets your attention; it is the part of the route that makes it worthwhile and exciting.  This is not your granny's apple pie.  Unless your granny is a hardcore climber and fan of spicy food.  In that case, go Granny!

This particular crux involved reaching around a lot of gooey bird poo.  The pie did not.

This pie, in its current formulation, needs some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream (which I immediately whipped up, haha) to temper the spice.  I'm going to need at least one more trial before I'm happy with the recipe, but this blog is about more than just the final product: it's about all the mistakes, missteps, and trials along the way.  You get to learn as I do.  Enjoy!

For anybody who's wondering, the whole-wheat bacon cinnamon rolls also turned out very well.  I was worried that they wouldn't rise well enough, but they proved me happily wrong.

Our female guest also surprised me: she thought that the cinnamon rolls actually stole the spotlight from the bacon.  She's apparently a bigger meat fiend than me, or any of the guys who climb with me.  Kind of scary.