Dessert

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Peach and Raspberry Pie

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I’m a Libra, which means that I have certain tendencies and personality traits… if you believe in that sort of thing.  They do seem to check out.  I’m passionately committed to justice… check… a bit spacey… check…  with an eye for beautiful things… my jewelry box says check… And I’m indecisive.  Oh, heavens, am I indecisive.  Case in point: I’ve been wanting a food processor for about 3 years now.  Every time I bake a pie, make homemade pasta, try to slice potatoes or cucumbers or cabbage or anything, really, on my Mandoline, I groan “If I only had a food processor, this would be soooooo much easier!”  Then the hubs says “Then BUY a FOOD PROCESSOR!”  Oh, but if only it was that easy.  What brand?  Which one has the best features?  The best reviews?  Is the prettiest?  This is obviously too big of a decision for me to make – so much is riding on it! – so I give up and go lie down with a cold cloth on my head.  That’s been the state of things for a few years now.

And that looked to be the state of things forever… until I met (drumroll please) The Cuisinart Elite 16-cup Die Cast Food Processor.  Oh, baby.  This cutie is tricked out almost beyond recognition.  1000-watt motor that runs practically silent.  Three nesting bowls.  Three blades, and a dough-kneading function.  Two discs, a double-sided one for shredding and a slicing disc with six thickness settings.  Oh, BABY!  Come to Mama!  I can be a bit of a guy about certain things, so I’ve been waxing poetic about the motor ever since I ordered this beauty… yes, I finally pulled the trigger.  It arrived on Friday.  I set it up on the countertop – it didn’t fit in the space I cleared for it in my kitchen island – watched the instructional DVD because I’m a nerd like that, and then I had to make the REALLY tough decision: what to make first?  I figured this journey started with me painstakingly and begrudgingly (and badly) making pie crust by hand, so it should end with pie crust too.  Thus I present…

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Peach and Raspberry Pie

Ingredients for pie crust

4 cups sliced peaches
1 cup raspberries
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons flour

  • Make the pie crust.
  • Peel the peaches as follows: cut a very shallow X shape into the bottom of each peach and drop it into boiling water for about 15 seconds, no more than 20, to blanch it.  Remove peaches quickly to an ice water bath to stop the cooking.  Peel and rub the skin off – it should come off fairly easily, but if you can’t get some stubborn spots to cooperate, don’t stress over it.  Peach skin is edible, after all.
  • Cut the peaches into wedges – about 8 wedges per peach.  They will cook down slightly in the pie, so you don’t need to get them too fine.  Place peaches in a bowl and add raspberries.  Toss with remaining 3 tablespoons of flour and 1 tablespoon of sugar.  Try to keep the raspberry carnage to a minimum if at all possible.
  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and butter a 9-inch pie plate.
  • Roll out your first dough disc to your preferrred thickness and place in the pie plate by draping it over your rolling pin and transferring it.  Dump in the peaches and raspberries.
  • Roll out the second dough disc.  (If you like a lattice topping, now is the time.)  Transfer as with the first, by draping it over the rolling pin.  Cut edges neatly and crimp in an attractive manner.  If you did not make a lattice crust, make a few slices in the top crust to release the steam and juices.
  • Make an egg wash and brush over the pie.  Sprinkle with turbinado or other sugar of your preference (I like Penzey’s vanilla sugar) and place pie on a cookie sheet.  (Consider using a pie shield to protect the edges of the pie for the first 30 minutes, so they don’t get too browned.  I don’t have one, and I don’t think my edges browned excessively this time, but I’ll probably have a pie shield on my birthday list.)
  • Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375 and bake for another 30 minutes.  Remove pie from oven, let cool slightly, and serve warm with vanilla bean ice cream.  Yummmm!

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I’m so glad I waited.

Note: Don’t throw away the scraps from your pie crust!  Save them for mini pies next time you have company.  People will be impressed, I promise – everyone likes tiny desserts – and no one but you will know that you made them with dough scraps.  I’ll keep your secret.

Sources: “Good For Almost Anything Pie Crust” from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking From My Home To Yours; Filling adapted from allrecipes.com.

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Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuit

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I was having a really lousy day on Friday.  Part of my lousy day – though not all – was due to the fact that I had ordered a new baking book from Amazon on Wednesday, or started to, anyway.  I guess I never completed the order (dratted short attention span) and I had the unpleasant surprise on Friday morning of finding out that the book I expected that afternoon was still sitting in my virtual shopping cart, and not on a delivery truck as I had thought.  This made me extremely cranky, so I did what I always do when I am cranky – I wrote a list of grievances and emailed it to the hubs.  Because he loves to help, and because he knows I love to bake on the weekends, my book arrived at my door the very next day on a rush order.  Does it get sweeter than that?  He deserved a special treat after this one, so bang, on goes the apron and out of the kitchen comes this:

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Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Biscuit

Fruit Filling
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 dry pints blueberries (fresh, if possible)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Cornmeal Biscuit
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup cold cream (the recipe calls for heavy, I used light)
4 teaspoons turbinado sugar

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Butter a 2-quart baking dish.
  • Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl.  Add blueberries and toss to coat.  Gently stir or fold in lemon juice.  Spoon the blueberry mixture into the prepared baking dish.
  • To make the biscuits, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.  Add the butter and cut in with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers (more fun) until the butter is the size of peas.  Pour in the cream and stir to combine.
  • Divide the dough into 8 pieces – if you use a standard-sized ice cream scoop, you will have just enough – and pat into biscuits.  Place over the fruit filling, then sprinkle with the turbinado sugar.
  • Bake 45 minutes, until the biscuits are golden and the fruit filling is bubbling up.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

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Thanks for the book, honey!

Source: Adapted from Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson

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Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

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I wait all year for berry season.  Fresh fruit is my absolute favorite food – just about any kind of fresh fruit – and by extension, I’ll always choose a fruit dessert over chocolate.  I’m weird like that — what can I say?  So when I saw these cookies in the May 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living, they spoke to me loud and clear.  This morning I was up to my elbows in flour anyway, baking the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookies, and a cake, and artichoke dip (okay, there’s no flour in that) for my firm’s summer picnic.  So, I figured, what’s one more dessert?  I’ve been thinking about these cookies for three days.  Strawberries and cream… they had my name written all over them.  Why not?

Well.  They were the hit of the picnic.  The kids gravitated toward the cake, but the adults went crazy for these cookies.  They are light and refreshing, not too sweet — basically, summer in cookie form.   I love baking with fresh fruit and this recipe was so simple and easy that I’m certain it will become one of my standbys.  In fact, given the raves these got, I think I might have won a few converts to the fruit side.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

12 ounces strawberries, hulled and cut into 1/4 inch dice
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking power
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
6 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (not in the original recipe, but really bumps up the flavor)
2/3 cup heavy cream
sanding sugar or vanilla sugar (for sprinkling)

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  • Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
  • Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining granulated sugar in a large bowl.
  • Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two knives, or rub it in with your fingers, until it forms approximately pea-sized crumbs.
  • Stir in vanilla extract and cream until mixture comes together, then stir in strawberry mixture.
  • Using an ice cream scoop, drop cookie dough onto parchment- or Silpat-lined baking sheets.  Sprinkle with sanding sugar or vanilla sugar (I like Penzey’s vanilla sugar) and bake until golden brown, approximately 25 minutes.
  • Cool cookies on a wire rack.

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Note: These cookies really need to be eaten immediately.  They will not keep longer than one day.  Shouldn’t be a problem.

Source: Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, May 2009.