Sourpuss: (Adventures in) Vinegar Pie

At the suggestion of Ivy and Kim, I'll periodically try out recipes that seem to appeal to some tastes rather than others, most often due to familiarity or lack thereof with the ingredients/flavors. That is to say, I'll make things that I think sound gross, just to get over my food-borne prejudice. We'll call these experiments "Sourpuss"...in honor of what tops the list: vinegar pie

But first, the crust.

But before that, a meditation on butter. Oh, how I love thee! I've loved butter since early childhood in Wisco. Perhaps it is due to an ingrained desire to support local farmers. Or, perhaps because it is tasty and its texture so smooth. Regardless of the reason, the result is the same: Butter has made me who I am today. While other kids were doing cool-kid things after school (like playing sports and interacting with each other), I was probably eating butter by the tablespoon while reading... or talking to myself... or daydreaming (about butter). I love(d) the creamy, salty, sweetness of good butter. My fingers would slicken as it melted in them on the way to my mouth. I couldn't imagine a better afterschool snack, especially when chased with a cold glass of milk. And while I now hesitate before eating a tablespoon straight from the stick, I do enjoy baking with it.

Making pie crust, and incorporating the butter and flour with my fingertips, always reminds me of those halcyon days. Especially when the recipe is as involved as this one. Because I get to touch butter at least 3 times while making it, it may become my new favorite.



Flaky Pie Crust
2 cups all-purp flour
1 teas salt
14 Tables butter (1 3/4 sticks), 11 Tables in 1/2" cubes
5-6 Tables ice water

Blend together flour, salt, and half of the cubed butter with your fingertips (or pastry blender) till it resembles coarse meal. Blend in remaining butter til pea-sized lumps form. Drizzle 5 Tables ice cold water and incorporate. (If a small handful doesn't hold together, add remaining Tablespoon, 1/2 Tables at a time)

Form dough into a ball, flatten into a 5" square. Wrap in plastic, chill for 30 minutes.

Roll out on a floured surface with (floured) rolling pin, so that it's 12" x 9" (1/3" thick). Cut remaining 3 Tables of butter into thin slices and arrange over dough-rectangle. Fold in thirds, like a letter (each section 4" x 9").



Roll out, again, to a 12" x 9" rectangle. Fold like a letter (in thirds, each 4" x 9"). Wrap in plastic and chill for 3 hours. Let dough soften at room temperature for 30 minutes before rolling it out to line pie pan. Trim and fancy the edges, poke holes in the base using a fork, and chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (with foil and pie weights or rice in the bottom). Remove foil and rice, bake for an additional 8-10 minutes.


While the crust bakes, prepare the filling.


Filling
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup cold water
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
Cinnamon for dusting
Nota Bene: the recipe calls for a 9" or 9 1/2" tart pan, with 1" sides. I substituted a glass pie pan and wound up with an empty-looking pie.
Coulda/Shoulda/Woulda doubled the filling.

In bowl of medium size, whisk eggs and 1/4 cup sugar until frothy. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk flour and remaining sugar. Then add water and vinegar. Whisk constantly, until sugar melts and mixture boils, over medium-high heat. Pour into egg mixture, whisk constantly.



To make it magically custardy, pour contents from bowl into saucepan. Heat over medium flame, stirring with wooden spoon until the mixture coats the back of it, or it registers 175 degrees. Should take 12-15 minutes. While it simmers, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

If you've timed it correctly, the crust will be ready at the same time as the filling. Pour filling into crust and bake another 15-20 minutes (at 350).

At this point in the baking process, I grabbed the pan with my bare hands: awesome!



Having just pulled it out of the oven--even with a dusting of cinnamon--I'm dubious. This could be the least appetizing thing I've ever put in my mouth. We'll find out tomorrow.



30 MINUTES LATER: Penny loves it. I still think it's weird. Having used cider vinegar (along with the dusting of cinnamon), the custard tastes vaguely of apple pie, sans apples, or variations in texture. The vinegar gives it bite, but there's nothing to bite into (eek!). However, the crust IS best ever.

Tube Steak! A Photo Essay

Anne, Ivy, and I just returned from a trip to the Catskills: Weenie Weekend!
When I was growing up, we'd spend Memorial Day weekend camping with my dad's family. I always enjoyed the self-sufficiency of carrying everything in and out on your back or in your car. As novices, we ladies did our best to keep it simple.

Day One:
hummus and pita, carrots, strawberries, grapes, gorp, chips and salsa, hot dogs, smores, lime sugar cookies. Oh...and booze.





Ganache left over from peanut butter-oatmeal sandwich cookies. So decadent and delicious!





Day Two:
same, with addition of bananas. Not even worth documenting

Day Three:
We avoided weenies for breakfast in favor of hot food, seats, and electric lights at Johnny G's diner. Diners are best ever: I was clearly the most excited about this.

It's Not Easy Being Green: Lime Sugar Cookies*

*tastes like a margarita without the booze.

This recipe is one of my oldest non-family recipes. It is also one of the most labor-intensive and rewarding. The tastes (sour, sweet, salty) are rivaled only by the texture (crunchy on the outside, chewy in the center). They are, perhaps, the tastiest things I've ever put in my mouth. Bonus: they prevent scurvy!

Lime Sugar

Using a microplane, zest 6-8 limes. In a blender, add the grated zest to 2 1/4 cups white sugar, blend until sugar turns green and only a few tendrils of lime zest remain. Your kitchen will smell clean, sunshiney, amazing!


Cookies
6 Tables butter, softened
2 Tables shortening
1 c sugar
1/2 c lime sugar
1 lg egg
1 teas vanilla
1 1/4 all-purp flour
1 teas baking powder
1/2 teas salt

*In large bowl, beat together butter, shortening, white sugar, and 2 Tables lime sugar (I usually add more for a limier cookie). Beat in egg and vanilla.

*In smaller bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour into large bowl, stir to combine.
*On sheet of wax paper, shape dough into 10" log (about 2" in diameter). Wrap. Chill dough until firm, at least 4 hours (an hour if you freeze it).

*Preheat oven to 375°F.
*Cut log into even rounds; mine usually wind up being between 1/4" and 1/2"

*Bake cookies 1/2 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets in batches in middle of oven 10 to 12 minutes, or until pale golden.

*Transfer cookies to a wire rack with wax paper under it. Sprinkle cookies with remaining lime sugar. I tend to get carried away and add too much, which is dusted off when the cookies cool.

Also, you'll have lime sugar left over. It stores pretty well in the fridge for a week or so, you can freshen it with the addition of lime zest.

For Alice, Wherever I May Find Her

Perhaps we all have complicated relationships with our bodies; I'd rather not assume anyone else's perspective. Mine has, at times, been so fraught I started exploring it as an academic discipline (body studies and visual culture) to better understand it. I went from fearing I was intersex to becoming "stacked" in a matter of weeks, at around 16 or 17. My family didn't talk about it, though I heard the boys in the locker room had much to say. When no one prepares you or when you don't choose it, it can be difficult to transition from invisibility to what feels like hypervisibility. You start to perform to gain some distance and assert some agency. It felt like the over-read, feminist dork had been usurped by people's ignorant assumptions/fantasies of unchecked libido and excess sexuality. During my undergrad, I wrote about pornography and/as performance art to try to determine if women whose bodies were like mine could ever be agents of their own desires and sexuality. Annie Sprinkle became an idol.

Alice was one of my closest friends as I tried to get my bearings and assert my nerdy self-hood. She makes excellent mixtapes (dancing out angst always helps). My favorite, whose artists/titles are lost to history and many moves, continues to thrill. To say thank you, this shirt:



I wore a similar shirt, with fishnets and miniskirts, when Alice and I were living in Madison. Though I was unaware of its punk origins--it appears a few times in The Filth and the Fury as an accessory to the UK anarcho-punk scene--wearing it emboldened me. I hoped that when people noticed it, saw the pierced nipples under a see-through sweater, it made them aware of the ways, and where, they were looking. I'm not sure that anyone else ever understood, or if they just saw boobs, but I felt that calling attention to the ways they looked would give me more equal footing, as a subject staring back. Alice, dear friend that she is, was there for my (to-date) most awkward phase: mousy bookworm becoming mouthy bookworm. For that, she's getting this iron-on, lime sugar cookies, and my affection.

Cream in the Fridge, Dream in My Heart: Peanut Butter Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Improvisation in the kitchen, like anywhere else, is delightful!
This recipe was born last year as a way to salvage some barely over-baked peanut butter cookies. PB cookies are often crunchy, and a little dry, especially when overdone. To remedy that, and to revel in my love for peanut butter-chocolatey goodness, I started experimenting with chocolate frosting--visions of sandwich cookies dancing in my head--with the hope that the moisture from the frosting would soften the cookies and mask some of the nearly-burnt bitterness. It worked! The "best value" sandwich cookies were one of our top sellers at bake sales in part because, like most things I make, they eat like a meal.

This go-round (for a Memorial Day picnic), I decided to add oatmeal...because oats make everything better. Oatmeal is pretty much the embodiment of my baking philosophy: something delicious and also - just a little - good for you, something that sticks to your ribs long after the taste has left your tongue.

For the peanut butter-oatmeal cookies, I used the Better Homes and Gardens' recipe, with the addition of extra peanut butter. I didn't measure it out, just scooped extra. I made a double batch; the recipe below is for a regular batch.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
3/4 c butter, softened
1/2 c peanut butter
1 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 teas baking powder
1/2 teas baking soda
2 eggs
1 teas vanilla
1 1/4 c all-purp flour
2 c rolled oats
1 c chopped cocktail peanuts or semisweet chocolate pieces (I left these out)

*Preheat oven to 375.
*In large mixing bowl, beat butter and peanut butter on med-high till smooth (about 30 seconds).

*Add sugars, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat until combined, scraping bowl.
*Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.
*Beat/Stir in flour.
*Stir in oats (and peanuts, if you're including them)

*Drop by rounded teaspoons on ungreased baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.



Chocolate Ganache
12 oz Heavy Cream
12 oz Bitter or Semisweet chocolate chips, or chopped (most recipes call for bittersweet, but semisweet chips will do)

{Ganache is funny. It sounds fancy in that Francophilic way, but it's actually one of the easiest, most versatile, and most delicious chocolate-thingies you can make. You can use it as the base for truffles or for icing cakes, and it sounds so sophisticated. Though I eschew sophistication, most often cause it seems artificial, and wish we just called ganache "chocolate yumminess," cause that's what it is.}

*Simmer cream in saucepan.
*Remove from heat. Add chocolate chips. Allow chocolate to soften for a minute or two.

*Stir with wooden spoon/whisk until combined. Let cool to room temperature before using.


Assembly:
I often let the ganache cool in the fridge, then spread about a 1/2-1 Tables on the side of one cookie, before smooshing a similarly sized cookie on top of it. I love these cookies, perhaps because, like love, they make my pulse race and my tummy tremble. Yay!

Burnt Sugar Cookies

School's Out for Summer! School's Out Forever!

More time to bake! More treats to give away!

Ronnie, one of the loveliest ladies--pretty much the only lady--at TipTop, lends me cookbooks, with the expectation that I will make her delicious treats on a regular basis. I'm happy to oblige since I get to expand my recipe repertoire and make her smile.

At first I was skeptical of the Burnt Sugar Cookies, if only because burned cookies are never tasty. Boy-oh! Was I wrong? Burnt-sugar cookies taste like gingery caramel. Not only is this my new favorite recipe, but it was like being in chemistry lab all over again: Hooray!

2 1/4 c all-purp flour
1 1/2 teas baking soda
1 teas ground ginger
1/2 teas ground coriander
1/2 teas salt
3/4 c (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 c packed brown sugar (either light or dark)
1 teas grated lemon zest
1 large egg, room temperature
1/4 burnt sugar syrup
granulated sugar

To make the burnt-sugar syrup, place about 3/4 cup granulated sugar in a saute/frying pan, over medium-low heat. Sugar will start to melt and turn brown.

Stir occasionally. When melted, add 3/4 cup hot or boiling water. Stir gently and carefully as the mixture will bubble like a cauldron. Though I'd been warned, I was still gleefully impressed. Simmer over low-ish, for 5-10 minutes, letting some of the water boil off. Then, let cool to room temperature.

For the cookies:
*Sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, coriander, and salt. (Nota Bene: I'm too lazy to sift...and everything seems to turn out fine).
*In mixer bowl, cream together (on HIGH) butter, brown sugar, and lemon zest til light and fluffy.
*Reduce speed to MEDIUM. Beat in egg and burnt-sugar syrup, till blended.
*Reduce speed to LOW; add dry ingredients in two additions, till just blended. Cover, refrigerate for 2 hours.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*Pour 1/4 c of granulated sugar into a small bowl. Roll 1" dough-balls in sugar before placing on cookie sheet.

*Bake for 10 minutes, until crinkly on top like gingersnaps.



The flavor of these reminded me of the caramel on an apple, with a little bit of ginger and lemon to enhance the slightly bitter sweetness. Also, the texture was tops: a little chewy and a little crunchy. Yum-City!

B'nana Cake, B'nana Cake, Maker's Mark*

*now with more Beam.



To mark the end of the semester--and the completion of the MA degree that brought us together--I'm making a Banana Bourbon cake for Penny and me.

One of my favorite things about baking, maybe more so than other kinds of kitchen alchemy, is the the fact that my hands get dirty, sticky, sweet. So dirty that before I can rinse them under the faucet I have to lick my fingers. To wit, this recipe, with its mashed bananas, toasted coconut, and finely chopped pecans is a handful.



The bottle of bourbon, at the ready, speeds this along. So too, however, does the messy fun, reveling in the textures and processes that make something so tasty come to be: between your fingers the mashed bananas squish, the coconut crunches, the pecans crumble.



This recipe also demonstrates the other thing that amazes me about baking: very often, in the middle of making it, the batter/dough looks disgusting, absolutely inedible, repellent actually. Then, magically, it all comes together to make a taste explosion on your tongue. This recipe, mid-mixing, looks like vomit, but tastes like heaven.



Cake
1/2 lb butter (two sticks), softened
3 c sugar
2 c bananas (about 4-5), mashed
4 eggs, beaten
2 teas baking soda
4 c all-purpose flour
1 c buttermilk
1 teas vanilla
2+ Tables. Beam

Grease and flour 3-9" cake rounds. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add 2 cups bananas and continue mixing till smooth. Add beaten eggs and beat slightly. Sift baking soda and flour together. Add to batter, alternating with buttermilk. Add vanilla and Beam. Though Beam in cake (and not in a glass) may seem like a waste, I added some extra to make a Beamier cake. Mix well. Pour into prepared pans. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks.

Icing
1/2 c banana (2-3), mashed
1 teas lemon juice
1/4 lb (1 stick) butter
2 lbs powdered sugar (1 big bag)
1 c toasted coconut (to toast: in pan with edges, place in 350 degree oven for 4-5 minutes, stirring to prevent over-browning)
3/4 c finely chopped pecans

Sprinkle mashed banana with lemon juice to prevent browning. In separate bowl, cream butter. Add powdered sugar and bananas. Cream on high till smooth. Add coconut and pecans. When cake has cooled, spread between layers and on top and sides of cake.



Though tasty, this cake has to be the heaviest I've ever made. I should be Swedish, named Magnus, and competing in the Strongest Man competition.