a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Double-Pear Picnic Pie

Even if it’s gotten too chilly for me to bring this Double-Pear Picnic Pie to the park for a long, lazy lunch spread out on a blanket, I do love the idea of a picnic pie. It’s really a slab pie– double-crusted, baked in a sheet tray– and only the second one I think I’ve baked (here’s the first). This has two layers of Sour Cream Pie Dough with a layer of “double-pear” (fresh and dried) filling in between. This filling is a bit trickier than an apple pie filling, in that a) fresh pears can take forever and a day to ripen, and b) dried pears are a bit of a niche item. During the six days my Bartlett pears sat in a paper bag on the counter, I had plenty of time to scour Brooklyn for dried pears. Finally, I found them at one of those bulk nut shops and brought home just a small quantity.

Assembly went fine, and I made a half-recipe in a little eighth size sheet tray. A couple of minutes after I put the pie in the oven, I had a bit of a freakout that I’d forgotten to put thickener in the pear filling. I checked over the recipe and there was no mention of any overlooked flour or cornstarch, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the marmalade in the filling helps thicken it? Maybe the slab format (thin layer of fruit, spread over a large surface area) allows for more moisture evaporation? I’m not sure, but the finished pie was anything but a hot mess. Just a few juicy burbles escaped the slits in the crust. By the following day, the crust had gotten a bit soft, but eaten with vanilla ice cream, I don’t think anyone cared.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Double-Chocolate Rhubarb Tart

I’m not the biggest fan of fruit and chocolate combos, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised from time to time so I try to keep an open mind when these recipes pop up. The Double-Chocolate Rhubarb Tart, though, presented a mix my brain would not have thought up. Sounded odd- I was not sure how this one would go.

A chocolate tart shell houses a layer of jam and a layer of chocolate frangipane, with pieces of fresh rhubarb tucked on top. Right now, orange marmalade is the only jam I have in the fridge, and that seemed to be moving too far in the weird direction for me. Instead, I used fresh raspberries that I ripped in half to cover the bottom of the tart shell. They basically turn into their own jam while the tart is in the oven.

Room temp or chilled, this one goes into the “pleasantly surprised” category! The tart shell is like a crisp chocolate cookie, the frangipane is like a fudgy brownie and the sweet-tart thing with the fruit works nicely. My rhubarb stalks were so thin, I probably could have squeezed on a few more pieces (Dorie actually does say to be generous, should have listened instead of being skeptical).

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Maple-Walnut Pie

Over here, Thanksgiving dessert is usually pumpkin pie, but after going off script last year, I decided once again to switch things up. Crazy, right? This time I went with a Maple-Walnut Pie. It’s pecan pie-adjacent, so it feels familiar enough for a holiday with some strict food traditions, but uses walnuts (obvi) and a “goo” made with maple syrup instead of corn syrup. A few weeks ago when I baked my Tarte Tatin, I thought of future me and prepped an extra round of All-Butter Pie Dough for this pie.

Dorie does give a “playing around” option here for a traditional pecan pie, but I really liked the sweetness level of the maple-based filling so much (i.e., it’s less sweet), that from now on, I think I’ll make my pecan pies with it instead. After my pie cooled a bit, I glazed it with a little extra maple syrup for shine and sprinkled on some flaky salt.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Tarte Tatin

My mom is a very good cook. We rarely went out to eat growing up or were allowed such delicacies as frozen pizza or fish sticks. She made dinner from recipes in newspapers and magazines that caught her eye, or she’d find something nice on sale at the grocery store and take it from there (she still cooks this way, and so do I). Julie has never been quite as into baking, but she does have a few standards she’s perfected over the years and will make from memory when she’s in the mood. Apple pie is one of those standards, but when she says “apple pie” she’s not talking about the traditional American kind…she’s really talking about a Tarte Tatin, made just like this one. In fact, I don’t remember her ever once making a double-crusted apple pie with lots of warm spices. She did live in Paris for a couple of years before I came on the scene, so maybe that’s the backstory of her apple pie, I don’t really know.

Most Tatins are fully made in a skillet, with the apples first cooked down a bit in the caramel before being topped with puff pastry (usually) and stuck in the oven to fully bronze. As soon as it’s done, you put on your longest oven mitts, say a quick prayer and awkwardly flip the hot and heavy skillet with molten, drippy caramel onto a plate to unmold. This version makes things a bit easier and less scary. First, make a caramel, whisk in butter and pour it into the bottom of a cake pan. Then, at your leisure after the caramel has cooled, arrange chunky apple halves or quarters in a nice pattern and top with your choice of pie dough or puff. I took care of both the caramel step and making/rolling out a round of Dorie’s All-Butter Pie Dough the day before I baked my Tatin. (My mother does the same, lining her tin with caramel and making a brisée dough the night before…but her tin is an ancient metal pie plate instead of a cake pan, and she makes a clear caramel instead and then dots the apple chunks with bits of butter as she arranges then in the pie plate.) After the Tatin is fully baked, instead of flipping it right out, you let it sit for half an hour so any excess caramel and juice absorbs back into the apples. By the time you invert it, it’s cool and neat, with soft, caramelized apples and no soggy bottoms! I think Julie would give this her stamp of approval.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Apple Galette

We are entering peak pie season, and for people like me who just baked crisps all summer long and now need to ease into all that fussy crimp work, thank goodness for galettes. There’s something so easy and do-able about baking a galette, whereas a proper pie feels like a lot of work. This Apple Galette, does have something a little bit extra to prepare in advance, but I think it’s worth it.

A layer of homemade caramel applesauce is a super-yummy surprise hiding beneath all the apple slices. In addition to flavor, it gives a nice textural contrast, especially since the top apple slices soften but don’t really break down much. It can be swapped for store bought applesauce, but having leftovers of this stuff in the fridge is something I’m willing to spend a few additional minutes on…especially if I’m cheating on the dough. I had a round of random pie dough in the freezer and used that here instead of making a new galette dough. It turned out to not be quite enough dough to give me the excess to fold nice pleats, so my galette is sporting more of an outer rim. It was crisp and tasted nice, and making a galette is also saying that imperfection is a-ok, so I didn’t mind. All-in-all, a delicious pie-adjacent dessert to get back in the swing of things.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Alsatian-Style Blueberry Tart

An Alsatian-Style Blueberry Tart is new to me. I need to travel more. In Dorie’s version, a Sweet Tart Dough crust houses a mountain of blueberries bound together with a quickly-mixed vanilla custard.

The STD crust is one we’ve made a zillion times before, so no problems there. The blueberries, on the other hand…well, I didn’t bother to weigh them since I could tell I was technically short of the recipe’s full amount (which is like a ton). I only bought one container of blueberries and had used some of them in pancakes the previous morning. I had what I had, and I just went with it. Keeping Mardi’s review in my mind, it seemed like plenty anyway. I also added a dribble of almond extract to the egg and cream custard mix that’s poured overtop the berries. Hopefully the Alsatians wouldn’t mind my fiddles. I thought the finished product was delicious, and liked my bloob-to-custard ratio. The tart stayed nice for a few days, too, thanks in part to the cinnamon sugar-almond flour mix sprinkled on the bottom of the crust after par-baking to absorb moisture. Next time, I’ll source a nice Alsatian dessert wine to go with.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Parisian Custard Tart

I don’t know about you, but recipes that call for making pastry cream can make me grumble a bit. Often that pastry cream is just one of several components you need to pull together for what you’re making, but for this Parisian Custard Tart, it’s the only thing you really have to prepare. You can choose to make your own crust, but you can also choose to use store bought puff pastry, which I assure you works wonderfully well.  This is a simple dessert, just custard and crust, and it’s an everyday, snacky treat in Paris. To me, even though it’s simple, it still feels fancy. The custard is luxurious mix flavored with brown sugar, vanilla and rum that’s baked till it’s a charred, dark brown on top. I was a bit skeptical that the puff pastry was going to cook through, especially on the bottom, but it did, indeed, bake up super-crisp. My custard puffed when it baked and then fell when it cooled, and I was left with kind of a wonky baked custard ledge around the tart. If it happens again, I’ll probably trim it off for the sake of looks, but other than that, no complaints about this tasty one.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!

Tuesdays with Dorie BWD: Mulled-Butter Apple Pie

Swapping out stuffing for bread pudding wasn’t the only renegade move I made this Thanksgiving. I also traded our holiday staple pumpkin pie for Mulled-Butter Apple Pie. What is mulled-butter? It’s browned butter steeped with a cinnamon stick, a cardamom pod, black peppercorn, star anise, ginger and orange zest. This spiced butter coats the heap of apple slices (I used a combo of gold rush and cameo apples) that fill the double-crust pie. Dorie tells us to taste the filling for sweetness before we turn it into the crust, and when I did that, I thought what my apples really needed was not more sugar, but more spice. The mulling spice mix has some similarities with Chinese five-spice, which I have a jar of ground, so I added in a couple shakes of that to my filling.

I baked a half-sized pie in my little (about 6.5″) pie plate and while I was initially kind of sad about not having a slice of pumpkin pie, this came out so nicely, I couldn’t not be happy with it. The crust had great color and the filling held together just right. I decided that pumpkin pie can happen in December and I enjoyed every bite of this one.

If you don’t have the book Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple by Dorie Greenspan yet, get it and join us as we bake through it every second and fourth Tuesdays! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and all the other participation deets over on Tuesdays with Dorie!