Cinnamon-Blondie-Surprise Bundt

July 1, 2015Leave a comment

Birthdays are some of the best reasons to bake, especially when such a simple act can create real happiness. Truly, I’ve witnessed unfiltered joy while watching friends and family enjoy a warm slice of pie, or their favorite batch of cookies. And a homemade birthday cake is a pretty timeless way to show someone they are LOVED. This stunning bundt is a re-take on Model Bakery’s espresso bundt cake, featuring a cinnamon layer that went absolutely haywire while baking and made the most amazing and unexpected swirling patterns throughout the cake.

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The Model Bakery is based in St. Helena, CA, and is famous for their english muffins. They are tall, stately, buttery, and not to be missed.

The crumb of this cake is insanely tender and the cinnamon layer is another great option to pair with the blonde cake. The original recipe for the Model Bakery’s espresso bundt can be found here. The substitutions we made were to dissolve cinnamon in almond milk, rather than using the cold espresso + water recommended in their recipe, and instead of an espresso glaze this bundt features a maple-spiked glaze. This cake is even better on day two, so don’t feel like you have to gobble it all up at once (or, go ahead, that’s what birthdays are for).

Peanut Butter-Cherry Hand Pies

June 24, 2015June 30, 20153 Comments

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I have nothing but respect for the makers and bakers of hand pie. Truly. Respect. I have only attempted hand-pies a few times because my previous experiences with them were a mess. And baking messes, when I have them, result in waves of cursing in the kitchen, which my poor partner patiently endures and then waits the appropriate, oh, ten minutes or so, before gently asking if he can help. This is also the reason why slab pie has been banned from our home — at least for a few more months.

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Given the history of hand pies in our kitchen, including one batch that was accidentally made with gluten-free flour, I have a bit of a complex about them now. I start out with a fear that it’s going to be a trial baking them, and then my hands feel giant and unequipped to deal with pint-size pies, so I usually give the whole process a few minutes of thought before deciding to make a standard-size pie for the masses.

Ok. All that said. I received an incredibly generous tool months ago from Bee Loomis, intended for dumplings, I think? Or empanadas? But knowing my love for pie she recognized the potential that it would work equally well for hand-held pie. As a side note, Bee is secretly a master of pie, but she sweetly and modestly won’t fess up to it in person. I was, however, lucky enough to taste one of her cherry pies last fall in Kansas.

Never being one to quiver in the face of a challenge for long, and because I’m also feeling ready to dive whole-heartedly into pie-practice again — it’s stone fruit season and SUMMER in the bay area — I decided to give peanut butter-cherry hand pies a whirl, and, you guys, breathe easy, they taste amazing.

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Ready to be folded and crimped in one easy motion!

They don’t look amazing . . . yet. This is part of pie practice. They look like, I dunno, sad, sad empanadas. But the process was transformed thanks to my new tool and pretty darn pleasant. So there’s only room for the finished product to improve.

If imperfect pie happens to you, too, I invite you to subscribe to my pie theory, which is — imperfection is actually the guise of perfection. Even if a pie doesn’t look super, if you haven’t overworked your dough and the filling is not wrong (like the bourbon-pumpkin pie I made one Thanksgiving that was inexplicably terrible), it will ALWAYS taste amazing. Ok, nine times out of ten. Even if the crust cracks or the filling overflows the pie shell, serve it to your friends, your family, and I bet they’ll be happy. And when it’s sliced up and on a plate, no one will know the difference.

This is a warm and nostalgia-inducing take on the classic PB&J sandwich, in pie form. Peanut butter-cherry hand pies would also be delicious by swapping out the cherries for your favorite jam or jelly.

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Pie dough:

Your favorite recipe for a double-crust pie, or, my favorite:

2 ½ cups all-purpose or pastry flour, plus extra for dusting

1 tbsp. Granulated sugar

1 tsp. Kosher or table salt

2 sticks unsalted butter

½ cup ice water

Filling:

1 cup all-natural peanut butter — creamy or nutty, your choice

1 ½ cups fresh cherries, halved and tossed with 1-2 tbs. sugar

Notes:

— An egg wash around the edges of each circle of dough helps the pies seal together when assembling. For the egg wash, I used 1 egg mixed with 1 tbsp. cold water.
— If you’re using jam instead of a fresh fruit filling, ¾ cup to 1 cup of jam should be plenty.

Bake at 375˚F on parchment-lined baking sheets for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Hello there, honey apple cake

October 2, 20141 Comment

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I’m taking baby steps back: to blogging, making more time for myself, I dunno . . . a lot of things. Do you ever feel life going, three steps forward, two steps back? I’m in the thick of that mode. Change comes in waves only to be followed by the challenges coming with it. I sent out writing to contests and journals four months in a row and felt like I was on a roll getting back in a creative groove, and received news of all rejections back — almost at once . . . which was depressing (so it goes). I decided to give up writing entirely one day, and then sat down and wrote a page or so the following day. Perhaps I’m overdue for a 1/3-life crisis; I seem to be up and down — kind of unsteady this fall and trying to take heart and burrow down and wait for it to pass.

With busy days lately, it has been difficult to even take real note of the months passing. Like, summer. Where did that go? But I’m no stranger to fall and it’s often my favorite season. So I swept away a small acorn of time for baking cake last weekend, for Deb’s sunken apple honey cake.

This cake is an absolute delight to pull from the oven as golden-hued apples peek out from their tender-crumb caverns; it would make a simple yet lovely addition to any dinner party or potluck, as it appears like a trick at first. Folks will be thinking, how did they insert whole apples into that cake…Which is exactly what I thought the first time I saw it.

So, luckily, when all else fails, there is comfort to be found in simple things; small acts of pleasure like baking a cake (And then a pumpkin pie, two days later — let’s not even talk about that, okay). For full instructions and details on the magic of this cake, visit our always lovely smitten kitchen.

Fireworks and Pie

July 26, 2014June 24, 20155 Comments

July has been a magical time: filled with fireworks, barbecuing, friends, and a sort of insane amount of pie…

Dimond Park, Oakland

My friend Christina recently asked if I could teach her how to make a pie, which is very exciting since I’ve been deep into pie practice and the concept of “Pie Sunday,” (or, Pie Saturday) which involves some baked creation and asking neighbors or friends to come over and enjoy. It’s an easy way to get feedback on my latest baked goods, and a great way to keep practicing various dough recipes and fruit combinations.

I’ve also been researching what is involved in becoming a registered and licensed cottage foods operator. So far, it sounds like various applications, several permits, and a yearly fee. But not too many hurdles between making pie at home for friends, and being able to sell pie to friendly folks on Sunday. I’m feeling excited about this opportunity, but before I go too far down the road of planning, dreaming, and supposing, recent weeks have included…

Nectarine-peach-apricot pie for father’s day:

Blackberry-plum pie, just because:

Two galettes for the Fourth of July:

And a genuine mixed stone fruit/mixed berry pie in honor of Nick’s mom visiting from Nebraska:

This last, I think, was the tastiest of all pies of-late. I’ve ventured very timidly into the world of cherries in pastry or pie, because I always read that on their own they are not very flavorful; that the sour cherries, only to be found once a year for a brief window of time, are what make a cherry pie special. But I beg to differ! I think the texture of sweet cherry, along with its perfectly bite-sized package, is what makes it special. And tasty. And my new favorite stone fruit in pie.

And a few weeks after the Fourth of July, we finally got around to using the last of the sparklers and fireworks (thanks Dan and Andrea!). Last night was especially warm, and even just before midnight there were plenty of people out in the neighborhood. It was one of those sultry, content summer nights, and a good opportunity for some photos.

May Short List

June 4, 2014June 23, 20154 Comments

May: that glorious month in the Bay Area — the first burst of summer bringing sunshine, blossoms, stone fruit, and a thousand ideas of what to bake, preserve, and just plain gobble with peaches, and cherries, and strawberries at every turn. California is pressing forth in the wake of a drought and very little rain the last two years, so we’ll feel the scarcity of summer fruits later this season, I’d wager, and are already witnessing the price increases per pound of these beauties. In the meantime, your May Short List (in June), posthaste. 1. The season’s first cherries. And a quiet Saturday evening sitting on the stoop with my partner, sharing ginger beer and lager and spitting cherry pits across the driveway into a garden bed. The simplicity of it and our easy happiness all spelled L-O-V-E. 2. Homemade churros! Nick’s sister had the ingenious idea to bring these to a work party, and it was the first time I’ve ever deep fried anything in my kitchen. Amazingly, it was simple! Dan used a pastry bag to pipe dough into the pan of oil, and before long we had piles of fresh churros which Andrea sifted in a mix of cinnamon-sugar.

3. Fresh strawberry ice cream. And, um, overflowing the ice cream maker and being forced to eat the overfill right away…which, really wasn’t the problem I thought it would be. I added both lemon and lime to my blend of heavy cream and milk and sugar before adding it to the ice cream maker, and it created a very bright flavor. 4. Several rounds of Adventure Bread. A delicious, dense, gluten-free loaf from Josey Baker Bread, it’s packed with seeds and nuts, all toasted to lend a beautiful earthy flavor. This bread is reminiscent of the European-style loaf from Trader Joe’s, except it’s 1000x yummier. So far, we’ve used almonds, sunflower, sesame, and pumpkin seeds, and I expect each incarnation of this loaf to become even more experimental.

5. Boston! A quick yet jam-packed trip over Memorial Day weekend was stunning; the weather was perfect, and we hit an amazing amount of tourist sights, tempered with downtime spent candlepin bowling, eating cannoli and ice cream, running the esplanade next to the Charles River, and visiting with friends. More on that visit to come.

Model Bakery Croissants

May 22, 20143 Comments

There have been so many inspired treats and dishes coming out of our kitchen lately, it’s hard to know where to start. But these lovely pastries have been on my mind — with more filling ideas for round two — so we’ll start here with an overview of croissant, from The Model Bakery Cookbook. It’s just one of a few new page-turners in the kitchen (Josey Baker Bread and Girl in the Kitchen, we’ll talk about you soon).

The Model Bakery was a grand discovery during our March trip to St. Helena for my dad’s birthday. Their english muffins are a wonder. Their loaves and cakes look superb. And on this same trip there was a great debate about the correct pronunciation of the name of the bakery, so I now refer to them affectionately in my mind as Model (mO-del) Bakery, even though the correct pronunciation is model, as in, a woman strutting down a runway.

What is it about baking croissant that inspires the exchange of tender and endearing sweet-nothings for pastry? Perhaps it’s impossible to not feel the depths of buttery affection while prepping and rolling and folding each piece of dough, so after pulling this batch from the oven I found myself finally uttering, “You are adorable, my little babies,” and making kissing sounds at each golden package, while transferring them to wire racks to cool.

And as we waited patiently for them to become a proper temperature for scarfing down, I also heard Nick pass them in the kitchen and say, “Hey, croissant, whatcha doin’ up there?” At least it’s not just me, right?

Nick looks so happy about all that butter.

I’d wager the affection is the result of a fairly serious time investment. There was nothing terribly strenuous about croissant (especially when you’re the one watching most of the action: me), except it’s a process. Prep dough, wait. Roll out dough, slather with butter, fold, roll out again. Refrigerate. More waiting. And then two or three more rounds of rolling, folding, and waiting. If we’re being grownups, we’ll say that stage is simply building anticipation and all good things are worth waiting for. More plainly, that part is a pain.

But it is amazing to look at the final cross-section of dough after all that folding and rolling, and see the flaky croissant-layers that will be, with butter distributed evenly throughout.

Forming the croissant shapes and selecting filling is the fun part. Since this was our first go, we attempted a few different things: plain, chocolate-filled, and chocolate-peanut butter filled.* We also rolled several in rounds and dipped them in a blend of sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon, to enjoy a few tiny morning buns. I’m already excited to try a few jam fillings next time.

*I was skeptical about this filling, but should not have been — if the color of gold, or, sunshine on a spring morning, had a flavor, this filling would be it.

It’s best to eat/share the croissants within a day or two while fresh. If your rate of consuming delicious things is anything like mine, this really will not be a problem. More shots in the gallery below!

A Gluten-Free Pastry Experience

February 8, 20142 Comments

Have you ever accidentally baked several loaves of gluten-free bread? How about accidental gluten-free pop tarts? Me. I have. And my partner and I only realized the cause of the poor pastries and irregular bread after many tears were shed, expletives elicited, and my countless mutterings of what the hell is wrong with this dough? It was sticky, difficult to roll out, and the final product: not very flaky, bland, something…off.

In every kitchen, there must come a recipe that tests the very core of your baking patience, and, causes you to question yourself as well. Such as, do I really know anything about baking? Did I measure ingredients correctly? Have I done something wrong? And your contempt for the pastry dough eclipses everything else until you’re having a cranky fit in the living room that sounds something like, “…stupid, stupid, stupid. I hate it!” For me, it went in rounds like that, each bout with a new vilifying phrase, until the experience was exhausted.

So, that happened, and this post was originally titled “Homemade Pop Tarts (and my hatred for them),” but I’m glad to have reached understanding — that the cause of all this baking strife was the flour: a poorly labeled bin of flour in the bulk section of my local Whole Foods, labeled as All-Purpose with the fine print of alternative flour. I failed to note before purchase that the ingredients list included garbanzo beans, among other substitutes. I’m also glad that I no longer have to doubt the recipe for homemade pop tarts provided by Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs, as she had never failed me before. Yet I cursed that recipe and hated it with a fever as I rolled out my dough wondering why it was so soft, why the flour failed to bind.

The good news: we persevered, and there were homemade pop tarts — seven of them with various fillings thanks to Nick’s foresight. He mixed an apple-ginger filling with brown sugar, we filled several tarts with chocolate chips, and the remaining few with rhubarb jam. In even better news, the pop tarts were much tastier on day two despite the flavor of the pastry itself being…not so savory.

Bottom line: this recipe deserves a do-over in the Hawk & Pigeon test kitchen. For the next round I’ll likely try a traditional pie dough recipe for the pastry, or, simply try Smitten Kitchen’s recipe again with tried-and-true all purpose flour. Gluten, gluten, gluten. I love it.

Canning Intensive at 18 Reasons

January 9, 2014September 1, 20155 Comments

Food is so basic. It’s everything. Transformative, meaningful, and malleable. A means of caring for each other and ourselves. An art and a necessity — and rich with possibility. Each year as I continue to research and experiment and learn more about food and cooking and baking, I only grow more inspired. More bold. My quest for trying new ingredients and recipes: it can’t be quenched. For a while now, I’ve wanted to learn more about canning and preserving. I’ve flipped through books and done some reading on the internet, whole-heartedly gobbled my good friend Erin’s homemade strawberry and raspberry preserves, and, finally, last weekend yielded my first-ever canning class at 18 Reasons in San Francisco. The class was a very awesome Christmas gift from this fellow I know (and love), and it did not disappoint.

18 Reasons is a community space dedicated entirely to workshops and cooking classes that cover a range of topics — from gardening to canning, knife skills to tasting seminars, they feature movie nights, community dinners, and more. And, in the words of 18 Reasons, their food programming is designed to “inspire action and foster collaboration toward creating a just and sustainable food system.”

The class was FUN, cured my worries about sterilizing jars, and the three hours absolutely flew by as we chopped, stirred, and simmered. Our team left with eight jars of Meyer Lemon Ginger Marmalade, three bottles of Blood Orange Vanilla syrup, and sachets of loose-leaf tea: a mix of dehydrated bergamot and blood orange, lavender, and vanilla.

I’m already eager to take another class come spring; our instructor noted that there will be another canning feature with strawberries and possibly cherries (yum!). The class fee is an incredible value considering the gorgeous fruit that was used and what we left with: marmalade, syrup, recipes and tea to take home, and during class we were treated to snacks (including the most luscious date I’ve ever had in my whole life) and an orange sorbet made with leftover satsuma mandarin juice.

Next on my to-do list: researching a similar community space in Oakland, or, heck, if it doesn’t exist — creating one with some friends.

Credit and huge thanks to Andrea Sprockett for sharing her photos with me!

Dayum dessert bars (Chocolate peanut butter crispies)

December 16, 20133 Comments

When I first read the recipe for these multi-layered chocolate peanut-butter crispy bars over on the Smitten Kitchen blog, my first response muttered over my keyboard was Damn…Damn. Dayum.

So I’ve renamed these the Dayum Bars and they are destined for my company’s annual bakesale tomorrow. It’s a simple yet swoon-worthy dessert that I can take no credit for, as Nick was really at the helm guiding these bars to existence — heating the water, sugar, and corn syrup to a candied state and melting chocolate and peanut butter together — while I was baking cookies (peanut butter-chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies!) for a birthday party.

A whole afternoon spent baking is a pretty fantastic thing, especially when it involves sampling various kinds of peanut butter and chocolate at all different stages of meltiness. Again, re: previous post, life is hard.

How we deviated from the recipe: by using two kinds of rice crispies (one generic and one fancy mix with a rounder shape and darker toasted color) and two kinds of peanut butter, then tweaking the chocolate-peanut-butter layer to taste and adding more chocolate until we reached the perfect combination.

The feedback so far on these bars is that they taste like Reese’s peanut butter cups with a crispy bottom, but I say Reese’s wishes they’d had the foresight to come up with this. My take? They are incredible at any state — slightly chilled and straight from the refrigerator, or sticky, gooey, and melting a bit after sitting out on the counter.

To all the chocolate-peanut butter lovers out there: good golly, proceed with caution.

Apple Slab Pie and wintery dessert dreams

December 12, 20133 Comments

Yes, I’m starting off with a gratuitous Dynamo Donuts shot. Go ahead. Be jealous. The lineup on a recent Saturday morning included pumpkin chocolate chip, meyer lemon-huckleberry (the pink one), an apple fritter, and the much-talked-about bacon-maple-apple.

But back to the topic at hand. My company’s bakesale is next week and there are serious things to consider. Really. Serious. Things. I spent maybe an hour (hours) a few weeks ago drooling over recipes at the National Baking Society blog, which I linked to as a follower of Matt Lewis of Baked in Brooklyn, NY. His cakes make my heart soar.

So the question is, do I make these…or this. A bundt cake that is a genuine hallmark of the ’80s, or a crispy dessert bar that is the holy trinity of sweet flavors — caramel, chocolate, peanut butter. I know, life is hard when the biggest dilemma is what treat to make next. I blame Lady Holiday for turning my head, so all I want to do is bake cookies, make mulled wine, and dive into a series of crafty projects, but it seems I can hardly find time to stop and smell the pine trees — this little guy in particular.

While that decision is set to simmer, I’m also going to revisit the apple slab pie I made for Thanksgiving this year. A creation looking like a giant pop tart (if we’re being honest), but the spices added to the filling are right on in my book — a little heavy on the cinnamon, which I love. And while the dough is difficult to roll out in such large scale, it’s worth the effort and satisfying to have LOTS of leftover pie to go around. Because who doesn’t want leftover pie? Right?

If you look closely, you’ll see I had to patch/mend the bottom corner of the crust as my rolling technique was not spot on. If this happens to you too, not to worry — all looks and tastes fine in the end.