Hard as Pie

OK, pie isn't really _that_ hard. Especially not once you get the hang of it. But there's a lot going on in there. Family recipes are highly individualized (not to mention closely guarded). Family pie standards are just as idiosyncratic. Everyone seems to have strong opinions on the ideal degrees of flakiness, tenderness, butteriness, brownness, sweetness and the amount (and even presence) of the decorative outer edging. It seems that the kind of crusts someone likes (and the kind of crust they make) is almost as individual as a fingerprint.

Yet the actual ingredients remain fairly constant. In his book, Ratio, Michael Ruhlman describes the proportions -- 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part water (all by weight) -- to which most pie dough recipes conform, more or less. The type of fat, rather than the amount, is usually the biggest variable. Butter, shortening, margarine, lard and even cream cheese all have devoted factions. (Other ingredients pop up from time to time as well, like vinegar or other acids and eggs.)

I grew up accepting the standard kitchen lore that the type of fat determined the texture of the crust, the gold standard being "tender, flaky crust." In my accepted version of crustology, the whole idea of "tender AND flaky" was an unachievable fallacy. Tender and flaky were opposites, and you had to choose one direction or another, or come to some compromise in between. Butter led to more cookie-textured (and more flavorful) crusts and shortening led to flaky crusts (that were often a little tough). My mother, after much tinkering, settled on a formula 2 parts butter to one part Crisco. It's a wonderfully flavorful crust, not terribly flaky, but tender and broadly useful, and it was the pie crust in my house growing up, for ever and ever, amen.

Except that I'm kind of a good idea slut. I have no particular faithfulness to doing things my way. If your way works better, then, hey...

One day I was making blueberry squares without the benefit of a Cuisinart and I noticed that mixing in the fat using a pastry cutter seemed to yield flakier results, even with the usual ingredients. Hmmm... Then, a few years ago, Gourmet [sob] published a recipe for sour cherry pie that included pie dough with almost the same butter-Crisco ratio as my mom's, but with a very different method. It used a technique called fraisage that I was familiar with because my mom had used it to make her famous shortbread, but never her pie dough. Basically you blend the fat in by smearing the dough with the heel of your hand, creating pastry layers almost as if you're making really quick and dirty puff pastry. Instead of mixing up your ingredients and hoping for the best, you build flakiness right in. You don't give your pastry a choice.

So, all this sort of implied that the type of fat was not the only thing, or even the main thing, determining the texture of my pie dough. As usual, the madness is in the method. Is this why people consider pie dough so tricky? Perhaps that's also why everyone's pie dough is so unique. From the same basic 3-2-1 ratio of flour to fat to water, everyone becomes comfortable with their own process, and these are the kinds of things that make it into written recipes imperfectly, if at all.

This really became clear to me the other night. I had been thinking about a pie dough blog post, and invited a friend to a head-to-head pie comparison. Still focused on the types of fat being used, I had sort of planned a dairy vs non-dairy crust competition, but, what with one thing and another, at the last minute we both ended up using some combination of butter and Crisco, only with the proportions just about reversed. (My pie had more butter.) But while our ingredients weren't really that different, our methods definitely were. Having grown up with Cuisinart pie dough, I'd never seen a stand mixer used... Interesting! The motion of the paddle attachment actually comes closer to the motion I use with my fingers. ("Hey... are you stealing my secrets?!" my friend asked. Absolutely.) But what I noticed was that the pieces of butter in the machine-mixed dough, like my mom's Cuisinart-mixed dough, ended up much smaller, the texture much more even than my hand-mixed dough. Once baked, my friend's crust was, by design, much more cookie-like and less flaky in texture than mine, and the bottom crust stood up particularly well to the juicy sour cherry filling.

One further experiment confirmed what I'd been thinking. I made a non-dairy pie with about 2 parts Crisco and 1 part margarine (Earth Balance Buttery Sticks), using my hand-mixed/fraisage method. The dough itself felt much more supple than butter dough, but, when baked, the texture was nearly identical to my butter crust. Both were... tender and flaky. Only the flavor differed significantly. The Crisco crust had a more neutral flavor, whereas the butter crust, unsurprisingly, was richer.

At this point, having come to the conclusion that the texture is mostly a result of method, I rather unscientifically set out to bolster my conclusion with research. Michel Suas's encyclopedic Advanced Bread and Pastry did not let me down. Suas explicitly divides pie dough into "mealy" and "flaky". ("Mealy" is not meant as a pejorative here. It's what I've been calling "cookie-like".) The difference? It's all about the size of the fat left by the mixing process. If you want flaky pastry, leave some particles the size of a pea or larger. (For industrial mixing processes, the recommended size is walnut sized!) If you want cookie-like pastry, cut the butter into the flour more thoroughly, to the point where the mix resembles cornmeal. Apparently, it's that simple. Since it's easier to mix the flour and fat to a more even point in a machine (either Cuisinart or mixer) the less flaky results my mom and my friend both get make a lot of sense. As does the fact that I started getting flakier crusts when I started mixing by hand. I'm not patient enough to hand-mix flour and butter to completely even and tiny pieces.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking was similarly illuminating. Apparently, shortening has a reputation for making a flakier crust because it is more forgiving to work with than butter, but given the right conditions, butter can make just as flaky a crust. Temperature is the key. According to McGee, "butter has the right consistency for making pastry in a relatively narrow temperature range, between 58 and 68 degrees F." I'd been on the right track, using cold (usually frozen) butter, working quickly, and chilling the dough once mixed.

McGee also points out that butter contains water (regular American butter has about 15%, European-style butters have less) while shortenings do not. Too much water in the fat can both "glue adjacent layers together" -- presumably a bad thing for flakiness -- while just the right amount can provide steam to push them apart. So the ancient kitchen wisdom wasn't all wrong. I think this probably means that you have to be more careful when adding water to butter pastry than you do with shortening pastry, since too much water will make for tougher pastry.

So, for the record, here's my all-important method for flaky butter crust.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, preferably frozen, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup Crisco, preferably frozen
4 to 7 tablespoons ice water

Add flour, sugar and salt to a bowl. Use a pastry cutter to cut the fat into the dry ingredients. OR Quickly, with your fingertips, pinch the fat into the dry ingredients. OR use a mixer with a paddle attachment at low speed (I think this would be my preference now, over the Cuisinart: at least one good idea successfully stolen!) or Cuisinart to mix. MIX ONLY UNTIL ALL FAT CHUNKS ARE THE SIZE OF PEAS - HAZELNUTS OR SMALLER.

If you're mixing by machine at this point, stop. Slowly add 3-4 tablespoons of ice water. Mix the water in with a fork. Use only as much water as is needed to get the ingredients clumping together. Add a bit more water if needed. (If you're going for flaky, err on the side of less water.) The amount of water you need will vary based on the humidity (flour absorbs moisture from the air). Take a handful of dough and squeeze it together. If it doesn't crumble, you're good.





Next step, Fraisage: Start with a couple of handfuls of the dough on a clean work surface. With the heel of your hand, quickly smear the dough together.





With a pastry scraper, pick up the smeared dough and start a pile. Work through the rest of the dough the same way, until you have a pile of soon-to-be flaky layers.


REFRIGERATE THE PILE FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR. Put it in the freezer if you're in a hurry.



This is the longest blog post ever and we haven't even talked about the part that gives most people fits: rolling it out. This is just not that big a deal once you get the hang of it. I use plastic wrap. It makes things a lot easier, plus you're not adding more flour to the dough, which would change the consistency.

Wet down your work surface. This will help the plastic wrap stick to it. You'll need two pieces of plastic wrap to accommodate a 9-10 inch pie.




We're making a 2-crust pie here, so we're starting with the bottom. Take 2/3 of your dough. Cover it with two more pieces of plastic wrap.











Use your rolling pin to flatten it out a bit.







Then roll it into a circular thing. Start from the middle and push away from you, or pull toward you, in all directions. Periodically sweep along the edges. You don't have to worry too much about the edges being pretty. I roll mine fairly thin, maybe 2 mm. One advantage of plastic wrap is that you can run your hand over it and feel which parts are thicker than the others.





Peel the plastic wrap off the top to make sure it releases (if it doesn't, it needs more time in the fridge) but then put the plastic wrap back on and flip it over. Peel the plastic wrap off the other side. (Save the plastic wrap to roll out the top crust.) Use your rolling pin to pick up the crust and help you center it in the pie plate.


Make sure the dough gets down into the corners of the pie plate.

Fill the pie. (What? You want to know what to put in it? I dunno. Fruit. Maybe 5-6 cups for your average pie. Depending on how juicy the fruit is, add a few tablespoons of--in order of thickening ability--flour, cornstarch or crushed tapioca. Depending on how sweet your fruit is, add anywhere from a third of a cup to a cup or more of white or brown sugar. You can also add flavors like lemon juice, a splash of your favorite liquor or extract, cinnamon, whatever. This is not the hard part.)

Roll out the top crust the same way. Once the top crust is draped over the top of the pie, go around the outside of the crust and remove as much as you like. Some people like to take off all the excess crust. I like to leave about an inch. My mom likes to leave as much as possible. She's all about the decorative edging. I don't like too much because the inside of the edges never quite bake. Then roll the edges up. This seals the insides of the pie and prevents leaks.

















Crimp the edges. It's decorative, and it also helps make sure the edging cooks all the way through.













Cut vents on your pie. You can be as decorative as you want, but they also serve a functional purpose in letting out steam from the filling as it cooks.





Some people like to use pie shields to keep the edges from getting too brown. Sometimes I do this at the beginning and take them off after about 15 minutes. Other times I only do it after the fact if the edges look like they're getting too brown. Here is my mom's patented aluminum foil pie shield. For a 9-10 inch pie, you'll need 4 strips of foil, rolled together.







Start your pie at a higher temperature, about 425 to 450, for about 15 minutes. This helps make sure the fat in your pie actually sets instead of just slowly melting, according to Harold McGee. (Note: if you've forgotten to pre-heat your oven, put the pie in the fridge while it heats up. It's all about keeping the pastry cold until it's ready to go.) Then turn it down to 350-375 and finish it for about 45 minutes, or until the crust is nice and golden brown.





Don't be tempted to take it out until the crust is really cooked. There's nothing worse than uncooked pie dough. You'll know your crust was underdone if it gets soggy by morning and starts to look raw. Not good.

I like glass pie plates because you can see the bottom crust, too. Check your pie about 15 minutes before it's done. If the bottom isn't browning enough, you can move the pie to a lower position in the oven (another observation we made during the pie-off, that was later supported by Harold McGee, though baking the pie in the lower part of the oven for the whole time will probably make the bottom crust a bit too brown). Flaky pie dough in particular needs to be well browned on the bottom in order to stand up to juicy fillings like fruit. Cookie-like dough is naturally heartier.

Nick Malgieri's Rhubarb and Orange Tart

I've taken long enough with this post that rhubarb is just about out of season. Just about, but maybe not completely. I think, though, this recipe, from Nick Malgieri's How To Bake, is so neat and adaptable that it may not matter. Other, more seasonable fruits may inspire you.

I originally made this for Easter, in an effort to find an alternative to strawberry rhubarb pie, a family favorite that I--heretically--find a bit too sweet. And while this tart isn't actually that, um, tart, at least the sugar that's needed to take the edge off of the rhubarb doesn't end up in the final product. Rather, the rhubarb is very gently candied in syrup and the syrup is drained off (the better to make fancy cocktails or sweeten iced tea with). Not only does that keep things from getting too sweet, it also, as Malgieri points out, keeps the richly orange-scented custard nice and creamy since it's not watered down by rhubarb juices.

The whole thing comes together with a crumb topping. Lovely as it tasted, though (and the rhubarb and orange were really good together) it got me thinking about what else could be done with citrus- (or something else-) custard and lightly candied fruit. The nice thing about the how gently the fruit is candied/sugar poached is that it would work with all but the most delicate fruits. Sugar syrup is brought to the boil, and then the fruit is added off the heat. While the syrup cools, the fruit trades a bit of excess juice for just the right amount of light sweetness. So it might not work with, say, raspberries (though maybe it would) but I bet blueberries or cherries would be just perfect. Pair whatever fruit strikes your fancy with orange, lemon or even grapefruit zest in the custard, and you have a tart for all seasons.

CRUST

1 cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut up in small pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Add the butter and pinch the butter into the dry ingredients quickly with your fingertips (or pulse it briefly in the food processor) until it's well combined. Add in the egg and mix with a fork. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and fold the dough 3 or 4 times, then form into a disc. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

FRUIT

1 to 1 1/2 lbs fresh rhubarb (or blueberries, or cherries or whatever) cleaned and cut into smallish pieces
1 cup sugar
2 cups water

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a shallow pan large enough to hold the fruit as well. Remove the pan from the heat and add the fruit. Cover the pan and let it cool to room temperature. Drain the fruit well, saving the syrup for some other good purpose.

Preheat oven to 350

CUSTARD

2/3 cup heavy cream
scant 1/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 medium orange (or lemon or grapefruit or maybe ginger?)
1 tsp vanilla
4 egg yolks

Whisk the custard ingredients together. If you feel like making it extra smooth, strain it through a mesh strainer before adding the zest.

CRUMB TOPPING

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup white or brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in melted butter and combine. Form into a ball.

ASSEMBLY

Roll out the dough and line a 9-10 inch tart pan with it. Spread the fruit in the pan and pour the custard over it. Break the ball of crumbs into pieces and scatter them across the top.

Though it probably won't overflow, it's not a bad idea to put a cookie sheet underneath the tart pan. Bake the tart for 40 minutes or until the filling is set and the crumbs have browned.

Colomba di Pasqua

(or, Panettone by any other name would taste as good)

Susan's BreadBakingDay #8, on celebration breads, kept me from just wimping out on this one despite my work schedule the week before Easter. This was really just an excuse to resurrect (no seasonal pun in questionable taste intended, I swear) my Christmastime panettone obsession. Easter gave me the opportunity for further "research," using the Italian tradition of dove-shaped Colomba di Pasqua as my excuse to present panettone again in dove's clothing. I used Peter Reinhart's panettone recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice this time. It's a bit drier than the panettone I made at Christmas from Susan's recipe, and starts with a milk-based wild yeast sponge. The process is a bit abbreviated, as well. But the butter/egg bakers percentages are not too far off.

I followed the recipe even more faithfully than I had planned to. It calls for all-purpose flour, and I was planning to use the King Arthur High Protein (14%) flour that had been so successful at Christmas, but by Saturday morning (Easter Eve) I was practically brain-dead, and, well, I _think_ I used all purpose. I definitely didn't use the High Protein. And there wasn't enough bread flour gone. So, yeah, I think it must have been the all-purpose. But it didn't seem to affect the outcome.

Fortunately. Because there was a point after I added the rum, fruit and butter, when I would have put the chances of this dough ever passing the windowpane test close to nil, but it was ok. I did add just enough (definitely high-protein this time) flour to get it to clean the sides and bottom of the bowl (probably about 1/4 cup). And I also didn't add much of the 4 tbsp of water the recipe instructs you to add to get it to form a dough. I think total kneading time (in the mixer... I definitely didn't do this by hand) wasn't really much more than 10-12 mins, and the gluten ultimately developed just fine.

It ended up being softer and tackier than, say, Reinhart's cinnamon roll dough, but not quite as soft and wet as the panettone dough from Christmas.

Shaping was sort of seat-of-the-pants. I was happy just to get it to kind of look like a bird of some kind. It definitely didn't have any kind of surface tension.


I definitely needed a larger pan, though. After transporting it (during fermentation) to my parents', and picking up my sister and her fiancee on the way (and discovering that my sister had, not entirely unreasonably, mistaken the box on the back seat for just another of the random pieces of junk that tend to decorate the interior of my car and put her purse down on top of it... :) ) it needed a little poking back into shape. It was just kind of a big, puffy mass by that point (with a bit of an... indentation... in the middle from the purse) and would not really have been recognizably avian without the strategically applied almond "feathers". I just kind of re-shaped the head, dug the cherry "eye" out of the middle of the dough and put it back where it belonged, and stuck it in the oven (where it puffed up even more).


It was pretty delicious. Comparing it to the Christmas panettones, the results were closer to the panettone from Settepani in Brooklyn than the panettone I made, which was much softer and more ethereal. This had a more distinct chew and rope to it, but it met with the Mom Seal of Approval. So I think this is what I'll go with. It did dry out more quickly, however (and definitely picked up an odd metallic taste when stored in aluminum foil, which I think is kind of a Bad Idea anyway). But I guess that just means we'll have to be sure to eat it right away, which, let's face it, shouldn't be a problem.

Adventures in Panettone

I guess I'm now sufficiently recovered from the holidays and caught up with work to FINALLY brain dump about all the panettone goings-on that led up to Christmas morning. (Also the debut of PICTURES! I'm still getting the hang of the whole taking pictures of food thing, so bear with me.) I've been making panettone at Christmas for about 7 or 8 years now, generally using a recipe from an old Cucina Italia. It's always been spectacularly delicious (mounds of egg, butter, rum, candied fruit... what more do you need to know, right?) but it's also always been a bit dense, reluctant to rise, unhappy at being retarded in the fridge overnight (cause you gotta have warm panettone on Christmas morning, apparently) and, more than once, returned to the oven in a panic after finding the middle wasn't done.

Obviously this couldn't go on.

Two or three years ago, I actually embarked on my adventures in sourdough bread baking (I'll post those too, maybe, when I feel like I've worked out some of the kinks) when I read about natural yeast panettone in Peter Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Hey, I wanted "world class" panettone, too. But I spent a couple of frustrating Octobers in a row failing miserably to get a starter started in my apartment (while succeeding beyond my wildest dreams in getting said apartment to smell like baby puke). And then early last year, I ordered some starter from King Arthur, and my sourdough bread baking odyssey began. Then I saw the pandoro from Bruno's Bakery (now Settepani) in Brooklyn in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking... more inspiration. I sought guidance on TheFreshLoaf.com and Susan over at WildYeastBlog came through big time with a spectacularly detailed and illustrated post about making outstanding panettone (follow the link for the recipe I used). Yay Susan! Thanks again!

In the meantime, I'd asked my sister, who conveniently lives in Brooklyn, for "research loaves" of panettone and pandoro from Settepani. She came through, too. We tore into the panettone and the pandoro a couple of weekends before Christmas while on a family holiday-visiting tour of New England. (The fact that we, four adult people stuffed into a Toyota Camry for an entire 4-day weekend with what seemed like several months worth of luggage, did not just flat out kill each other, must, in part, be due to the outrageous deliciousness of this panettone.) Sorry about the dark picture.

The Settepani panettone was rich and fragrant with lovely open crumb structure and a distinct chew. Mine (previewing here for a moment), following Susan's instructions was anything but dense, and SO airy as to almost melt in your mouth. Two rather distinct categories of bread, really. Since I was so obsessed with getting it to lighten up, it's a little odd that, for what I think of as panettone, I preferred Settepani's more substantial loaf. Maybe it's just force of habit and all those years of dense-but-yummy have ruined me for the airy goodness of the new version. Though how I'd copy it, I'm not quite sure... maybe a drier dough, I think. A quest for next October/November, clearly.

Settepani's pandoro (left) was quite something as well, airy-er than the panettone, but, texture-wise, still another thing entirely from what I made this year (or in previous years). Definite ropy texture and a lovely buttery flavor with a very faint almost almond-y or nutty undertaste (though there aren't any nuts in the recipe).

So, inspired by Settepani's masterpieces (and desperately craving more buttery goodness) the moment of truth came on Christmas Eve. I had been hard at work turning my liquid starter into a firm "Italian" (or, maybe more accurately, Italianate) starter according to Susan's instructions. I've experimented a bit with firm starters and Maggie Glezer says they're supposed to quadruple in 4-8 hours or less. It always had before. But, just to be difficult, it was only doubling... and a half, or so. I briefly considered going the yeasted route, but decided to brazen it out. (Thank you again, Susan and Dolf for answering panicked posts on CHRISTMAS EVE!) And it worked really, really well.

A couple of things I did differently from Susan's recipe:
--Based on a recommendation in the Settepani pandoro recipe, I decided to use high-gluten flour (ie, beyond regular bread flour) so I used King Arthur's Organic High Gluten Flour, which I'd ordered from their website. And, man, this stuff was high-protein. But the downright weirdest thing about this (very, very wet) dough was that it had this texture sort of like the green slime that used to come in plastic eggs when I was a kid. Straight offa Nickelodeon, being dumped on someone's head. And I could feel the little cells of bread... little bubbles that popped in my fingers as I touched it. I don't know whether regular bread flour would have had this effect or not, but, anyway, it was fun at the time.

--Along with some of the water (I used about 1/3 to 1/2 of the liquid specified) I did add the rum the fruit had been soaking in. The yeasties (natural and SAF Gold) had already been giving off a boozy aura all on their own... like their little office Holiday party gone a little bit too far... but once I added the rum, it started to smell a bit like, well, cleaning up the morning after the party, when you find all the half-finished bottles of beer and melted frozen fruity drinks abandoned and beginning to take on their own funk. I was a little worried. But once it baked, it definitely had the nice rummy, buttery, rich flavor I was craving, so all's well that ends well.

--I didn't really decorate them. I also realized too late that I was out of razor blades. I considered going into a CVS, just to see what would happen when I walked up to the checkout counter late on Christmas Eve with nothing but a packet of straight-edged razor blades, but, fortunately or unfortunately, the opportunity didn't arise. I made do with a reasonably sharp knife, but I don't think the technique of the slash was as important with this bread as it is with regular sourdough bread.

--I added about 100g more fruit than Susan's recipe. It didn't seem to hurt the height at all. My family still wanted more. (Though, there was this odd effect in which the fruit seemed to hide in the texture of the bread. Like, you'd cut into it, and it wouldn't seem to be a fruity piece, and yet you'd get a mouthful of fruit nevertheless. Oh, it was so good...)

--I also didn't get the diastatic malt powder, so I think you can see how the crust is somewhat paler that it might be otherwise, but still quite nice.

Here they are on Christmas morning, the best present a girl could ask for, unlike in previous years, happily risen above the lip of the paper.


Here they are, cooling on my mom's old Gourmet magazines. Dolf... thanks for the tip about the singed skewers... aluminum foil to the rescue.

I managed to stave off the hungry hordes for about45 minutes before tearing into the first loaf. Didn't seem to hurt it any. I mean, before it was devoured.

I think this bread has the best crumb structure of any I've ever made. I think I've been too casual about gluten development previously. This had the extra boost of the high-protein flour and I also folded twice during the bulk rise, since it seemed so wet and formless.

There you have it, folks. Fantastically satisfying bread event.

My Mom's Scones

Preheat oven to 450.

Pulse in Cuisinart until most butter pieces are smaller than a pine nut:
2 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 stick butter, cut in small pieces (preferably very cold... frozen works well, but not required)
If using unsalted butter (which I do but my mom doesn't) add about 1/4 tsp salt

Combine the wet ingredients separately:
1/2 cup cream or milk (more fat will make them more tender, but you can use anything from skim to heavy cream)
1 egg
1+ tbsp scotch (or brandy or grand marnier or whatever)

At this point you can add a handful of dried or candied fruit (candied orange rind, currants, whatever you feel like). You could also add lemon or orange zest. You could even add fresh berries. I've also had some really good savory scones recently. I had some in Seattle from Macrina bakery that seemed to have grated cheddar (possibly though not necessarily replacing some of the butter) a small amount of sun-dried tomato and some dill. People also add bacon, herbs. If you wanted to do savory scones, you'd cut out the sugar and the alcohol, or make sure the alcohol flavor complemented your choice of ingredients.

Add all but a drizzle of the wet mixture to the dry mixture (save a tiny bit to pat on the top of the scones before baking). Mix just to combine. Turn out onto a surface (or I use a large, shallow mixing bowl) and sort of flatten it all out and then fold it over and flatten again. Do this maybe 5-10 times. This traps air and creates layers. (A pastry scraper makes this whole process easier.)


(UPDATE: This folding part seems to be the most difficult for people. Depending on how big your egg was, or how humid it is outside, your dough may be more or less wet. In general, just try to go with it. If you don't have a pastry scraper, you could use a spatula. But definitely use something to help you fold it over (and scrape the dough off your hands) without adding flour. If it's really outrageously wet, go ahead and sprinkle some extra flour. But you don't really want to end up with something resembling bread or cookie dough. Also, if you're having trouble adding the fruit or whatever, try sprinkling whatever you're adding before you fold. Do this enough times and it'll be well distributed through.)


When you're done folding, you can either flatten the dough till it's about 1/2 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutters or do what I did, which is divide the dough in 2, make each portion into a roughly round flat disc (again, about 1/2 inch thick) and then cut the disc in quarters. (If you use biscuit cutters, and you've folded correctly, you should hear a little hiss of air escaping as you press quickly down. This was one of my favorite sounds as a kid.)

Find the drizzle of wet ingredients you saved and brush the tops of the scones with it. The easiest way is just to use your fingers. If you feel like it, you can top with a sprinkling of sugar, cinnamon sugar, whatever you want. Or leave it off.

Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the scones are nicely browned.

Pretty Amazin Sticky Buns

These are from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, my go-to bread book, and a must-have if you're at all interested in bread making. The recipes are as dead-on reliable as Marcella Hazan's. (Though I haven't succeeded in making sourdough starter yet, but I think that's more to do with whatever local yeasts may or may not be living in my apartment...)

A favorite for weekend morning quartet rehearsals.

Peter Reinhart notes in the intro that the dough itself isn't really that rich, which is true (one egg, and just over half a stick of butter). But once you add in the sticky stuff, it's pretty decadent. The alternative would be to drizzle a glaze over the top, which would add plenty of sugar, but at least no more fat (and would still be pretty yummy). Both recipes are here.

6 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
5 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (or shortening)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla (orig calls for lemon extract or grated lemon zest... that'd be good, too)
16 oz (3 1/2 cups) unbleached bread flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/8-1/4 cups milk (orig recipe says whole or buttermilk, but I've always used skim or 1%)
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar (6 1/2 tbsp sugar plus 1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon)

The butter, egg and milk should all be at room temperature or the yeast won't perform as well. If you haven't had a chance to leave things out, you should definitely heat at least the milk in the microwave until it's no longer cold to the touch (but not more than about 110 degrees). Depending on your microwave, it might take 30-45 seconds. You could also take the chill off the butter in the microwave. If you want to warm the egg, you could stick it in some warm water for 10 minutes or so.

If you don't have a scale, note that for 3 1/2 cups of flour to be equivalent to 16 oz (or roughly 4.5 oz per cup) you need to use the "sprinkle" method of flour measuring (use a second cup measure to lightly sprinkle the flour into your main cup measure and don't pack it in or tap the cup). If you just scoop the the flour into the cup measure, you'll end up with roughly a 5-5.5 oz cup of flour.

I always use the mixer to make this, because it makes the whole process pretty trivial. But you could always do it the old fashioned way if you felt like it or wanted the kneading workout. Or if you wanted more time playing with the dough. This dough is beautiful dough to work with... just enough fat to make it smooth and silky and not at all sticky, but not so much that it's greasy.

1. Mixing: 20 mins Start with the paddle attachment in the mixer. Cream together the sugar, salt and butter. Add the egg and vanilla and whip until smooth. Add the flour, yeast and milk. Mix on low speed until combined. Switch to the dough hook and increase the speed to medium. You'll be mixing for about 10 minutes. The dough should come together in a ball more or less right away. If not, you may need to add more flour. After a minute or two, dough should have cleaned the sides of the bowl, and be sticking only slightly at the bottom of the bowl, if at all. If not, gradually add more flour. I've never seen it be too dry, so I don't know what that would look like, but you could add more water or milk.

You know you're done mixing (or kneading) when the dough passes the "windowpane test." Grab a hunk about the size of an egg, and see if you can stretch it so that it's translucent without any rippage (not even a little bit). The best way to figure out what I'm talking about is to try the test at various points in the mixing. You'll see how it rips early on, and gradually gets closer to the goal of a nice thin membrane. Don't worry about over mixing. Nothing really terrible happens if you mix for 12 minutes instead of 10. But if your dough doesn't pass the windowpane test, it means the gluten isn't fully developed, and your bread won't have the right texture. You can actually use this test in most bread recipes.

At this point, if you're not giddy about how beautiful and fantastic this dough feels, you've either done something wrong or I'm a little weird about these things.

2. First rise (ferment): 1-2 hours Cover the mixing bowl lightly and wait until the dough doubles in size. I don't bother oiling the bowl... the dough isn't going to stick. Depending on whether your ingredients were at room temp, and the temperature in the room, and the potency of your yeast, this could take anywhere from 1-2 hours. I've never had it take longer than that, but if you need to wait longer, maybe your kitchen is just cold.

3. Shape the buns: 10 mins I use a 9 x 9 brownie-type pan, but sometimes when the dough is really active, that seems a bit small. I may look for a slightly larger pan. Butter or oil the pan, even if it's non-stick. If you're making sticky buns, take the sticky bun carmel yumminess (recipe below) and spread it about 1/4 inch thick on the bottom of the pan. Put the dough on a clean surface. You shouldn't need flour... it won't stick. Flatten it out into a rectangle about 18 inches wide and a half inch thick. (I just use my hands, but you could use a rolling pin.) Spread the cinnamon sugar over the dough (at this point you could also add a judicious sprinkling of raisins, nuts, dried fruit, whatever) and then roll the dough up away from you into a log. I usually make 9 rolls, so cut the log into 9 roughly equal pieces (about 2 inches thick) and arrange them in the pan. If you're not going the caramel yumminess route, you can also just plop them on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

4. Proof: 75-90 mins at room temp, or overnight in the fridge If you're proofing at room temp, just be sure they've doubled in size again. Otherwise, you can keep them in the fridge (which slows the final proofing) for up to 2 days. If you go this route, they need to sit at room temp for 3-4 hours before baking, first to come up to room temp, and then to finally get a chance to proof.

5. Bake at 350: 30-40 mins Be sure to preheat the oven. I've just noticed that the recipe says to put the sticky buns in the lowest oven rack. I generally put them in the middle. NOTE: If you're going the non-caramel/baking sheet route, bake them for 20-30 mins, and in the middle of the oven.

Be sure the middle one(s) are really done before you take them out of the oven. The outer ones tend to brown before the middle ones, so don't be tempted to take them out too early.

6. If you can possibly stand it, let them sit at least 20 minutes before serving. If you didn't use the caramel sauce in the bottom of the pan, now would be the time to drizzle them with glaze.

Caramel Yumminess
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla or lemon extract
1/2 cup corn syrup, Lyles Golden Syrup, honey... whatever

Cream the sugars, salt and butter for a minute or 2. Add the syrup and extract and beat until fluffy.

This makes a little more than you need, but keeps well in the fridge or freezer.

Glaze
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup warm milk
1 tsp (or to taste) vanilla, lemon extract, rum, grand marnier, whatever

Mix it all up.