Every week I’d like to make a pie (or cake). I think that sometimes I will make the same pie over again, when it doesn’t turn out quite right the first time. So far I’ve made 3 pies and 1.5 cakes:

• Black and White Chocolate Cake, from the Baking From My Home to Yours cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. I learned how to cut a cake into even layers in class this semester. I turned my spice dolly into a temporary turntable so that I could properly cut the cakes into 4 thin layers. The cake was very even, but I clearly need to work on my piping skills.

• A sponge cake that fell A LOT. So much that I couldn’t possibly use it to make a layer cake, so I chopped it up and turned it into a Strawberry Lemon Curd Trifle. Because of the failure, I’m only counting this as 1/2 of a cake. This was my first trifle and it was a major sucess! I learned that when making a sponge cake (if you have more than one cake pan full of batter to bake as I did), try to position the 2 pans so that they do not need to be rotated in the oven. Rotating them made mine fall, and they never recovered.

• A strawberry-rhubarb pie. It turned out runny but delicious.

• A peach-raspberry pie. It turned out runny but delicious. I’m not sure why my pies are runny. The internet says that I don’t bake it long enough, or I don’t wait long enough for it to cool down. But both the strawberry and peach pies were still runny after spending the night in the refrigerator, so I’m going to try the peach pie again soon and bake it longer. And maybe try to sweat the peaches so that they aren’t so liquidy? I don’t know if I can do that. The peaches for this pie sat in a colander for about 30 minutes before I combined them with the sugar/cornstarch mixture, so I’m not sure what else I can do.

• An apple-cranberry pie with a struessel topping. I precooked the crust and the filling, so I am very optimistic that this one will not be runny. I’m not allowed to eat it until later tonight, so I don’t know how this one will end up. With cranberries in the pie though, it seems like vanilla ice cream should be eaten with a slice of this pie. The partially baked crust didn’t seem to bake up so well. And when I (slowly and carefully) lifted up the weighted foil after baking, some of the bottom came up with the foil, so I had to do some patching on the bottom. I’m not sure why the sides didn’t stay up. Even though it looks ugly, I’m sure it will taste just fine.

So far I’ve been working with an all-shortening crust. I like that it comes out super-flaky, and I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on the crust-rolling-out-preparation. I’d like to experiment and use some combination of butter/shortening (butter gives it more flavor but less flakiness) or a lard crust (which gives it flavor AND flakiness). I’m not sure that I can ever remember eating a crust made from lard. I’m not even sure where to buy lard. I think I can feel my arteries hardening just talking about lard.

When I saw that pate a choux (the dough that is used to make eclairs) were on the syllabus for the baking class that I took this past semester, I got very excited. I was hoping that I would be taught the right way to make the batter, and hopefully learn what I was doing wrong the few times before trying to make eclairs. The biggest problem seemed to be that they always deflated after taking them out of the oven, no matter how long I baked them.

After learning how to make pate a choux in class, I think the three things that I was doing wrong were:

1. Adding the eggs too quickly, and probably too many. I was unsure how to tell when I had enough eggs but not too much, as this was always stressed in the recipes/instructions that I read as being a critical element.
2. Using the wrong recipe. I’m sure if I went back and tried the recipe I was using, I’d have success (especially now that I know how to tell when I’ve added enough egg). But this combination and quantity of ingredients worked for me, so that’s what I’ll stick with.
3. Piping wrong. Probably not wrong, but I like the short/fat eclairs more than the long skinny ones, and I didn’t know how to pipe them fat.

I also learned that I don’t need to mix in the eggs with a mixer, as most of the recipes on the internet instruct you to do. Stirring in the eggs doesn’t require THAT much effort without a mixer… at least I don’t think so. Plus it makes it a one-pot recipe instead of a 2-pot + 1 paddle recipe.

So here is the recipe that seems to work for me. My teacher told me that you can use water or milk, but I used milk and that’s what I will stick with. Milk causes the pate a choux to brown faster and darker than using water, and the milk will also keep the pate a choux on the soft side after it has baked and cooled. If you want crisper eclairs, then use the water. Also, you can use butter or vegetable oil for the fat, but our class used vegetable oil because it is cheaper. So again, the oil worked so that’s what I’ll use forever.

Pate a choux

Ingredients
8 oz milk
4 oz vegetable or canola oil
1/2 tsp salt

5 1/2 oz bread flour

8 oz eggs (4 large eggs) – beaten

Preparation
Add the milk, oil and salt in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. As soon as it starts to simmer, add the flour all at once. While still on the heat, stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. The dough will form a ball and will look a little like play-do. Continue to stir on the heat until a light film on the bottom of the pan forms. This will only take 2-3 minutes from the time you add the flour. Remove from the heat and cool the mixture for about a minute (so that the eggs do not cook when you begin to add them).

Still using the wooden spoon, add the eggs one by one. After each egg addition, the dough will become runny at first, but continuous stirring with the wooden spoon will eventually cause the batter to come back together. Once this happens, you can add the next egg. When you get close to the end, add eggs by the 1/2 egg portion so that you don’t add too much egg. The dough is ready when you put a small glob between your pointer finger and thumb and pull your fingers apart. The dough should stay together until your fingers are about an inch apart. If the dough does not stick together, add more eggs. I’m not sure what it looks like if you add too many eggs, I think that it is just really runny.

Put the dough into a piping bag and pipe into the shape of your choice. To pipe them fat, you have to begin squeezing out the dough while not moving the bag. The dough will begin to spread out width-wise, at which point you can very slowly start to move the piping bag along the length.  The first few times I did this, my hand was shaky and I ended up with little ridges along the length of my dough, but the ridges went away during the baking process. When you finish piping an eclair, you will be left with a not-so-smooth part at the end. If you bake it like this, it will turn into a very sharp point. After piping out all of the eclairs, dip your finger in water and pat down the rough ends to smooth them out before baking.

And if you mess up, you can scrap the dough up and put it back into the bowl, and then back into the piping bag for a second chance.

I came across this recipe and realized that I had everything already except for 3 eggs instead of 4, and cheddar cheese instead of Swiss cheese. I also realized that this wasn’t the quick side dish that I was looking for, but the night was young and Tommy was working late and it was raining outside and I was bored. My loaf of bread that was going stale was a rosemary-something-loaf that we used for paninis this weekend, so I felt this was a perfect match. And I’m happy to have had some dried porcini mushrooms in the pantry. Since the bread already had plenty of rosemary flavor, I did not add the rosemary that the recipe called for. It came together in about 30 minutes, then took 50 minutes to bake.

I also drank (and enjoyed) some left over Verdicchio both while making and eating the bread pudding. And now we have leftovers to last through Friday.

I made some dinner rolls the week before we had class, so that if I had any questions while making them, I could be sure to ask the Chef (our instructor).  The rolls were very easy to make, and I learned a few things in the process:

Bread dough is more finicky about temperature than I realized.  Bakers use dough-temperature to adjust how bread tastes.  The longer a bread ferments (rises), the more intense flavor the bread will have.  I’m not really sure what the “intensity” scale is, but I haven’t been able to tell a difference in the different fermenting times.  For example, if you start with room-temperature water to mix the dough and then knead, the dough will end up being about 78-81 degrees F.  It will then take about an hour to rise (double in size).  This long fermentation times means a richer flavor.  However, if you don’t have an hour (like in class), you can heat the water to about 95F and then mix and knead the dough.  The dough will be very warm and will ferment a lot faster (only about 15-20 minutes to double in size). For my rolls, I used the longer fermentation time.

Now on to the egg wash. Egg wash keeps the bread moist while proofing (if done before proofing), and it gives the bread a nice pretty color when it is baked.  As you can see in the pictures though, I have a problem with applying egg wash to the ENTIRE round of dough, so you can see the difference in color.  I haven’t mastered this technique yet (even though it shouldn’t be that hard), and the Chef has been sure to point that out on the rolls that I have made in class.  I blame it on the crappy pastry brushes that they have in class.

I also now know how to properly round dough, so that it is completely smooth on top.  The rolls in this picture were done before I learned how to round the dough.  My rolls from class looked MUCH prettier as a result.

The rolls were OMGDELICOUS when eaten just out of the oven, and were good in the following days as well.

All of the recipes in my book list out the ingredients by weight.  This makes it a lot easier to understand the percentages of the ingredients used.  It takes a scale and a little more time to weigh out the ingredients, but in terms of understanding why X-amount of an ingredient is used makes a lot more sense.  I was too lazy to try and convert the amounts from weight to cups/tsp, etc, so here is the recipe, by weight.  I got about 30 rolls from this recipe.

Soft Dinner Rolls

Ingredients
1 oz. active dry yeast
12 oz. water (warmed to temperature of choice, but not more than 95F)
1 lb. 6 oz. bread flour
.5 oz. salt
2 oz. sugar
1 oz. nonfat dry milk
1 oz. shortening
1 oz. butter, softened
1 egg
egg wash

Preparation

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the flour, salt, sugar, dry milk, shortening, butter and egg in the bowl. Mix on low speed until combined.
2. Knead on medium-speed for 10 minutes or until dough is kneaded (must pass the window pane test).
3. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover.  Place in a warm spot and ferment until doubled.
4. Punch down the dough.  Let it rest for a few minutes (this relaxes the gluten).
5. Dived the dough into 1 1/4-ounce portions and round.   Arrange them on pans and apply egg wash.  Proof until doubled in size.
6. Bake at 400F until medium-brown, about 12-15 minutes.

Tommy had sent me this recipe a few weeks ago after watching Bobby Flay make it on Throwdown.  I was asleep when he was watching it, so all I had to go on was a recipe.  The first thing that I noticed about it was that the cake was covered in genache, instead of the ooey gooey caramel-nut-coconut filling that coats every German chocolate cake I have seen in the past, like this one.

There were a lot of ingredients to buy for this cake, all of which I bought here and then transported up to Wilmington.   I know where to find everything and in what store here, and I didn’t want to bother with the hastle of not being able to find specific ingredients (such as goat milk, dutch-processed cocoa powder, and heavy cream).  I’m very picky about my heavy cream.

On Saturday morning while watching the Tour de France, I started making the cake.  I realized that Bobby Flay’s directions did not include a step to incorporate the flour mixture into the batter.   The directions for the cake seemed a little weird anyway, so I made the cake my way, as demonstrated in the instructions below.  The cakes turned out nice and tall and firm enough to be able to cut them in half and layer without any disasters.  I had to add cornstarch at the end of the filling-making process, because it just didn’t thicken to a spreadable consistency on it’s own.  This step is also included in my version of the instructions below.

The cake was the best chocolate cake I have made yet, and I was very pleased by both the chocolate cake on its own and in combination with the filling.  Tommy has already requested that I make this cake again sometime soon.  The cake was great the same day it was made, but was even better for breakfast the next morning after it had some time to sit in the refrigerator.  I also found that, while the coconut-whipped cream was very very tasty, I didn’t prefer to eat it with my cake.  The cake held up just fine by itself.

German Chocolate Cake

Cake

Ingredients
2 ¼ cups AP flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoons fine salt
1 ½ cups strongly brewed black coffee, at room temperature
1 ½ cups buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons good quality Dutch process cocoa powder
1 ½ cups muscavado light brown sugar
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.

In another bowl, add the coffee, buttermilk, and vanilla extract and set aside.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat (or in the microwave). Add the butter to the bowl of your mixer and slowly mix in (using the wire whisk) the cocoa powder.  Mix for about a minute, until the cocoa has been incorporated into the butter.  Add the sugars and mix on medium speed until the sugars are dissolved. Add the eggs one at a time, waiting until each egg is incorporated before adding the next.  Once all of the eggs have been incorporated, add 1/3 of the coffee/buttermilk mixture and 1/3 of the flour mixture.  Do not add the next until the first addition is fully incorporated.  Repeat until all of the wet ingredients and the flour has been incorporate in alternating batches.

Divide the batter evenly between the 2 pans and bake on the middle rack until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 42 minutes.  My cakes took about 51 minutes to bake.  They went from a jiggly center to a firm center in about 2-minutes’ time, so make sure that you carefully watch the cakes after the 40-minute mark until they are done.  Let them cool in the pans on a baking rack for 20 minutes. Then invert the cakes onto the baking rack and let cool for at least 1 hour before frosting.

Coconut Filling

Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1 ¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup goats’ milk
¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon pure cane sugar
¼ cup water
½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 ¼ cups sweetened coconut
1 ¼ cups toasted coarsely chopped pecans

Preparation
Bring the milk, coconut milk and goat’s milk to a simmer over low heat in a small saucepan.  Add the vanilla bean to the milk mixture while heating it up (keep the seeds out, they will go in later).   Keep warm while you prepare the caramel.

Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over high heat and cook (do not stir) until deep amber brown color.   Remove the vanilla bean from the milk mixture, then slowly whisk in the milk mixture and continue whisking until smooth; add the vanilla seeds and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the sauce is reduced by half and is the consistency of a caramel sauce, about 55 minutes.   If your sauce does not thicken once the mixture has reduced by half, turn up the heat a little so that the mixture is between a simmer and a boil.  Add no more than 1/4 cup of cornstarch to the mixture and stir with the wooden spoon until thick.

Once the sauce is thick, remove from the heat and whisk in the cold butter, vanilla extract, and  salt and whisk until combined. Transfer the sauce to a medium bowl and stir in the pecans and coconut. Let the frosting cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally before frosting the cake.

Coconut Whipped Cream

Ingredients
1 ½ cups cold heavy cream
¼ cup Cocoa Lopez (coconut cream, which can be found in a can usually on the soda isle with all of the other non-alcoholic mixer ingredients like Margareta mix)
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation
Combine heavy cream, coconut milk, sugar and vanilla in a mixer and mix until soft peaks form.

Ganache

Ingredients
8 ounces heavy cream
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Preparation
Bring cream to a simmer. Place chocolate in a medium bowl, add hot cream and corn syrup and let sit for 30 seconds. Gently whisk until smooth. Let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before pouring over the cake.

Bringing it all together
Slice each cake in half horizontally. Place one cake layer on a cake round or platter and spread 1/3 of the filling evenly over the top, repeat to make 3 layers and top with the remaining cake layer, top side up. Pour the chocolate ganache over the cake, let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before slicing.  Slice cake, top with a dollop of whipped cream.

The next time I had an overflow of egg whites, I dispersed them among the compartments of my ice cube tray and put it in the freezer.  I read that once they are frozen, you should remove them from the tray put them in a plastic baggy for long-term storage in the freezer.  So once my egg whites were frozen, I found it impossible to get them out of the tray!  I bent and slammed the tray, trying to get them out, but they wouldn’t budge.  I tried dipping the bottom of the tray in hot water, and that didn’t work either.  Then I tried digging them out with a sharp knife… didn’t work.  So I gave up.

But then one day I had an idea.  The next time, I layed plastic wrap in the compartments and then I poured in the egg whites.  This time, they popped (lifted, really) right out of the tray.  I had to warm the cubes in my hand for a few seconds before the plastic wrap would peel off, but once that was done, the plastic wrap peeled right off, and I put the frozen cubes of egg white into a baggy for longer storage.

I give them a day to thaw out, but I have not had any problems using them so far.  I’ve even made macarons with my frozen-then-thawed egg whites and have been successful.

I am most recently excited about my new ability to make macarons.  I have tried twice in the the past, and both times resulted in a gloppy, lumpy-looking almond cookie that was edible but ugly, and nothing what a macaron should look like.   My stockpile of frozen egg whites was starting to get out of control due to all of the ice cream that Tommy and I have been making recently, so I gave macaron-making another go.  I put together all of  my ideas as to why the previous attempts failed, got serious and started again.   The result was plain-but-beautiful macarons that tasted delicious.  I was hoping that I hadn’t just gotten lucky, so I made another batch the following weekend and was successful in that as well.

In the next few months, I want to venture into adding flavor and fillings to my macarons.  And if I continue to make ice cream, I should have plenty of egg whites queued up for my experiments.

Plain Macarons

Ingredients
1 ¼ cups powdered sugar
4 oz (1 cup) almond flour or finely ground almonds (I used blanched almonds and ground them in my blender)
¼ cup plus 2 tbsps egg whites at room temperature (this is about 4 egg whites, depending on how big the egg is)
pinch of salt
¼ cup granulated sugar

Preparation
Allow egg whites to dry out by leaving them uncovered at room temperature for one or two days.

Line baking sheets with parchment.  If it is important to you to make perfectly sized macarons, then draw 1.5-inch circles on the back of the parchment for a guide when piping.  I find it more fun to try to match up the differently-sized macarons in the end for a perfect fit.

Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar. Mix the almonds and powdered sugar in a bowl and set aside.

In a large, clean, dry bowl whip egg whites with salt on medium speed until foamy. Increase the speed to medium-high and gradually add granulated sugar. Continue to whip to stiff peaks – the whites should be firm and shiny.

With a flexible spatula, gently fold in the powdered sugar/almond mixture into egg whites until completely incorporated. The mixture should be shiny and ‘flow like magma.’ When small peaks dissolve to a flat surface, stop mixing.  This should all take about 50 strokes of the spatula.

Fit a piping bag with a 3/8-inch (1 cm) round tip. Pipe the batter onto the baking sheets (in the previously drawn circles if you drew circles).  When  you pipe the batter, leave the tip in the center and let the batter move out. Do not try to “swirl” the batter when piping.  Tap the underside of the baking sheet to remove air bubbles.   Let dry at room temperature for at least 30 minutes to allow skins to form.

Bake, in a 310F oven for 10 to 11 minutes total, rotating the baking sheet after 5 minutes for even baking.

Remove macarons from oven and transfer the parchments to a cooling rack. When cool, slide a metal offset spatula underneath the macaron to remove from the parchment.

Chocolate Ganache Filling
8 oz heavy cream
8 oz bittersweet chocolate

Bring the cream to a boil and pour over the chocolate.  Let sit for 2 minutes, then stir with a whisk until the chocolate and the milk have been incorporated and the mixture looks like shiny ganache.  Let sit at room temperature for at least an hour to thicken.

Pair macarons of similar size, and pipe about 1 tsp of the filling onto one of the macarons. Sandwich macarons, and refrigerate to allow flavours to blend together. Bring back to room temperature before serving.

And not that this affects the typical dinners that Tommy and I make, I thought I would let everyone know that I have quit using high fructose corn syrup. NO MORE! I’m sure I won’t really notice an actual difference in my body by not having HFCS, but I feel better about it. I’m curious to know how long I will be able to not use it. Tommy and I watched King Corn a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been anti-HFCS, and I’ve also been a little uneasy about beef and such, the non-grass fed kind. I’m definitely not a vegetarian or even close, but I don’t feel bad about paying a little bit more for local (ish) grass fed beef.

Some recipes that I have enjoyed recently are:

Chipotle Shrimp Tostadas, from our most recent Food & Wine magazine. I have recently discovered that I love cabbage and fish tacos, so this meal wasn’t a big stretch. The only variation I used was that I didn’t have chipotle chile powder, so I just used regular chile powder. The wine pairing recommendation was a Rose, which is exactly what we had. Delicious.

Another dinner from our most recent Food & Wine, Lemongrass Pork with Pickled Carrots, served alongside Caramelized Broccoli with Garlic was delicious too. We used boneless pork chops sliced thin, and served it over brown rice. The only thing that I would like to note about this recipe is that this is the first time that Tommy and I have cooked with Fish Sauce. When Tommy saw it on the grocery list, he said “ewww”. But I remained optimistic and forged on anyway. As I started preparing the meal, the fish sauce SMELLED REALLY BAD. I was dreading the thought of finishing the cooking and it tasting like it was smelling. But again, I kept quiet (I was hoping that Tommy wasn’t smelling what I smelled) and forged on. The finished product tasted nothing like it smelled. All of it was pretty tasty. Aside from all of the chopping (Tommy was chopping, and he goes really slow because all of his minced pieces are of uniform size), this meal was fairly quick to make. I like quick but delicious meals.

When I was little, one of my favorite things to eat was “Stew and Noodles”. My parents would buy the canned beef stew, cook up some egg noodles, and BAM, I would devour it. Whole Foods had some grass-fed stew beef that I was eyeing over the weekend. After finding a use for it, I went back and bought some. Some people might think that Tommy and I are weird for making beef stew in South Carolina in August. But we eat soup all year ’round, no matter how hot. Although it has been rather cool lately, in the 80′s. The only substitution I made for this Tuscan Beef Stew was that instead of 2.5 cups of red wine (who wants to use 2.5 cups, that’s almost the whole bottle!!), I used 1 cup of red wine (a merlot) and 1.5 cups of beef stock. We ate it with egg noodles and I slurped it up while thinking of childhood memories. For some weird reason, the memory that came up first was when I was eating the soup at our kitchen table, and I was watching our ferret steal the dog’s food, and the dog was going crazy, too afraid to stand up to the ferret stealing his food.

After everyone was awake, I brushed it with the egg wash, stuck it in the oven for 20 minutes, and out came this beautifully browned pastry! Oh the excitement! The combination of an excited baker and hungry stomachs meant that there were no pictures of the final product. Only memories, and the other half of the dough in the freezer.

I chose to do two different fillings in one braid, each filling taking up half of the braid. I put pastry filling along the entire length of the braid. I filled the first half with a raspberry-blueberry filling (a very runny filling I might add), and the other half with bittersweet chocolate chips and bananas. While the whole thing was delicious, I would have to agree with Tommy that the cardamom seemed too much for the pastry. It overpowered the fillings, and in general, just didn’t seem to go with the pastry. I would happily leave that out next time. The texture of it, however, was PERFECT! Warm and flaky. I can’t wait to use up the second half of the dough. I’m thinking about doing a variety of things, including a few croissants, and some decorative danishes with filling in them. I’m just waiting for a time when others can help us eat them. I would highly recommend trying this out if you have a few hours to kill in the kitchen one afternoon. I enjoyed it.

A Danish Braid
Ingredients
For the dough (Detrempe)
1 ounce fresh yeast or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 orange, finely grated
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs, chilled
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
3-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

For the butter block (Beurrage)
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter (At the recommendation of someone on the forum, I used Lurpak butter because it has less water content than American butter. I don’t know if it helped or not, but my danish was perfect)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Preparation
Dough
Combine yeast and milk in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed. Slowly add sugar, orange zest, cardamom, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, eggs, and orange juice. Mix well. Change to the dough hook and add the salt with the flour, 1 cup at a time, increasing speed to medium as the flour is incorporated. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, or until smooth. You may need to add a little more flour if it is sticky. Transfer dough to a lightly floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Butter Block
1. Combine butter and flour in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle and then beat for 1 minute more, or until smooth and lump free. Set aside at room temperature.
2. After the detrempe has chilled 30 minutes, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 18 x 13 inches and ¼ inch thick. The dough may be sticky, so keep dusting it lightly with flour. Spread the butter evenly over the center and right thirds of the dough. Fold the left edge of the detrempe to the right, covering half of the butter. Fold the right third of the rectangle over the center third. The first turn has now been completed. Mark the dough by poking it with your finger to keep track of your turns, or use a sticky and keep a tally. Place the dough on a baking sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Place the dough lengthwise on a floured work surface. The open ends should be to your right and left. Roll the dough into another approximately 13 x 18 inch, ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Again, fold the left third of the rectangle over the center third and the right third over the center third. No additional butter will be added as it is already in the dough. The second turn has now been completed. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
4. Roll out, turn, and refrigerate the dough two more times, for a total of four single turns. Make sure you are keeping track of your turns. Refrigerate the dough after the final turn for at least 5 hours or overnight. The Danish dough is now ready to be used. (If you will not be using the dough within 24 hours, freeze it. To do this, roll the dough out to about 1 inch in thickness, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze. Defrost the dough slowly in the refrigerator for easiest handling. Danish dough will keep in the freezer for up to 1 month.)

Danish Braid
1/2 recipe Danish Dough (above)
2 cups filling
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk

1. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the Danish Dough into a 15 x 20-inch rectangle, ¼ inch thick. If the dough seems elastic and shrinks back when rolled, let it rest for a few minutes, then roll again. Place the dough on the baking sheet.
2. Along one long side of the pastry make parallel, 5-inch-long cuts with a knife or rolling pastry wheel, each about 1 inch apart. Repeat on the opposite side, making sure to line up the cuts with those you’ve already made.
3. Spoon the filling you’ve chosen to fill your braid down the center of the rectangle. Starting with the top and bottom “flaps”, fold the top flap down over the filling to cover. Next, fold the bottom “flap” up to cover filling. This helps keep the braid neat and helps to hold in the filling. Now begin folding the cut side strips of dough over the filling, alternating first left, then right, left, right, until finished. Trim any excess dough and tuck in the ends.

Proofing and Baking
1. Spray cooking oil (Pam…) onto a piece of plastic wrap, and place over the braid. Proof at room temperature or, if possible, in a controlled 90 degree F environment for about 2 hours, or until doubled in volume and light to the touch.
2. Near the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven. Whisk together the whole egg and yolk in a bowl and with a pastry brush, lightly coat the braid.
3. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan so that the side of the braid previously in the back of the oven is now in the front. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake about 15-20 minutes more, or until golden brown. Cool and serve the braid either still warm from the oven or at room temperature. The cooled braid can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for 1 month.

But the other vegetables have been fun to cook with. Spring in South Carolina yields plenty of greens, broccoli, turnips, radishes, and an abundance of strawberries. Last week we got an unidentified vegetable that I had never seen before. After a few long internet searches, I finally found what this vegetable was: Kohlrabi. Once finding out what it was, I began trying to figure out how to prepare it. It sounds like it is a lot like broccoli stems in texture and taste, only a tad bit sweeter. It can be eaten raw or cooked. I am going to cut it up into bitesize pieces and roast the pieces along with the cute little baby squash that we got.

I pick up my box on Wednesdays after work. Every Wednesday I find myself anxiously waiting to find out what is in the box for that week. This week we’re supposed to be getting fresh eggs too! I am also learning what grows in South Carolina and when it grows. The vegetables will keep coming through mid-July. I think that once the summer heat hits, we will be transitioning away from the greens (the heat kills them) to water melons, canteloupe, beans, and peppers.

I picked 3 different recipes that I felt represented 3 different ways to make applesauce. Feel free not to use them. I will post my applesauce adventure on March 23rd. To my surprise, all of these recipes seem very simple (I was thinking that applesauce took hours and hours of hovering over a stove). I’m guessing that apple selection is critical to good applesauce.

Microwave Method
Few ingredients with a little sugar for a sweetener
Exotic

Tommy and I have been cooking at home more and more. Sometimes there is no dinner plan until one of us comes home. Other times, I have planned out what to make for dinner every night of the week, and I even go to the grocery store on Saturday or Sunday to pick up the ingredients for at least the first few days of the week (when buying meat, I prefer to buy it the day of, or at most, one day prior to eating).

I used to use only foodtv.com and my Food & Wine magazines for recipe ideas. I don’t like the search feature of foodtv.com, but if you have an idea of what you want, it works pretty well. Tommy and I are always able to find tasty recipes (and some not so tasty) on the website. Lately I feel as if the site has failed us. I haven’t been able to find many recipes that I am interested in making. So last weekend I stumbled across Epicurious. I have known about epicurious for a very long time, but have never made an effort to really poke around the website. I like the site a lot. The three things that I like most about it are: 1. It has recipes that are available from Gourmet and Bon Apetit Magazines, providing a nice alternative to the Food & Wine recipes that I have available. 2. Users can post their own recipes… most of which seam reasonable and easy to sort through. 3. You can review or read reviews of all recipes that are posted. This is the one thing that foodtv.com does not have. I like browsing through the reviews of a recipe to see if there are other things I can add or things I should leave out of the recipe. Are there any other good places to go to look for recipe ideas?