I decided I’d stretch out a bit for the top-crimped version, and do a steak & leek treatment on the concept. It’s still within the boundaries of traditional, assuming that word has much meaning. For as you know well by now, pasties were a make-do food. Anything and everything can — and did — go […]
READ ONIs it filled with chiles, black beans and rice? I honestly don’t know. However I do know that in a town in the south of Mexico known as Pachuca, they make and serve hand pies they call pasties. They are, of course, another product of Cornish emigration, brought there by miners who weren’t after tin, […]
READ ON…side-crimped, glazed, with sliced potatoes and pork, that is. Top-crimped steak pasties coming soon. So then, let’s start with the dough, which is a very elementary proposition, even for those who fear pie crust. Begin by whisking your flour and salt together. Add your fat… …and work it in by hand until you get a […]
READ ONThis dough is a slightly wetter version of the dough that I use for top-crimped pasties. But either one is very wet compared to pie dough of the kind you bake in a pan. That extra toughness is of course what allows the pasty to maintain its shape without the help of a mold. So, […]
READ ONHigh ratio flour is used almost exclusively by professional cake bakers, though it’s also found in store bought cake mixes. What makes this type of flour special is that it’s ground very finely and treated with either heat or chlorine (or both). What does that do? It allows the flour to disperse very, very evenly […]
READ ONThis recipe is taken from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, an outstanding book that I recommend to all. This dough needs an overnight rest. Basically you mix it in the evening, rush it into the fridge until the next day, let it rise 2 to 3 hours, then shape the loaves and bake. Quite […]
READ ONSometimes I think God put puff pastry on Earth for one reason and one reason alone: so it could be made into scraps and those scraps turned into Alsatian onion tart. This appetizer is so rich and lovely — covered with caramelized onions, cream and bacon — odds are excellent your dinner guests won’t ever […]
READ ONAn onion tart isn’t an easy thing for me to quantify, since I generally just wait until I have a baseball-sized mass of puff pastry scraps in my freezer, then make one. I’ll give it a try though. About 10 ounces puff pastry About one cup caramelized onions (see recipe under the Components menu) 1-2 […]
READ ONThis is American stollen, mind you. Which is to say it tried hard to be the real German article, but not being truly German, it isn’t. My shape isn’t perfect (I left a little too much lip down below), and I used things like cherries and dark raisins which are verboten among the purist crowd. […]
READ ONI adapted it, actually. This is a variation on a formula I came across a few years ago and loved. Notice that the dried and candied fruits are all light in color. No raisins or currants, not even any brown-skinned nuts. This is intentional, since unlike an English-style fruitcake, a light, golden crumb is part […]
READ ON