from Tracey G
It's November's King Arthur Flour's Bakealong week! But wow, I can't believe it's November already! Anyway, I am really enjoying the Bakealong, and now every month I look forward to finding out what the the Monthly Challenge is going be. It's one of the first things I do at the beginning of the month - go check and see what the month's recipe is! I was pleasantly surprised to see Apple Pie was this month's Bakealong Challenge I love apple pie, and it was a great excuse to make one AND to try my hand at making my own pastry again. So, in effect it was also reinforcing a skill I'm trying to master - or at least help me become fairly proficient at, lol.
I have to say, that in my opinion, this was the best apple pie I've ever
made. I don't know if it was the addition of the Boiled Cider or the King Arthur Flour Vietnamese Cinnamon I just started using, or if it was everything in
combination with the lovely Ida Red apples I used - but whatever it was, it
worked in a super duper way! This pie was wonderful - so wonderful that it
wasn't eaten as dessert - Jeremy and I enjoyed it for breakfast with our
coffee!! LOL! It was way too good to wait for dessert time!
The pastry was easy to put together, which made me happy
since I am still getting comfortable making pie pastry. The directions in the
recipe are so very helpful, they really put me at ease. Unfortunately I
couldn't finish the recipe the day I made the pastry, so it did refrigerate a
couple days, which wasn't planned, but I didn't have a choice. And you know
what? It still was a dream for a pie-pastry-challenged person such as myself to
work with! And seriously - do the edge roll that they recommend once you get it
flattened into disks, it really saved my edges on the roll-out as they said it
would.
I opted for a lattice top pie. I've only done lattice one other time,
and it's something I discovered then that it was fun to do, not to mention it
looks so pretty! I also took it one step further, I made a batch of their Single Crust Pastry so that I could use my neat little pie pastry cutters in
the shapes of leaves that I just got, and, was dying to use to decorate my pie
(the kind that imprint the leaf's texture on the dough). And they didn't let me
down, it was fun AND pretty. I took the rest of the dough and let Harry cut some out, plus the leaves
already cut that I didn't use, and let Harry brush them with the egg white wash
I used on the finished pie before baking, and then sprinkle them generously
with cinnamon sugar - so we had some nice little bonus snacks!
The filling was wonderful and to be honest, I could've
eaten it just on its own, lol. Really flavorful - mine had a wonderfully
seasoned, sweet-tart taste going on. The
only thing it was lacking - vanilla ice cream! I unfortunately didn't have any,
very upsetting! LOL Next time though...I'll be prepared. Unless I decide on
whim I just gotta have some of this apple pie right now, whenever that moment
hits - which, with as yummy as this was, that is entirely possible!
All in all, it ended up being just as pretty as it was
tasty. Pretty is something I always strive for when I do stuff like this, but
it doesn't always happen - and that's ok because the treats always taste good
which is THE ultimate goal after all, lol . This time though? I think I
achieved both goals! Yes!
from Kris B.
This week, as Tracey and I share our experience with The King Arthur Flour November Bakealong, you see one of the places where we are not quite so similar…she is the pretty one, and I am the more practical one. Lol! Actually, as we discussed how we would handle the Bakealong Challenges, we decided that one of us would follow the recipe as presented by King Arthur, and one of us would try to share some kind of variation of that recipe in an effort to show just how flexible King Arthur’s recipes are with a little creativity.
In addition to the monthly Bakealong Challenge, King Arthur is also sponsoring the Bake for Good program. This program is intended to share a love of baking as well as help to combat hunger. Bakers are encouraged to bake some homemade goodness and share it with family, friends, and strangers. This is where my motivation to make hand pies based on this month’s Bakealong Challenge was born.
As a college professor, I am surrounded by hungry students (and a few hungry colleagues) every day. This is a good thing because when I have the urge to bake, I know that I can take my latest creation to school to share and not be obligated to eat the whole recipe myself. Everyone is always most appreciative…some days more than others. Because I teach at the community college, my classes are relatively small. That provides me the opportunity to get to know my students well, both academically and personally, their struggles and successes both in and outside of the classroom. And they know me not only as their music theory instructor, but also as a baker, in more than name only. Lol! With that in mind, I have to share a story from school this week.
For those of you who have been away from college for awhile, the face of the average college student is much different than it was when I was a student. My Monday-Wednesday morning class is very small, five students. On Wednesday, two of the young men arrived to class about ten minutes late. They both came through the door apologizing for their tardiness saying that they were late because they had “diaper duty.” One of these young men is a mid-twenties student who is an extremely talented and hardworking pianist. His wife works as a caregiver for a special needs child. They have a six month old daughter. This student has to wait for his wife to return home from her responsibilities of getting the child she cares for ready for school and on the bus so that she can then assume care for their baby during the day while her husband is at school. The second student on “diaper duty” is a young man, a percussionist working towards becoming a band director, who’s forty-three year old mother had a stroke a few months ago. Insurance will no longer pay for her to stay in a rehabilitation facility so the family is fully responsible for caring for their wife and mother, who is partially paralyzed. The father is working full time. The youngest child in the family, a girl who is a high school senior, can’t miss school. So, the two boys, my student and his older brother, are juggling their work and school schedules to make sure that their mother has twenty-four hour care. That is not the student experience I had! Why am I sharing all of this?
When I bring baked goods to class, it adds a touch of normalcy, of caring, of goodness to my students’ day. They can relax for the few minutes it takes to enjoy a homemade treat. There is no question that food has the ability to bring people together and create comfort in community.
The problem with baking the actual apple pie to share with this class was that although my classroom is well equipped for teaching, it is not well equipped for eating. I did not want to have to take plates and forks and a pie server to school. Hand pies seemed like a reasonable solution.
I made both the pie pastry and the crust exactly as directed in the King Arthur recipe. When I rolled the dough, I then used a 3” round cutter to cut the “bottom crust”, mounded the apple filling in the middle, and added a “top crust.” I used the same cutter for the top crust, but rolled it a bit thicker initially. Once cut, I then rolled it thinner and bigger before placing it atop each of the apple mounds. I then used a fork to crimp the two pieces together and poke vent holes in the tops. These need to be assembled directly on a parchment lined baking sheet.
Once completely assembled, I used an egg white wash to brush the top of each hand pie and sprinkled the tops with coarse white sugar.
The King Arthur recipe calls for the full-sized pie to bake 20 minutes at 425 degrees and another 40 minutes at 375 degrees. I baked the hand pies on a parchment lined baking sheet for the full 20 minutes at 425 degrees, but only 20 minutes at 375 degrees.
I got twelve hand pies from the pie crust recipe. I did have quite a bit a filling leftover. My husband ate the extra apple mixture straight from the bowl and my daughter cooked it with a little butter and used it to top buckwheat pancakes. The possibilities are endless!!
