Nostalgia

As I was picking Saskatoon berries at The Saskatoon Farm with my friends, I was thinking of the time I picked apples from an orchards in Montreal. I was a kid but I don't know exactly how old I was. My family was there and I was picking anything that was big and red with the perfect shape. I was worried that worms would pop out. I don't know what apples they were, nor did I remember its taste. One thing that I remembered vividly was the cool weather. The sun was setting as the sky turned orange and the air was getting breezy. We had to hurry to fill our baskets up to be in time so Dad can cook them at home for supper that day. And then the next day, and the next...

Fast forward two decades later and here I am, picking up where I left off. Except it's not the same farm. The fruit is one-tenth of an apple in size. The day was getting hotter as we were in the middle of August. And my pits were getting sweaty as we picked for more than 3 hours to fill two pails. All of our hard work did pay off as we were able to make...

Saskatoon Berry Hand Pies!

It actually took me several weeks to get to these results. Recipe below will actually make a batch of nine hand pies.

Crust:
I followed the recipe from Serious Eats with some modifications. I referred to this site because it explains better.
-Egg white

Filling:
-4 cups of Saskatoon berries
-2 tbsp of corn starch
-1/2 cup of sugar
-1 tsp of cinnamon

1. Prepare the dough a day in advance.
2. Mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl.

3. Roll out the dough to and trim to 18" by 15". Cut into 9 equal rectangles.

4. Add about 3 tablespoons of the berries in a the centre of a sheet and brush the seams with egg white.

5. Fold about a quarter of the sheet length wise and brush the middle seam.

6. Fold the quarter of the sheet over. You'll have to pull the edge a little so it overlaps the other.

7. Flip it over. Using a fork, press on the edges. Cut 3 vents. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Place it on cookie sheet with parchment paper.

8. Once the cookie sheet is full, bake at 375°F for about 20 minutes.

Below is a video that I took at The Saskatoon Farm. Nothing in particular stood out but I still enjoyed the view nonetheless.



In Search of a Pie Cafe

When my friends and I booked our plane tickets to Chicago, we didn't know Lollapalooza was scheduled on the same weekend we were there. We worked our schedule to do what Baseball fans needed to do when they visit Chicago: watch a Cubs game... and to boo A-Rod because he happened to be in town against the White Sox. Aside from Baseball, we ate, ate again, ate some more, saw Book of Mormon, and ate for the rest of the week. With only a couple days left before we leave the Windy City, there was an empty square on my list of things to do that needed to be checked off: eat at a pie café.

My interest in visiting a pie café in Chicago that serves good individual slices comes from the fact that I have yet to find one in Calgary. I want to be able to sit down at a café that smells like butter and enjoy every bite of that warm flaky homemade crust with fresh fruit. With very little time left because of how the schedule worked out, I knew I had to get to this place right after my crazy deep dish pizza meal that would put anyone into a food coma. With one eye opened, I crawled to my destination.


Hoosier Mama Pie Company. More on this later.

There was another pie café in town that I looked up after this one. One pie café wasn't enough so I hopped on the train and got off at the California station. I walked a few blocks south to find:

Bang Bang Pie Shop

I liked the interior design but I especially liked the air conditioning as it was a hot and humid day.

But I came for the pie!

I ordered a blueberry pie and while it looked nice, it wasn't my kind of pie. Where's the flaky buttery crust? Where's the juice? Why is it cold? It's supposed to be served cold and while this gelatin based pie tasted pretty good, it wasn't what I was looking for. What about at Hoosier Mama's?

I ordered the same pie for the same price and this is how it turned out. A little closer to what I have in mind however, the crust was more hard than flaky. It was also cold as this place doesn't seem to have a pie warmer. What I am impressed at is how firm and crispy the bottom crust was despite the runny filling. The staff was kind enough to advise me to simply freeze the crust after blind baking. I'm supposed to blind bake 375°F for 15 minutes as well, which is hotter and longer than what I normally do. And with that advice, it made the pie trip worthwhile despite not finding the perfect pie café.

The little shop at Hoosier Mama's

I was eager to try this simple technique when I left Chicago. I used Saskatoon berries that my friends and I picked from a farm (more on this in the future), and this is how it turned out.

It worked! However I found out later that Saskatoon berries are much more firm than blueberries. Zut!

So the real test is with blueberries which I haven't had much success with in the past.

Men's Pie

Out of all of the pies that I've made to date, none of them impressed my friend Kevin. They were all relatively good, but none stood out for him. It turns out that he doesn't eat fruits except watermelons. I can't make a pie out of that! So I bluntly asked him one day: "What do you want?" He wanted a chocolate peanut butter pecan pie. I kept thinking of the word 'heavy' over and over. I had my doubts but I had a game plan. After a few weeks of trial and error, I came up with...

...Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Pie with Hazelnuts!

The crust consists of chocolate cookie crumbs and butter, lined with a mixture of peanut butter, almond milk, and crushed hazelnuts, topped with chocolate mousse. It's not too sweet nor it is heavy but it tasted great! I don't know how to decorate this pie without garnishing with chocolate flakes or whipping cream, none of which I'd add. It literally looks like a chocolate swirly (pun fully intended). I like this pie but it definitely isn't my favorite. Nothing beats the apple pie!

Many of my guy friends including Kevin, however, loved it! Obviously, they don't care how it looks but they thought it was the best pie I've made to date. It was so good that Kevin bought one.

Yes, he ate all but one slice.

I've never made a cookie crust or a mousse prior to this, so I'm glad this turned out well. What I really like is the fact that I can make it in an hour. Below is the recipe:

Crust:
-1/4 cup of cold melted butter
-1 1/4 cup of chocolate cookie crumbs

Chocolate Mousse:
-150g bittersweet chocolate
-140mL (1/2 cup + 1 tbsp) egg white
-1 tbsp sugar
-Dash of cayenne pepper

Peanut Sauce:
-1/4 cup + 3 tbsp smooth peanut butter
-1/4 cup + 1 tbsp Silk almond milk
-100g hazelnuts

Crust:
1. Preheat the oven at 375°F.

2. Melt the butter using a double boiler to ensure it doesn't burn. Turn down the heat if needed.
3. Put the melted butter in the fridge for 5 minutes. If it's too warm, the crumbs will stick to your hands.

4. Mix the cookie crumbs with the butter and transfer it evenly on a 9" pie plate.
5. Bake the crust for 8 minutes before taking it out and let it cool.

Chocolate Mousse:
6. Add sugar to egg white and mix.

7. Whip the egg white until soft peaks form.*

8. Melt the chocolate using a double boiler and add in with cayenne pepper. This can be done at the same time as step 7. Water should not be boiling but warm enough to melt the chocolate.

9. Mix 1/3 of the egg white with the melted chocolate.**

 

10. Fold in the rest of egg white in the chocolate one scoop at a time. You may need to re-whip the egg white if it's turning into liquid.

Peanut Sauce:

11. Crush the hazelnuts with a ziploc bag and a rolling pin.

12. Mix the peanut butter with almond milk until very smooth.

13. Add hazelnuts to peanut butter and stir.

Final Steps:

14. Add peanut sauce to the crust.

15. Add the chocolate mousse and decorate it.
16. Leave the pie in the fridge for a couple of hours. Take it out and let it sit for 20 minutes before serving.***

*When whipping egg white, you'll incorporate air better and faster if you rotate the whisk around the horizontal axis. If you rotate it around the vertical axis, you're just mixing the egg white and not incorporating air. Soft peaks are formed when there's a peak at the end of the whisk but droops.

**Melted chocolate will turn into a clump if too little egg white comes into contact. Mix in too much egg white and you'll have a thinner layer of mousse. 1/3 of egg white should be sufficient to work with the melted chocolate and turn it into a mousse.

***If you don't let the pie sit for at least 20 minutes in room temperature after taking it out of the fridge, this is what's gonna happen...

Your veins will pop out trying to lift the close-to-frozen cookie crust out of the plate and the slice will look like a mess.

In case you were wondering why I used hazelnuts instead of pecans: I'm cheap but hey, hazelnuts go better with chocolate than pecans!

Colour Of My Skin

Driving from one end of town to the other end in Calgary sucks. On top of that, my friend lives close to no man's land, where he held a party. An area so new that it hasn't completely been updated on Google Map. I was on the right street but I got lost as I've never been to his place before. The night was getting chilly and the streets were quiet except for this one house that was loud and bright. I saw and heard people singing; it was karaoke. I rang the doorbell. No answer, but I could see someone sitting by the entrance. I knocked on the door and still, no answer. What kind of friends does he have? Can't he see me!? I pounded on the door as I'm getting cold. The door finally opened and the guy invited me in as I held two plates of these:

I was about to walk in when a bunch of kids ran right to the door. Wait. A. Minute. They're all Filipino and I don't recognize any of them! And why would there be kids in this household? By the way, my friend is Chinese so I was expecting at least one there. Clearly, I was at the wrong house. I'm an idiot.

By the time I found the right house, the dozen egg tarts that I prepared that night went cold. I was also carrying homemade chili in a thermo food cup the entire time as well. Luckily, it was still warm.

I forgot to mention in my last post, that I didn't use all of the dough for the crust. This time, I did and I found the crust to be a little thick. I also used my pie crust recipe as I was hoping for a flakier crust but unfortunately, it didn't make any difference. It was still a cookie type of crust but with less butter flavor because pie crust needs more water.

Baked at 400°F for the first 12 minutes then 350°F for the next 12 minutes

I probably ruined the flakiness when I molded each piece of dough into a ball.

I'm gonna try making this again this weekend. By the way, here's a picture of the chili that I made while making egg tarts that day.

It has no relevance to this blog but I thought I'd post it. Or does it?

Project: Egg Tart

I wanted to get away from pies for at least a week. They're definitely challenging to make but I wanted to do something different. I woke up on Thursday craving egg tarts but I had to wait until Sunday.

Egg tarts are a staple to Dim Sum much like shrimp dumplings. For those of you who don't know, Dim Sum is Chinese food but in small individual portions. In some restaurants, they're served warm on carts where the seated customers would order what they see. But the one thing that every customer understands is that you can't complete a meal until you have that sweet, buttery, crispy egg tart. Kids love it. Adults crave it.

First Batch

In case you were wondering why I didn't make a dozen egg tarts, it's because I had to buy mini tart tins and they're helluva expensive. I washed the tins right when I got home and after letting them dry, I noticed some rust. My friend Melissa refused to eat "egg tarts made out of rust". I didn't think it would be a big deal since the rust is so small and outside of the tins so we searched online for a third opinion! Based on the Yahoo Q and A, it's pretty much the same story: guys don't give a damn about eating specs of rust where gals are health conscience about it. Luckily, we found out that rust can be removed by rubbing vegetable oil on the tin. The more you know!

I used this recipe for two reasons:
a) the egg tarts looked delicious, and
b) the author is Chinese. Would you follow a Mexican recipe written by an Italian?

I first used my food processor to make the dough like I normally would for a pie crust. Unfortunately, it didn't work out too well. It was too dry that it crumbled when I tried molding it in a tart tin.

A pie crust needs to be kneaded as little as possible so the butter is kept cold throughout the process to ensure its flakiness. This egg tart recipe is more of a cookie type of crust, which means that the dough can be overworked to ensure the dough can be molded. The best way of overworking the dough is to knead it by hand (or possibly by a mixer but I haven't tried it).

Kneaded by hand

So that's what I did with a new batch of dough and it was much easier to work with. The only added liquid in this crust recipe is one egg, so you have to keep kneading until you feel the dough getting really moist. That's because you're trying to draw out water from the butter. Once water is drawn out, the crust will be workable but it won't be flaky when baked. Puff pastry egg tarts can be made using butter, but they are much more difficult and time-consuming to make. You can check it here.

After molding the crust in the tart tins

We first baked it at 200°F for the first 15 minutes only to realize that the recipe said 200°C! Who uses Celsius!? After cranking the oven up to 400°F, we baked it for 10 minutes, then 350°F for the final 10 minutes. The fillings were rising so as instructed by the recipe, we opened the door to 2.5 inches until the egg tarts were done. This is to ensure the egg tarts don't collapse when they come out of the oven.

And to ensure the tarts are done...

...a toothpick is inserted and if it stays upright, it's done.

The finished product was nice and it tasted really good but the crust was as hard as a cookie. Obviously, this is due to overcooking the egg tarts.

You can see the hard crust

The following day, I prepared six egg tarts again with the leftover crust and filling. However, I only baked three of them while the other three were kept in the fridge.

Baked at 400°F for the first 12 minutes and then 350°F for the next 12 minutes

The ones from the second batch were the best egg tarts I've ever had. This time, since they were baked properly, the egg tarts tasted much better with the crust being much softer. The filling was much more tasty flavorful.

I prepared the last three egg tarts in advance to see if the crust would be ruined the following day. I baked the last batch at 400°F for the first 15 minutes and then 350°F for the last 15 and they came out as such.

Baked at 400°F for the first 15 minutes and then 350°F for the next 15 minutes

The crust didn't go soggy so it's clear that egg tarts can be prepared at least a day before. It would just be a hassle to wrap each tart and to make sure the filling doesn't spill.

The egg tarts from this last batch were a little harder but not as hard as the first batch. I still prefer the second batch more.

If I had to make some adjustments to this recipe, I would use a bit less water so the filling is a little more concentrated. Other than that, this was a very good recipe to follow.