What are You Baking the Week of November 19, 2017?

[aaronatthedoublef]

This was my p-week. I made pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and pizza... The big problem I ran into was shrinkage! My pumpkin pie is the classic pumpmkin pie from the KAF big baking book. It's crust was not blind baked and the pie actually looked nice. I had good crimped edges that held up. I cover it with foil after about 30 minutes so it did not overly brown and I was not embarrassed to serve it.

The pecan pie was another story. This is also from the KAF Big Baking Book. I cannot figure out how to properly blind bake for the life of me. I eve followed the six tips on Serious Eats HERE and my crust was still an embarrassment. I did chill both crusts before putting them in the oven but maybe I need to do it longer.

The other problem was that pumpkin pie definitely and pecan pie to a lesser degree need to bake at least a day ahead of when they are served. But since my wife decided to use the kitchen as her office and has non-stop conference calls it is very hard to find a a time to make them. So I was up early Thanksgiving morning and had them done by 11. They tasted good but not as good as they tasted Friday.

I also cooked my first turkey. I kept it simple and it was a small 9.5 lb bird. I listened to my wife and sister-in-law about when to take it out and I should have trusted my own instincts. The white meat was a little dry but the skin was crisp and it only took about 2.5 hours.

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Aaron,

My pie crust (see earlier post) for my pumpkin pie was prebaked. I used my buttermilk pie crust recipe, with 2 Tbs. sugar, and accidentally used all butter rather than half butter and half Crisco. Except for one little side, there was no shrinkage.

My technique is an amalgamation of several sources. The pie recipe is adapted from the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook but I used 2 1/2 cups pastry flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour. When I add the liquid, after cutting in the butter, I follow Ken Haedrich's instructions and add all the liquid at once. I refrigerate for an hour. In this case, it was longer because, like you, I have others mucking around in my kitchen area. The dough really was too hard when I started to roll it out. I follow the technique in the Cooks Baking Illustrated and in The Dessert Bible, but I roll the dough out onto a wide piece of parchment paper (Reynolds), cover it with a wide piece of saran (cooking store), then roll it out to 1/8th inch, in part because I like crust. It could be rolled thinner, using pastry wands to get the height exact. I then flip the whole thing over and peel off the parchment. I put my hand between the saran and the counter, and pick up the crust and gently fit it over the pie plate, then carefully position it. When I'm satisfied, I peel off the saran, then finish tucking it into the pie plate. I fold over the edges and crimp them so that they rest on the pie rim. I then lightly cover with the saran wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill for 40 minutes. Usually, I then move it to the freezer for 20 minutes, but his time I put it outside on the cement, where it was below freezing and put a plastic cover over it to ward off inquisitive animals. I left it there for 30 minutes. I preheat the oven for at least 30 minutes at 375F.

Note: I like Emile Henry ceramic pie plates for my pumpkin and apple pies. (I use a metal one for blueberry, cherry, or pecan.)

When I am ready to bake, I put an industrial coffee filter in the pie plate That was a hint from KAF, but instead of selling them, they now sell these fancy liners from England. Coffee filters are cheaper (office store online; restaurant store), and I've discovered can be used for other things, such as draining pumpkin puree. The two Cooks books used double layer aluminum foil. I've also used parchment.

I think that it is silly that the Serious Eats author uses sugar. What a waste. Buy cheap beans and use them over and over and over. I've been using one set for over 25 years. I don't think that I've used enough, hence the one spot of shrinkage, so I'm going to make sure that next time it is full. Don't use ceramic pie weights--they get too hot and melt the butter in the crust. I would think metal pie chains would be equally as bad.

Once the beans are in, the pie plate goes into the middle of the oven to bake at 375F for 21 minutes until the sides are set. Remove pie plate from oven. Carefully lift out the liner with beans. (I move it to a heat-safe plate to cool.) Return the pie plate to the oven. If filling will require 20 minutes or less of baking time, bake 7 minutes more. If it will require more than 20 minutes, bake only 4 minutes more. If filling requires no baking, then bake 15-20 minutes more.

However, I like to go by whether the bottom looks sufficiently cooked to me on time. For my pumpkin pies, and additional 5-6 minutes will do it. (Note: my pumpkin pie filling is hot when I put it into the hot crust.) Once the filling is in, I bake at 425F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350F. I check the pie for doneness starting 8 minutes after that. This time it took 10 minutes after I turned down the heat. Next time, I will likely put a pie shield over the crust, because my husband would prefer that it be more lightly baked.

I cannot at the moment remember if I put the pecan pie filling into a hot crust; my husband buried the box with that cookbook, and I don't expect to see it until next summer. It's Bernard Clayton's Pecan Pie recipe form The Complete Book of Pastry: Sweet and Savory.

I hope that some of this information might help you to tweak what you do. I expect that Mike Nolan, who has more experience than I, will also weigh in.

As for turkey roasting--my husband has taken over that, but this year, I actually got the rack moved down lower, and he was amazed that it cooked faster and the top did not dry out. When I roast turkeys, I follow Rick Rogers methods in Thanksgiving 101.

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 7 years ago by BakerAunt.

[RiversideLen]

On Thursday I made Skinny Pumpkin Pie, recipe on the Betty Crocker web site. It's an oil crust that only uses 1/4 cup of oil. I've made oil crusts before, in fact they are my mainstay, I call them "good enough crusts". This crust, however, was just too little oil. It turned out a bit hard and stuck to the pie plate in spots even though I gave the plate a light spray of Pam. The filling was OK but a little soft. It tasted fine as I seasoned it my way (1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a teaspoon of vanilla extract, nothing else). I don't care for traditional pumpkin pie seasoning (people who don't like pumpkin pie tend to like mine). Not a waste but I've made better.

Today I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake. I haven't made this is several years but I remember it being pretty good, a little heavy because of the pumpkin but good. It smelled pretty good coming out of the oven. I'll be serving it tomorrow. The pics are from several years ago, the last time I had made it.

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[Joan Simpson]

Riverside Len that cake looks good!

[Italiancook]

RiversideLen, you cake looks scrumptious. Pretty, too.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - Thanks for all the tips. I used disposable aluminum pie tins. I have so Pyrex ones that I may try but I started the disposable tins when I was taking pie to other people and I've just stuck with it. my dough was a little wetter than normal this year and I rolled it out on parchment then flipped it from the parchment into the tin. Like you I am a crust fan. Both of my crusts were the softest I remember them being. I also placed the tins on sheet pans. That will slow the browning of the crust and, as the blind bake article points out, it makes it easier to put the tin into and take it out of the oven.

I did try the sugar though I agree it is wasteful I was a little desperate. In the past I've used beans and pennies (which probably heat up too fast) and I've used parchment, foil, and even a second tin. A second tin is okay so long as you do not care about a nice, crimped edge which I really want for a Thanksgiving pie.

I have new things to try next time.

As for the turkey it was good. I just needed to follow my own advice about when to take it out next time. But my sis-in-law who was very kind to help is a chickenologist (poultry scientist actually) and has cooked more turkeys than I so I followed her advice. Next time I will keep my own counsel. One good thing I read online was that if you do not have a rack to place the turkey on but want a crisp bottom cut up some vegetables, place them on the bottom of the pan, and place the turkey on the vegetables. We used carrots, potatoes, and onions and they tasted EXCELLENT!

[BakerAunt]

Hi, Aaron,

ATK liked ceramic and heavier metal pie tins equally (they were using one from Williams-Sonoma), but they were less thrilled with glass ones. ATK ultimately liked the metal one because they did not want a wavy rim to limit their crimping options. My Emile Henry pie plates only have the gentle wave, not the dynamic one they started making later.

My metal pie plates actually have a wide rim with a trough for catching baking juices. My mother had this kind of pie pan, and I was able to find two in an independent hardware store in West Los Angeles thirty years or so ago. I picked up another one at an estate sale. These are heavier than the average modern pie pan. My guess is that a heavier metal pan would hold the heat and assist in browning. The main issue for me with a blind-baked crust is getting the bottom properly done; it does not cook as fast as the top and the sides do with the pie weights inside. I'm not sure putting it on a baking sheet is the best approach for blind baking.

We need Mike Nolan to do a blog on blind-baking crust techniques!

[Mike Nolan]

I don't blind bake much, but I have done some experimenting with it. I never use a baking sheet under the pan for blind baking, I think it interferes with the air flow.

I have played around a little with the convection cycle on my oven for blind baking, but not enough to have reached any conclusions yet. (I do use the convection cycle for the first 20 minutes of baking a fruit pie.)

I use white pie beans. When we blind-baked in pastry school, our instructor told most of us to add more beans, so make sure you use enough.

In pastry school we used parchment to line the pan (the beans should never touch the pie dough), I've also tried aluminum foil and coffee filters, of these commercial-sized coffee filters seem to be best, but mostly because they've already got the right shape. But you generally have to buy them in huge quantities. The biggest advantage of aluminum foil is if you mold it over the edges you generally don't need to use a pie shield to keep the top edge from getting over-baked.

All our pies in pastry school were made in disposable aluminum foil pie pans. At home I use a glass pie pan for blind baking, I use a Norpro non-stick pan for fruit pies. (It really is non-stick, you can slide the pie right out once it's cool.)

Some blind baking instructions (including, as I recall, King Arthur's) recommend you remove the pie beans for the last 5 minutes or so of baking, but that's challenging because they're HOT. I'm not sure it's necessary, either. We didn't do that in pastry school.

Lately my pie-baking experimentation has been geared towards trying to determine the optimal thickness of pie dough, from which I'm hoping to be able to create a pie dough recipe calculator, so you don't have too much left over pie dough or run short. To assist in this effort I'm using a digital caliper which can measure in 0.01 inch increments that I got at Shipwreck Beads.

One thing I wonder about pie dough is whether the type of pie dough (butter, lard, shortening or a combination of fats) affects the ideal thickness. I suppose it might affect proper blind baking as well.

I consider hot water pie crusts a different breed, worthy of its own set of investigations.

[skeptic7]

For Thanksgiving I did pumpkin corn bread with basically a Northern style corn bread with pumpkin puree instead of buttermilk. I also added spices -- cinnamon, allspice, ginger and nutmeg and cranberries. I did an apple pie with Northern Spy, Winesap, Cortland, and Cinnamon Crisp apples. The day after Thanksgiving I baked a 20 lb Long Island Cheese Pumpkin. The flesh was a nice dark orange, nearly red in contrast to the skin which was more beige. The flesh also seperated out into strings like a spaghetti squash. The pumpkin was so big that I baked only half the pumpkin at a time. I baked it for about an hour until tender than let it cool. I then ran it through a food mill. The baked pumpkin produced a lot of liquid which I then stirred back into the puree. It made 10-12 pints of pumpkin puree which is now in the freezer for future breads.
I had previously cooked a Long Neck Pumpkin into puree. This looks like a giant warped butternut squash. The flesh is more yellow and less moist. This was the pumpkin I used for the pumpkin corn breads.
Oh thanks for all the information on blind baking a pie crust. I will try that again when I find time.

[cwcdesign]

On Sunday, I tested the Caribbean rum cake from KAF, taking half to one job. It was a hit!

On Wednesday, I tried a recipe for a pumpkin latte cake for my other job. It had a swirl of an espresso cream cheese “filling” and I made my own pumpkin spice since I didn’t want to have a lot on hand. I added extra spice because the color was too light and I’m glad I did. It was a good cake, but I won’t make it again- the recipe had too many moving parts

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