Baketoberfest!

Yesterday I decided that it was time to do some baking. I got my shopping done, washed all the dishes, organized the tupperware, and straightened the kitchen. This morning I got up, emptied the dishwasher, lined up my various ingredients and tools, and started in.

First off I needed breakfast, and two overripe bananas beckoned to me ...

Banana Bread
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 very ripe bananas
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together. In another bowl, cream the butter with the sugar. Add the eggs and bananas and mix well. Combine the lemon juice with the milk (the milk may curdle a bit). Alternately add the flour mix and the milk to the main bowl starting and ending with the flour, stirring well after each addition. Stir in the nuts, then pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the loaf.

Besides the bananas, I had the remains of a pint of strawberries, two plums starting to shrivel up, and an apple. I skinned the apple and plums and diced all the fruit up into their own bowls. Each got 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and bit of flour (plus the apples got some cinnamon) and all got set aside to macerate. Yes indeed, later there will be fruit pies!

While the fruits gave up their juices, I prepared the filling for the meat pies. This is essentially a sloppy joe mix, with a little less liquid than you might use for sandwiches, since I was planning to bake it into pies.

Sloppy Joes
1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 oz tomato paste mixed with 1/4 cup water
1/8 cup ketchup
1 tbsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp black pepper

Brown the meat in a heavy skillet. Add the onion, celery, and garlic and cook until the onions are clear. Add the remaining ingredients, stir well, and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

This mixture got set aside next to the bowls of fruit while I prepared the pie crust. At this point, my brain went in an odd direction, and I made not one, but two complete batches of the WRONG pie crust recipe ...

Pie Crust #1 (Great for large dish pies, not so good for pocket pies)
6 tbsp butter
2 tbsp shortening
6 oz flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ice water (preferably in a spray bottle)

Cut the butter and shortening into small pieces and place in the freezer for about 5 minutes. Pulse the flour and salt in a food processor to mix and aerate. Add the butter and pulse 4-5 times to mix. Add the shortening and pulse another 4-5 times. Add water a tiny amount at a time to the processor and pulse 2-3 times after each addition. The best way to do this is by spritzing it from a spray bottle, which adds it as a mist rather than all together. Continue adding water and pulsing until the dough is just wet enough that it holds its shape when you squeeze a ball together into your fist. Once it reaches that point, give one more addition of water, then pour the mixture into a gallon sized zip top bag. Compress the flour mixture into a tight ball, then close the bag and refrigerate for 5 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the water.

Bring the bag out and open the top, but do not remove the ball.  Press it flat in the center of the bag, and then use a rolling pin to roll it out. Once the dough is rolled out to the full size of the bag, use a knife or scissors to open the bag.

I rolled out the first batch of dough and started to cut rounds for the fruit pies ... then when I tried to fold the dough over to seal the pies I noticed it was too dry and flaky ... I managed to get a couple made, but it was clear something was wrong, though I hadn't yet figured out what.  While I pondered that, I decided to make some cookies:

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies with Oatmeal
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 cup sugar
2 weggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips

Cream butter with both sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a food processor and pulse several times to mix and aerate. Add in small batches to the creamed butter mix and combine well after each addition. Once everything is well combined, stir in the oats, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips. Use a spoon or a disher (3/4 oz for smaller cookies, 1 oz for larger ones) to drop dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes at 350°.

While baking the cookies, I finally realized that I had been using the wrong pie crust recipe. I found the correct one and made another two batches:

Pie Crust #2 (Awesome for pocket pies)
10 oz flour (about 2 cups)
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 oz shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water

Pulse the flour, baking powder, and salt in a food processor to mix and aerate. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add the shortening and mix with your hands to distribute the shortening through the flour until you get a crumbly texture. Add the milk all at once and stir with a spatula to bring it together. You may have to add a small amount of additional flour to get it dry enough to roll out.

Lightly flour the countertop and roll the dough thinly. The dough will be very springy, and will get more so the longer it rests and even more so when you gather scraps and re-roll for additional pies, so work quickly and carefully.

Cut the dough into disks with a cookie cutter. Spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons of your filling into the center of the disk, brush the edges with the beaten egg wash, and fold over. Use the tines of a fork to seal the edges, then dock the pie once or twice with the fork. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350°.

Two batches of this gave me enough to make my meat pies and plum pies.  For the meat pies, I used a 6 inch diameter disk which I filled with 3-4 spoonfuls of the Sloppy Joe mix and about 1 1/2 tablespoons of shredded cheddar. The plum pies went on 4 inch diameter disks, with 1-2 spoonfuls of plums and a little of the juice.

I didn't have enough flour left for another batch of pocket pie dough, so I tried to get creative for the apple and strawberry. I rolled out a batch of the original pie crust and cut it into disks which I used to line the cups of a muffin tin. I spooned apple and strawberry filling into seperate cups and baked it along with the pies.  Unfortunately, the dough didn't really firm up right ... it could be the humidity, might be the small amount of whole wheat flour I used along with the white flour, or maybe the oven temperature (the pie crust would normally have baked at 450°, but I didn't want to change the oven temperature while I was baking everything else). When I tried to remove the tarts from the muffin tins, the dough just disintegrated.  So I just dumped it all into two bowls (one for the apple, one for the strawberry), stirred it up, and called it "crumble".

So that's it, Baketoberfest 2009. 6 hours, 3 dozen cookies, 1 dozen large meat pies, a half dozen plum pies, a loaf of banana bread, and a small batch each of strawberry and apple crumble. My feet hurt, but I had a good day. Now I just have to find someone willing to help us eat all of this ...