Flip It!

The other day the TM and I were invited to an impromptu gathering at the home of some friends. We were lured with the promise of beer and fire and good company, and that’s pretty much all we need to clear our schedules, so we accepted.

The day before I got a text asking if we could provide the desserts, and as any long-time reader of my blog will know, this was right up my alley. So much so, the TM had purchased a special cookbook called The Joy of Cheesecake for Christmas this past year.

I quickly responded back that I would be glad to bring a cheesecake. After much perusing of the cookbook and keeping in mind the audience (one of the friends has a severe gluten allergy)… I was at a loss. Then the TM suggested a crustless blueberry cheesecake. It looked fairly straightforward, and I like blueberries, so I was sold.

This cheesecake presented a few firsts for me. It was the first cheesecake I’d made that didn’t call for baking. It was set using gelatin instead, which I’d never used before. It was the first crust-free cheesecake I’d ever made. It was also the first one that uses cottage cheese as well as cream cheese. It also didn’t use any flour at all.

I should mention a couple more things… First, The TM decided to go to bed immediately after we purchased the supplies, and she’s the expert baker in the house. I’ve utilized her advice throughout all of my previous baking adventures. I was flying solo.

Second, there was an additional, optional level of difficulty in that the cheesecake was designed to be flipped after it sets, so that the berries are on top.

It’s possible that I bit off more than I could chew.

After much discussion, the TM suggested that I use wax paper or parchment paper to line the pie pan, thus making the cheesecake easily flappable when the time came.

Did I listen? That would have made far too much sense. My need for aesthetic won the day, and I felt that the crinkly paper would make the cake look messy after the paper was peeled away.

So with that, she went to bed, and adrift on a sea of dairy I went.

The very first bit of instruction the recipe gave was to put the cottage cheese through a sieve. I immediately began thinking to myself “Do we have a sieve?” and “I’ve never seen a sieve in the house.” And indeed, we don’t have a sieve, so I started to brainstorm.

After a cursory look through the kitchen, and dismissing things like the cheese grater and garlic press as either too messy or too time intensive respectively, I settled on a wire colander. I poured the cup of large curd cottage cheese into that colander, threw on a rubber glove, and started pressing it bit by bit through the drainer. I can’t say this was a fun task. The colander wasn’t ergonomically designed to have cheese pressed through it, and my hand started seizing up before long. That may be the saddest thing I’ve ever admitted, but you know.. there it is.

I also had this sneaking suspicion that the drainer didn’t quite make the cottage cheese as smooth as it was supposed to be. When I relayed this portion of the story to the TM later on, without missing a beat, she was all “Food processor. Duh”.

I’ll just sit here being ashamed.

The next step in the process was to combine the sugar, egg yolk, milk, and gelatin in a double boiler until it was all dissolved.

Do we have a double boiler? Nope.

This wasn’t as big a problem since I’ve improvised them before for melting chocolate and whatnot. I ended up using 2 separate sauce pans of different sizes. The biggest problem I had during this step was that I didn’t realize that the main light that illuminates the stove area was out, and I had a really tough time determining the progress of the concoction. This wasn’t really that big an issue, but it was at least a challenge in the moment.

The next steps were pretty straightforward. You know.. the usual:

Mix the cream cheese and cottage cheese and lemon juice until smooth and “fluffy”.
Mix in the gelatin mixture.
Whip the egg white into stiff peaks and incorporate.
Whip the heavy cream into stiff peaks and incorporate.

All of those things are easy, and nothing new. In fact, the remainder of the assembly went smoothly.

I buttered the pie pan as instructed (as preparation for the later flipping) and spread an entire carton of blueberries around the bottom. This was, in fact, the “crust” of this crustless cheesecake. The concept here was that once the cheesecake set, I’d be able to seamlessly flip it over, and have this beautiful cheesecake with this amazing topping of blueberries somewhat embedded into the top, and also a bit softened and sweetened by the process.

I went to bed with at least middling hopes that I could pull it off. I had a fairly lofty expectation that that aside from the strange grainy texture of the entire thing (created by the improper smoothing of the cottage cheese), the cheesecake would be a hit, much like most of the confections from my past. Some of which have been immortalized right here in print.

I even tasted the “batter” off the spatula, and was at least relatively optimistic that the flavors and the flipping would win out.

Anyway, cheesecake sat, and it chilled, and the gelatin set. All overnight.

The next evening, we made preparations to head over. The TM was all “alright.. let’s flip this bitch.” And I was all “Uh… I… uh… I don’t think we should yet. Maybe [The Burly Amigo] will help when we get to their house.”

The TM looked at me skeptically, but shrugged, and was all “Alrighty.” I could see the disappointment in her eyes. That look where she’ll forever know I’m a pussy when it comes to flipping cheesecake.

I believe in that moment she knew we’d never be flipping any damned cheesecake that night. And she was right.

By the time we got over to the [Burly and Gluten-Free Amigos (GFA)] home, the cheesecake had softened a tad, and warmed, and my courage had entirely dissipated. I talked it over very briefly with Burly Amigo (BA from here on) and BA was all… “Yeah… maybe we better not. I’m sure it’ll be good as is.”

With that, we ate dinner, had some beer, and sat around the bonfire for a while. Maybe a little too long, as by the time we got around to wanting the dessert, the cake had softened a bit more, and it didn’t hold shape well at all. Certainly this made the notion of flipping it a laughable one, but even more disappointingly it made the integrity of each piece fairly tenuous too. Gloopy even.

I’m not gonna go through the play by play from here. The cheesecake was consumed politely, mostly. The BA didn’t seem to like blueberries (I could KICK myself because it certainly could be pretty much ANY berry), and I was completely put off by the texture. And the GFA seemed to choke some down, but let’s be clear. Nobody, including me, clamored for seconds of any kind.

I’d call it the worst attempt at a dessert I’d ever made. Certainly, the texture was unappetizing. It was a failure of execution, made worse by my pussery. I believe that had I made an attempt at flipping it at home, and failed, we would have at least successfully made it to the grocery for a replacement. If I’d unsuccessfully flipped it at the home of the Amigos, I would at least have had a good story.

As it is, I had a fairly run of the mill cheesecake with decent flavor, but fatal texture. Like… seriously, it’s no good.

At least in the future I’ll know to use the food processor. Or maybe we’ll by a fucking sieve.

And lord willing I’ll have the balls to flip the bitch.

The Mysterious Case of the Little Green Flecks

I'd planned on using Bugs Bunny as my lead image, but this was too effing adorable.

I made my triumphant return to my "Adventures in Baking" series last Sunday evening, and it certainly was an adventure.

First some background...

The Tofu Muchacha is currently in training for the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon on May 1st, and last Sunday I accompanied her on her 18 mile training run. By "Accompanied" I mean "drove to meet her every 6 miles to give her more water and moral support". It was fucking exhausting.

So once we got done, she went home and showered, and we ventured to breakfast, and planned the rest of our day. I'd had a sort of hankering for some baking lately, and we discussed any number of assorted things. I really wanted to make something that wasn't overly sweet, and maybe kind of spicy... but still a baked good.

The Muchacha suggested I bake cupcakes. For whatever reason I have this apathy for cupcakes. I just can't get into them. I know that they're simply small cakes, and there's really no other difference, but for some reason I just can't get behind them. I don't know why. In any case... At first, I sort of poo-pooed the cupcake idea.

And we went round and round about the different types of things I could bake. Ultimately, we settled on a spiced carrot cake. That had me at least marginally interested, because I'd never made carrot cake before, and I effing LOVE carrot cake.

I think the TM knows me pretty well, because she knew she had me hooked on the Carrot Cake plan, so she went ahead and suggested I make Carrot Cake CUPCAKES. And... I agreed. What else could I do? She's so purty and persuasive.



So off to the store I went, to pick up the necessities, and below I present my mis en place:

That's right. Actual carrots! Who knew? I don't know what I thought would be in there, but I admit that I was surprised I'd be shredding up real carrots. Some other notable things you may note: Crushed Pineapple! Cayenne Pepper (my own idea)! Chocolate Chips (also me). You can't really see it here, but there's also coconut that is to be folded into the cream cheese frosting. The pecans...well... also my idea, and you'll see about those. Oh... you'll also note... There's nothing green. This will become important.

I should tell you that the recipe called for nuts in the cake itself, and I'll just be honest with you... I don't like nuts that are baked into baked goods. that goes for cakes, brownies, cookies. Pretty much anything. You put a crunchy nut into a wet cake batter, and then you bake it, and that nut (while giving nice flavor) loses my favorite feature, the aforementioned crunchiness. So... out with the nuts. It called for a half-cup of them, and I put in a half cup of chocolate chips. That's what we, in the business, call "trading metal money for paper money".

I am pretty sure that whenever I bake, I make the TM totally insane. I tend to doubt myself, and start on a certain path and then it kind of feels wrong, so I then call on her guidance. After her 18 mile run (and no nap after), she wasn't in much of a mood to do much assisting, so there were... ehm.... errors along the way.

The first thing the recipe told me to do was to grease and flour the pan. The TM had shown me a good method of greasing the pan during another adventure, so that was no problem, but I had not a clue how much flour to use. I didn't even know that was done! I mean... I knew for things like rolling boards and whatnot, but for cupcake pans? Not a clue. Of course, this wouldn't have been an issue if I'd wanted to use those dumb paper things, but I hate those, so fuck that. Here's what the pan ended up looking like:



I bet you thought it'd be absolutely covered in flour, didn't you? Well... I went the other direction. More on that later too...

Most of the recipe was pretty standard. Mix the wet ingredients together:



Two Eggs, Two Cups of Sugar, One cup of oil, and two teaspoons of vanilla. I may or may not have accidentally spilled maybe an extra teaspoon of vanilla in there. I didn't take a picture of the mixed wet ingredients, because... it looked gross.



Two cups of flour, two teaspoons of baking soda** , some salt, some cinnamon, and some cayenne pepper. I know... maybe I go to the Cayenne well a little too often with my baking, but damnit.. I love a tiny amount of heat to go with the sweet. I've never had it fail me. In this case, I probably didn't even put enough in to be noticeable.



** The above photo shows the difference between a Tablespoon and a teaspoon. You know how some people need to hold up their thumb and index finger in the shape of an L to remember their left and right. I need to do something to keep these mother fuckers straight... Because... that's right... There was likely a Tablespoon of baking soda in the cake mix, not two teaspoons. Fortunately, I caught myself after the first Tablespoon, or it would have really been a mess. O would it? I honestly, don't know what baking soda does. So... after all that fun, I went ahead and mixed the wet and dry together, just like they say, and it came out looking pretty, pretty dry.



I hoped that the the raisins, chocolate chips, carrots, and pineapple would wetten (is that a word? Is it "whetten"?) the batter up a bit. So I shredded up the carrots... there's a picture, but I bet you all know what shredded carrots look like, and mixed it all up. The recipe called for me to drain the crushed pineapple before mixing it, but I'm really glad I reserved the juice (at the suggestion of the TM), because before I added that in, that shit was dry. Like... "There's no way this is a cake batter" dry. Like... dry enough for the TM to say "yeah... that's not right.". Fortunately, I did save the juice and it ended up looking okay:



Doesn't that look delicious? I filled the tins (a little unevenly, I admit), and set the oven for 350 degrees, and let them bake for 24 minutes while I made the frosting and special topping. Here's what it looked like in the pan:



The TM asks that you focus on the cupcakes and not the oven.

So while that was going, I started working on the icing. If I do say so myself, I make a mean icing, and I'm much more confident in that, than I am my actual batters... This one was easy. Two cups of powdered sugar, one package of cream cheese, 6 TABLEspoons of butter, some vanilla, and a cup of coconut.



Here's a completely self-explanatory picture.

I've been experimenting with candying nuts. It started back in January when the TM candied some pecans to put on this delicious salad we took to a dinner party. I have since made a couple of batches of candied almonds and a batch of candied pecans, using various mixes of sugar, salt, and spices. I wanted to add my own little twist to the cupcake recipe, so I decided to candy some pecans, chop them up, and sprinkle them on the top of the cupcakes (You know... to make them look pretty.) This is not in opposition to my previous comment on nuts, because while the baking process makes them lose their crunch, the candying process makes them crunchier. (and covered in sugar). This time, out of necessity, I used brown sugar:



It ended up getting hot much quicker than white sugar, and I almost burned the hell out of them, but they came out pretty much like usual. I didn't salt them, or add other spices, because I wanted to keep them simple. Let me just say... there's nothing like a sweet, sugary nut in your mouth.... uh... that came out wrong. The nuts cooled quickly on a sheet of Pam'ed aluminum foil, and then I chopped them up.




Round this same time, the cupcakes themselves were done, and I popped them out of the oven.



I may have over baked them juuuuust a little, but they definitely looked pretty. The part that spilled up over the edge was sweet and crunchy and pretty delicious. Of course, the part after I took the pan out of the oven was the worst part of all.. I had to wait for them to cool.

The TM will tell you that of all of my negative traits, my worst is impatience. I probably checked those damned muffins 40 times to see if they were cool enough. Once they were, I popped the fuckers out and let them finish cooling on the racks.



This is where that little bit about now knowing how much to flour I needed to put in the cupcake pan comes into play. All of those chocolate chips sank to the bottom of the cups and were a bitch to get out. I bet I lost about a quarter of the chocolate chips to the bottom of the pan. Clearly, I should have added more flour. They don't look real pretty around the edges, but how bout that color?

So down the home stretch, I slathered some frosting all over the top of each cupcake, and sprinkled some nuts on top of that, and they came out looking pretty delicious, in a rustic sort of way...



And yes... they really were delicious. I had a ton of batter left over, but didn't feel like going through the full process of baking, cooling, and frosting another dozen, so the TM poured the remainder into a cake pan, and made a one layer cake. I gave the same treatment to the top, and she took it to her show to feed the cast on Opening night.

Here's where it gets weird.

On Friday evening, she called me from the show and said " Everyone likes your cake, but we're dying to know... What are the little green flecks?"

And I sat there, and couldn't figure out what the hell she was talking about. I wracked my brain trying to think of something green that might have made its way into the batter, but there's nothing.

Despite the fact that I put nothing green into the batter, and nothing green into the frosting, there were green flecks all throughout the cake.

I never noticed them, personally, but the TM said she'd seen them in the cupcakes as well, and that they were there from the start... At least that should eliminate the possibility of some sort of aggressive mold. The only thing that we can think of is that there may have been some sort of chemical reaction with the pineapple, or maybe I didn't do a good enough job cutting the green ends off the carrots. I honestly can't figure it out... Do any of you, my loyal readers, have an idea of what it could be?

Some last thoughts on the Carrot Cake Cupcake Adventure...

1) I added cayenne, but I couldn't taste it. Maybe someone with a more developed palate than mine would be able to taste it. So I think I'll leave it out the next time. They came out pretty well.

2) The chocolate chips were good, but not great. I think I would use smaller ones next time.

3) I think I would use dried cranberries instead of raisins the next time. I liked the raisins, but I think the tart cranberries would be interesting with the uber-sweet frosting.

4) Speaking of the frosting... I used sweetened coconut. Was that wrong? Should I have used unsweetened?

Until next time, this has been The Beefy Muchacho's Adventures in Baking!

Orange You Glad I Made More Pie?

So I did some baking this past weekend, and I felt a little rusty. It's been a while.

The last thing I baked was the first thing out of the pie book I bought in Boulder way back in March. The Tofu Muchacha, my cousin Abbey, and I combined to make a caramelized pear pie. I really enjoyed it, but damn... that was so effing long ago. I don't even remember blogging about it, and I'm feeling too lazy to go back and check...

Anyway, this past Sunday we had our final Play Reading Committee meeting for our theatre group (The Drama Workshop) . I kind of kicked off the dessert making for the group back in March when I made the Mad Men pie (the pink one with the cherries). Since then we've had 3 other meetings with other folks bringing their baked goods, and they were all very tasty. When the time came to decide who was baking for the final meeting of the year, I volunteered. I viewed it as a good chance to try out a new pie from the pie book...

I spent a while thinking about the type of pie... It's hot as hell here in the Summer, and I didn't want to make an overly sweet pie, or a really dense pie. I wanted something that was light and fresh and Summery.

I decided on, with Tofu Muchacha's urging, an Orange Chiffon Pie with a chocolate crumb crust..

Now let me just get it out of the way... I am NOT a huge fan of fruit and chocolate mixed. I make an exception for raspberries and cherries but that's pretty much it. Possibly my LEAST favorite combination is citrus and chocolate, so... I was thinking I had a challenge on my hands.

Here we go...Pretty standard stuff, really... You got your eggs, milk, graham crackers, butter... all that.

The biggest challenge I had was the gelatin. I'd never used it before, and I don't fully understand how to manipulate it. I'll talk about that later.

So, I think I mentioned this on previous pie blogs, but on all of the crumb crusts I've had in my pies, I had a helper. The Tofu Muchacha is my "Pie Sensei" and she's especially helpful with the crusts... This was my first attempt all on my own, and I think all in all, it was fairly successful in both action and result. I took the advice of the book and used a big plastic bag and a rolling pin, and I found it very effective. I was kind of amazed at how many chocolate graham crackers it took to make 2 cups of crumbs. I'd even venture to say that I could have used slightly more than I ended up with.


Oddly, I really enjoyed the process of pressing the wet, buttery crumbs into the pie plate. That sounds a little dirty (and it kinda was). I also really liked the tip the book gave me to bake the crust for a few minutes to set it or "solidify it". I'm not sure that many cold pies with crumb crusts suggest baking the crust.

First off, it smelled awesome. Second, It made me feel like the integrity of the crust was a little more secure.

The next bit was kind of complicated and so I don't have a ton of pictures...

It involved gelatin.

I sort of didn't really think through the gelatin aspect of the pie at all until I was pretty far along. I had to combine a bunch of ingredients (The orange juice, lemon juice, orange zest, Sugar, milk, egg yolks, and salt) along with gelatin (!) and then I heated it all on the stove to create this sort of creamy, steamy concoction. The book was extremely specific about letting it steam but NOT boil. I assume that has to do with scalding the milk, but maybe someone can shed more light on that. I had to whisk the slurry pretty much non-stop for about 9 minutes.

It was kind of weird... I was told I had to let it cook until it became "foamy", and it didn't happen at all until very suddenly. At which point I poured it into a bowl: and threw it into the fridge:It smelled amazing and citrusy and still had that creamy feel (and even scent) to it.

Then came the most interminable cooking task I've ever had. I now had to whisk this stuff every 10 minutes until the mixture solidified enough to leave a little gloppy mound when dripped with a spoon. I may be paraphrasing a little. The book estimated it would take about 90 minutes.

More like 2 hours.

I think the biggest issue was that the mixture wasn't cooling quickly enough, so I took a big silver bowl and put the mixture bowl inside of it. Then I put ice cubes all around the bowl and put it back in the fridge. Once I'd done this, the process sped up considerably.

When I felt the mixture had about 10 minutes left before being ready, I started whipping cream. I never know exactly when to stop whipping. I was instructed to whip to "stiff peaks" (which sounds a little like a porno version of "Twin Peaks" which itself sounds like a porno version of "Twin Peaks".) The whole stiff peaks thing is so subjective to me, and I always feel like I under-whip. So here's what it ended up looking like before I mixed in the goop: As you can see... not stiff enough. (also... I was, like, fucking DONE with taking pictures so I didn't get the lighting right. Sorry.)

So then I was in the home stretch... This pie has, at this point, taken me 3 hours to bake this damned pie. I think I was maybe a little impatient with the whipped cream. I also really wanted to finish quickly because the kitchen had become really, really humid, and I worried about how the whipped cream and gelatin stuff would hold up in the warm environment.

I folded the whipped cream on the goop together quickly, and poured it into the crust. I wasn't especially pleased with it...I felt like it could have been fluffier. See the picture from the pie book:As you can see, it almost looks like meringue. It has this fluffiness to it that I really coveted.

Here's what my completed pie looked like...Really, it came out pretty well. It wasn't as fluffy as I'd have liked, but people really liked it. The orange flavor was there, but no too overpowering, and the chocolate was pretty subtle too. It may be my favorite pie I've made so far... (I'm not counting the pumpkin cheesecake).

So far, I'm especially pleased with the pie book. It's two for two.

What Flavor is Pastel?

I believe it's been established that I have a long way to go before I'm anything even remotely close to being a good burger chef. I think the biggest problem I have is that since there's no real formula for it, I'm too much left to my own ridiculous devices. I have good ideas, but not a ton of practical experience in actually cooking certain things.

As clumsy and unrefined as I seem to be with the savory, I've experienced a great deal more success with the sweet.

This past weekend is a good case in point.

The Tofu Muchacha and I are on a play-reading committee for a local community theater, and we had our monthly meeting on Sunday. The previous month, the TM volunteered to provide a sweet and delicious pie-type treat for this month's meeting. This seems to have been translated to "Beefy Muchacho will bake a pie for us!"

I'm a sucker for the pie baking and I was excited to try out a new one, especially considering my last effort was something of a disaster. The TM wanted me to try some sort of chilled pie, or a no-bake kind of pie. Like one of those no-bake cheesecakes. I left the recipe choosing up to her.

She settled on something called "Sweet Cherrity Pie" from the Pillsbury Bake-off Cookbook.

I made the pie after a 16 hour shift at work, so I wasn't really in the mood to take pictures the whole way through, but I think I can explain it pretty well...

The crust was made of brown sugar, crushed walnuts, flour, and butter. I mixed it up really well, and then crumbled it into a 13 x 9 pan. Then I baked the mixture for 15 minutes. Once it was baked, I (with the assistance of the TM) pressed most of the crust ingredients into a pie pan, covering the bottom. I set the rest of the crumbly crust aside.

The filling was 2 separate layers.

The bottom layer was a package of cream cheese, a cup of confectioner sugar, and some almond extract. I mixed it until it was smooth, and spread it about a half an inch thick into the bottom of the pan on top of the crust.

The top layer was even simpler, though much more time consuming. It was a cup of whipping cream (whipped all to fucking hell.. that's for sure) folded in with a large can of premade cherry pie filling. Then I covered the first layer with the second, and crumbled the remainder of the pie crust crumbles on top. It came out looking a little something like this: Looks pretty effing awesome, does it not? If you can believe it, it tasted even better!

The best part is that the flavors were distinct, and not overpoweringly sweet. The whipped cream layer didn't have a ton of sugar in it outside of the cherry pie filling, but since the whipped cream itself wasn't sweetened at all, it wasn't insanely sugary.

The textures were nice too... The crust was crispy and flavorful. Then you had a really nice creamy layer with the almondy cream cheese. On top of that was the really fluffy cherry layer. It may be my favorite of all of the pies I've made.

Also... did you see what it looks like? It looks like a pie straight out of the 1960s. Where was my jello mold shaped like a sailboat or something like that.

We re-dubbed the pie the Mad Men Pie, because it reminded us of something Betty Draper on Mad Men would serve, and they'd all ogle.

I'm 100% certain it wouldn't taste as good as my Mad Men Pie.

An Age-Old Question. Answered.

My awesome sister, in an effort to encourage more forays into baking and cooking and whatnot got me a few excellent baking tools for Christmas. Among those things were a pie crust shield (Something I'd never heard of) that is designed to place around the crust of your baking pie in order to prevent the edges from burning. She also got me a pie-crust lattice cutter, which is basically a cheaters way of making latticed pie-crust. It's awesome too, as I'm definitely not above cheating (at least when I'm not in some sort of baking competition...which... I've never been a part of.

Anyway... last weekend, as the holidays were winding down, the Tofu Muchacha and I invited my sister (Tofu Hermana?)to the T.M.'s house to attempt to bake a pie using these new accoutrement. Here's the story of how that went down...

First, the T.M. herself decided what kind of pie we were baking, and we set about scrounging up the ingredients we needed... She wanted to use up the last of her cranberries from the holidays, and she found a recipe in "THE BOOK" for Apple Cranberry pie. I wasn't particularly enthused, because my last apple pie sucked, but who am I to argue with a Muchacha on a mission. In any case, the project was much less about the filling and more about the crust...

Here's the Mise en place:


You'll see the usual pie making types of things. Apples, cranberries, flour, sugar, etc... Not really all that interesting.

The Tofu Muchacha volunteered to make the filling while Tofu Hermana and I made the crust. Perhaps our first mistake...

I'd decided to be lazy and not use my aunt's vodka crust recipe. I'm not sure why. As I recall from the cheese/apple pie in the Fall, the crust was the best part of the whole thing... the lesson, as always, is that I'm an idiot. We found a basic pie crust recipe in "THE BOOK" and went to work.

I don't have any pictures of the crust mixing process... I'll just say it didn't go smoothly. I guess I never really realized how non-descript and open for interpretation certain portions of pie crust making instructions are... Like what does "until it just comes together" mean? I mean... that's a subjective thing isn't it? Maybe I'm wrong. Obviously I'm wrong, because the first mistake Tofu Hermana and I made was beating the absolute, ever-living HELL out of that pie dough. I mean.. we punished that bitch. When we were next able to access the camera... the dough had been rolled out and balled up at least 2 times. It looked like this:

Looks okay, right? Well.. looks aren't everything I guess. That's something I certainly learned through this excercise.

After being rescued, so to speak, by the T.M., we got the crust rolled out to a respectable size and thickness and whatnot, and got it into the pie pan. Little did we know that these next few steps would be the apex of the pie making process.


That contraption you see in the above picture is the aforementioned lattice crust cutter. It's really an excellent tool. It doesn't make the crust exactly latticed, but it definitely approximates it well enough. The best part was that I baked up the little crust squares with cinnamon and sugar. That was kind of tasty, though over-baked.

The filling seen above was entirely the work of the Tofu Muchacha. I wish I could take credit for it. It was the only part of the pie that didn't make me want to puke.

See how pretty it looks? It certainly won't get any better than this. I really do like how the latticed thing turns out. It looks awesome. If only it would make it taste better.

Aaaaand here's the pie crust shield. All loaded up and ready to shield some fucking crust. It actually worked great. I'd never had a lot of experience burning pie crusts anyway, but this certainly did prevent it in this particular case.

Man.. does that pie look delicious or what? It's really one of the prettiest pies I've ever baked. It's irrelevant that it's one of the few pies I've ever baked.

Of course... it's all pointless because the pie crust may have looked pretty, and the filling may have been delicious, but that fucking crust tasted like pure ass. I don't know what it was...maybe the tortured flogging of the dough. Maybe the ridiculously generic pie crust recipe that had no flavor at all. All I know is that it was super tough and it tasted like straight up flour.

So what was that age-old question that I answered? Well... I've always heard that pie, much like sex and pizza is good even when it's bad.

The question is.... Can Pie be Bad?

The answer? Yes. Oh God Yes.

A Mouse in My Food

Ever since my surgery, food has been a great challenge. It's rare that I can eat any sort of meats at all without experiencing some pain. It's unusual for me to be able to complete a full serving of anything. Some of my favorite foods have been taken completely out of the equation... Pizza, Steak... Only recently have I been able to start eating any kinds of sandwiches again.

As you can imagine, Disney World is difficult. The portions are huge, the food is pricey, and it's almost always fairly rich too (tough for me to digest). I did, however, have a great experience with the Disney Dining Plan (a first try at it for me) and there were some really excellent meals...so without further ado my 3 Tips to Successful Disney Dining and my 3 Favorite Meals/Dishes from this trip.

3 Tips for Successful Disney Dining

1) Eat Up at Lunch Time.
I think the normal progression of meals for people is to eat small for breakfast and lunch and then have a big dinner. That's all well and good, but there are a couple of reasons I'm recommending having your "Table Service" meal (whether you're on the dining plan or no) at Lunch time. First, the morning is the most hectic time at the parks, usually, because people are rushing to get to rides before it gets crowded and people are trying to fit in all kinds of stuff early on. All that runing around has a way of working up quite the appetite. Second, it's far easier to get lunch reservations at all of the sit-down restaurants than it is for dinner (and if you're not on the dining plan, the prices are usually lower). Third, my absolute least favorite thing about the otherwise amazing, Free Disney Transportation is the logjams at the beginning and end of the day. When you're scheduling your sit-down meals late, you're locking yourself in to having to deal with post-parade/fireworks crowds. Unless you're amazingly clever, the crowds are unavoidable and unbearable. My advice is to grab the quicker meal late so that you can better negotiate your smooth exit from the park.

2) Disney Dining Plan
I have always been a skeptic. I was wrong. This is a seriously great feature of staying on property. It's easy to use, provides more food than you can ever possibly eat, and really saves an incredible amount of money (especially now that Disney's basically handing the thing away), oh...and the Tofu Muchacha wanted me to point out that every meal comes with dessert (I'll get to the dessert again later). Also take the opportunity to order those things you normally would't, because of how expensive they are. Never ordered the 35.00 Filet Mignon? Well go for it... Always wanted to try Lobster? That's allowed. It's totally awesome. I figure that our free dining plan (minus the gratuities) saved us 500 dollars. Easily.


3) Eat at Epcot.
This seems like such a broad sort of tip, but hear me out... Epcot is home to the Food and Wine Festival, which is amazing for international snacking. Epcot has more sit-down restaurants than any other park at Disney. Epcot has the widest variety of food choices anywhere outside of New York City. On this recent trip we ate at Epcot four separate days. That doesn't include the snacks we enjoyed at the Food and Wine Festival (also covered in the dining plan). Check it out... in the World Showcase, all of the following are a 15 minute walk away: Steak (Canada), Pub food (England), French Bistro (France) , Middle Eastern (Morocco), hibachi steak or sushi (Japan), Italian (duh), Biergarten buffet (Germany), Chinese (duh again), Norwegian (like you'd want it..), and Mexican. That doesn't include the Coral Reef (which I'll discuss later). There are options for everyone, and if you go at lunch time, you can usually get reservations most anywhere.

And now...

My 3 Favorite Meals/Dishes of my October Trip

1) Coral Reef, Day 2
This was an excellent meal in almost every respect. The food was good. The dessert was delicious (Creme brule....mmmmm.) And the atmosphere was easily the coolest of any meal we had the whole trip. The atmosphere really is the draw here, and I honestly can say it was one of the more interesting places I've ever eaten in terms of visuals. The whole restaurant is set up a little like a dinner theater in that all of the seating faces a huge floor to ceiling aquarium and every seat is good. It doesn't hurt that our seat was somehow the most amazing in the house. Right up against the glass. It was so neat. I ate dinner right next to a giant sea turtle.
2) Cheesecake at Tony's Town Square Ristorante, Day 1
I'm a fan of desserts. Lately I've come to really enjoy pumpkin desserts specifically, and when I see a pumpkin cheesecake on a menu, I'm always curious to see how it stacks up with my own (hugely successful) attempt from a couple of months back. This one was really, really delicious, and it was presented in so pleasing a manner that I needed to take a picture. Yes... that's Lady and the Tramp dusted onto the plate in chocolate. It was super, super smooth and creamy and really light. I liked it so much I requested the recipe...which I received in my e-mail just recently. I may attempt it for my Thanksgiving dessert. 3) ABC Commissary. Day 5
I know it's a little weird, because this is basically a fast food restaurant, but I can honestly say that my fish and chips were among the best I've ever eaten anywhere. The fish was perfectly fried. The fries were crisp. It was awesome. AND because I was on the dining plan, I also got this crazy good chocolate mousse. I'm listing this, because out of all of the meals I had, this one was the most surprising. I expect Tony's and Le Cellier to be good (I was disappointed in Le Cellier, to be honest), but the ABC Commissary came through.

NOTE: I know that I promised a Leg to Leg comparison between the Disney turkey legs and the Renaissance Faire turkey legs, but to be honest... I just couldn't do it. The turkey leg I got at the Renn Faire made me feel so sick afterward, I just wasn't willing to risk fucking up a whole day of my trip at Disney in case the Disney bird made me feel the same way.

Lemony Odds, Firey Ends, and People Flipping the Bird

Hey Folks-

I've been so bogged down with all of the Disney blogging that I've sort of neglected all of the other goings-on in my life... so let me catch you up.

1) Last Monday (the 28th), I was invited to "break the fast" at my a family member's home. This is essentially the celebration of the end of Yom Kippur, which entails a ton of fasting and atonement and general teeth gnashing of all kinds. Yom Kippur is the most solemn, serious time of the year for Jews, and breaking the fast is like a great big sigh of relief that it's over.

For this occasion, I was asked to furnish a dessert, which is fortuitous considering all of the baking I've been doing lately. The best part is that they didn't even know about any of that.

Anyway, I'd been wanting to bake a cake for a while... something about decorating a cake seems very meditative for me. I don't know why. I decided on baking a Lemon Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting and raspberries.

I was admittedly a little cranky while baking this, as I was in a bit of a rush for part of the day, having to drive up to Dayton during the actual baking process (a huge thanks goes to the Tofu Muchacha for wrangling the piping hot baked goods while I was gone) and then rushing to get it iced upon my return. Due to those factors, I didn't take my usual string of pictures, but I did manage to get one of the finished cake:
Not bad, I guess. The cakes had sort of a convex shape and when I flipped the top layer over in order to provide a flat surface to ice on top, it created a sort of hour-glass shape. It ended up requiring a ton of frosting to fill the big gaps in the middle, and it was tasty but kind of bulbous. In the future I'll definitely plane the rounded tops down to flatten it out a bit more. Not bad for a first trip though. The cake itself was also a bit dry, which I would have known if I'd read the recipe reviews. I want to make a really dense cake, but have it be moist. Anyone have suggestions or recipes?

2) This one can be filed away in the "Tofu Muchacha is Always Right" bin.

Monday, she and I went canoeing. I hadn't been in some time, and while I was a little nervous that it would be too cold to be in a little boat on a river, the weather was freaking gorgeous... so it was quite pleasant. I was also a little nervous that we'd tip over at some point, but we didn't. We did get wedged into some rocks at one point in the middle of some rapids (as rapid as they really could be...) and we had to get out and pull the canoe free slightly. The water was frigid, but that was no real hardship.

The biggest issue was the Sun.

Being a whitey white boy of Euro-Pasty heritage, I am no stranger to the dangers of the Sun. I've had more burns in my life than a That 70s Show marathon. The worst probably being on my bald, bald head that I got on a drive from Cincinnati to Hilton Head in a convertible. I should have known that the cool breeze wouldn't have protected me from the Suns evil rays, but I didn't, and I was thusly punished.

On this particular field trip down the river, I took precautions. I sprayed my head and neck and arms and face with that sports sunscreen, and thought I was good to go. When we got in the canoe, the Tofu Muchacha took one look at me in my sweatshirt and shorts and said "You wanna get your knees too?" and I was all... "Nah! I'm good."

Four hours and thirteen miles later and down river I started feeling like my knees were a little hot. ON the car ride back to town I had the AC blowing on them directly. By bed time, I couldn't sleep on my stomach because the contact with the mattress made me cry. By last night I couldn't sleep at all. It's like the constant creasing and walking and standing has been perceived as taunting the sunburn gods or something. It's really, really painful.

So let me just say in front of all of my thousands of readers... You were right T.M. You were right.

Now I just need to find me some fucking aloe.

3)Now it's time for a little venting....

What the fuck is the world coming to? Have people gone even more crazy than they already have been? I've had a couple of the most insane experiences on the road in the last couple of weeks, and I seriously don't get it. Let me lay it out for you....

Experience # 1: I was driving into downtown from the North and I had to get over twice in order to make my exit. It was crowded, but I had plenty of time. I signaled and started making my way over, and this gold car sped up to try to prevent me from getting in. Just to be clear, I wasn't pushing them out. There was plenty of room if everyone just maintained speed. But no... she sped up to try to cut me off. She failed, but sort of did that weaving thing that people do in auto races when they're drafting. Anyway, she got over again and I had to get over as well...so I signaled. And again, if she just maintained her speed we'd all be in the lanes we needed to be and everyone would be happy. This time, though, she sped up even more aggressively and she actually cut me off, preventing me from getting over. I ended up slowing down to let her pass completely (since she matched my speed initially after pulling up along side of me. Once I slowed down, she cut completely across my lane, and we actually crossed. So now I'm in the lane to her right and we come to the stop light at the exit. She actually stops 5 car lengths shy of the car in front of her so that we're stopped even at the exit. She rolls down her window and starts sreaming at me that I cut her off twice!

I would have tried to logic her up, but my pimp-hand was stayed by the Tofu Muchacha being in the car and reminding me that trying to logic-up a stone is a pointless task. In any case, it totally blows my mind that a person who was putting US in danger 2 times was so appalled that I would try to...you know... drive safely.

Experience # 2: This one happened on Monday. I was minding my own business on highway, and a dude on my left side cuts directly in front of me without signaling and then slows down. I sort of give him the "what the hell, dude?" hand signal, but didn't honk, and went on my way. I changed lanes to the left, and ended up directly on his left...I look over to see what the crazy person looks like and he's FLIPPING ME THE BIRD. Like... before he even knew I was looking over, his hand was up in the bird position. I couldn't believe it.

Another person who acted crazy and dangerous on the road, and then ATTACKED ME for you know... looking at them.

Tell me... What's happening in the world where these crazies have been released from the asylum and are roaming Cincinnati in shitty, late 90s automobiles?

B.U.I.

So... do you remember that one night (just the one) where you got drunk (or...whatever) and you went into the kitchen lookin' for something to snack upon, and... nothing there seemed to fulfill all of your drunken food requirements.

Sure...there were the pretzels with their salty, crunchy goodness, but they didn't hit that sweet tooth at all.

Yes... there were the leftover buffalo wings with the grease-bomb core that would be oh-so-tasty, but you just didn't think you had enough ranch and it made you cry a little.

Of course you had that bag of 2 week old circus peanuts that were certain to make the most colorful puke possible, which of course had a certain appeal, but didn't have the salt your little heart most desired.

So what did you do? You took those wings and put them on a plate. On top of them, you crumbled a bunch of those pretzels, and then you generously portioned out some of the orangest circus peanuts you ever saw right on top. Popped them in the microwave for 100 seconds, and then you chowed the fuck down. Heaven.

Until the next day, of course, when you woke up with a bloody lip and melted peanut remnants on your shirt, and a penis drawn on your face in that ranch you found later in the last place you expected it to be (the refrigerator). That's when your Circus Chicken Nacho Extravaganza (you named the dish and made up a song even, that you can't remember now), doesn't seem like such a good idea. When you can't stand up straight because your stomach is exploding from deep within... you know your drunken experimentations were unwise. And you curse your friends for taking those pictures where you're performing lewd acts on the arm of a chair in your grandparent's basement.

So anyway, that's what happened with my latest Beefy Muchacho Baking Adventure. Except I wasn't drunk. The pie crust was. I was B.U.I.; Baking Under the Influence. And despite my lack of any actual alcohol consumption, I feel that my vodka laden dough was leading me down a dangerous path... Allow me to take you back to the beginning... two weeks ago...

You'll recall I made my second pie in as many weeks, the Mexican Pecan Fiesta Pie (The name keeps getting bigger, doesn't it?), and I vowed to make my own pie crust the next time. I felt like a pretender. A fraud. A glorified Stir-er. So, my aunt, an excellent (near legendary, really) baker sent me a pie crust recipe....

A Vodka Pie Crust.

That's right. A pie crust with vodka in it. Sounds delightful doesn't it? I don't know either, but she claimed that you can't taste the vodka at all, and it merely inhibits the formation of gluten (or some such) and that it makes a more tender crust.

Apparently the vodka also makes me fucking crazy. I went in search of a pie recipe. I wanted to do something simple, because if it was really crazy it would possibly make the crust evaluation more difficult. I found in The Book an apple pie recipe that seemed simple enough, so I headed off to the store with a short list of ingredients (I also made chili, but that's not particularly noteworthy...though I will say that bacon is an interesting addition).

Needless to say, by the time I'd left the store, my plans had grown a bit more complex, and I'm blaming the booze.

Here be the Mise en Place: You'll note a thing or two not typically included in an apple pie recipe. Yep... those are craisins. Yep...that's extra sharp cheddar cheese. Now...don't get me wrong. I'm not in any way equating putting orange circus peanuts on a hot wing with adding craisins or cheese to an apple pie. In fact, I've had an Apple and Cheddar cheese pie before. And really, how much could throwing in some gloried raisins fuck things up? So...maybe it's not that big a deal. Of course, I'm constantly reminded of how delicate a balance you strike while baking.

For example, last weekend, for a party, I baked Lemon Bars. (I know..what's with all the baking Muchacho?). Me being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added raspberries. I also added about 2 tablespoons more lemon juice than it calls for, because what can I say... I like tart foods. So anyway, it seems that the additional liquid, even what little additional liquid there was, prevented the lemony goodness from setting up quite right, so they were way more gooey than I like in a bar. They were tasty, but gooey.

Anyway, so my point is... I was playing with measurements on things that don't have them. More on that later...

The crust...

I have to admit...this whole crust making process perplexed me. Maybe it's just my tentativeness in doing new things, but little variations throw me (like..the recipe makes several mentions of a food processor, which I didn't have). I used a pastry thingy (likely not it's actual name) to mix the butter, flour, shortening, and sugar. Then I mixed in the water and vodka (ice cold...and by the way, the giant bottle of vodka from the picture was the final remnants of a party from months ago. Someone wanted me to make sure that I mentioned it wasn't just like..the house vodka for the week or something.) The other thing with the recipe is that there are certain descriptors that are completely subjective.... like... what is "tacky" to one may be not "tacky" to another.

My usual guide, the beautiful Tofu Muchacha (pictured here in her costume for the production of Romeo and Juliet we're performing in starting Friday) was super, super busy, so I couldn't have her come into the kitchen every 10 seconds when I started whining about it not being tacky or too crumbly or whatever. It was a truly terrifying experience...

So basically, I was a rudderless baker, playing with drunken dough. I managed to get them balled up and into plastic wrap, where I was instructed to let them cool (like a drunk tank) for 45 minutes or so... I took that time to peel me some apples. My hand is still cramping, since I decided to be a tough guy and peel them all fancy with a paring knife instead of using a peeler. This was a poor, and time consuming choice. Let me tell you. Also, as you'll probably come to find out, I am absolutely terrible at guessing how much of something or other makes a cup. I did it with the peaches before, and I did it with the pie now. My GOD Muchacho! What kind of crazy, giant pie are you making? So... I actually timed it pretty well, because by the time I was done slicing the apples and concocting the rest of the melange of filling (Including cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and lemon juice), the crust had cooled well enough.

This "melange" or "slurry" is where my concern about fucking with ratios and whatnot comes in. I eyeballed about a cup of that sharp cheddar cheese and about a "handful" of craisins. The most scientific measurements possible, basically. You know those weights they (THE GOVERNMENT!!) have locked up that are like the official Gram and the official Ounce? Well... my fist should be locked up too. How do you measure "grate cheese until you're tired of grating cheese" or "an eyeballed amount of craisins"?

Anyway, I mixed those things in too. Here's where it gets a little hairy... Not literally. That would be gross. Did I mention I'd never made a pie crust before? I didn't really know anything about rolling that fucker out. I am kind of taken aback by the total lack of science behind rolling the dough, since there's so MUCH science in creating it. Like... when they suggest liberally applying flour to the rolling pin and board, what does that mean, exactly? I'll tell you what it means. It means liberally, because that dough stuck to just about everything unless I added flour. A lot of it. Of course, this made me paranoid about adding too much flour and thus making it tough or something. I honestly had no idea what it would do, but it just doesn't seem appealing. The Tofu Muchacha has a really handy pastry board that has pre-fab circles on it corresponding with different sizes of pie and crust and whatnot, so I had a nice circular guide. I'll say this... were it not for that, I would have been completely and totally lost, instead of merely lost.

This was my best attempt at getting the crust into the pie plate. I will say that I was pleased that the crust didn't tear or crack in the putting it in. It lifted well and didn't stick. I'll also say that there were parts that were entirely too thin, and conversely other parts that were too thick. It was strangely shaped too. Things to work on the next time, I suppose. I wasn't altogether pleased, but it could have certainly been worse. I'll call this "The Blind Squirrel Correlary".

After that, I piled in all of that delicious topping, I rolled out another dough ball to cover everything, and I sealed and pinched away. I even cut some dainty slits in the top.

Here's where my total inexperience in pie dough rolling shows the most. I didn't give myself enough "lip" on the lower later to sufficiently pinch in all of the places, and there were other places where there's a veritable log of pinched crust. It makes for an ugly pie, for one. It also seems that it could potentially make for uneven baking.

Anyway, I popped it in to the oven at 425 for _____ minutes. I say that, because I set the timer for 45 minutes, but then forgot to start it. Thankfully I take a ton of pictures, and the camera has time stamps, so I had at least some idea of when I'd taken the covered pie picture above. I think I lucked out, overall. It maybe baked for 47 minutes, but that could have been disastrous.

Here's the completed pie: I have to say... really doesn't look to bad, does it? The crust, not being even made for some difficult and messy cutting, but aside from that it looked pretty good.

As for the taste? It tasted like an apple pie with a little too much nutmeg (I'd mis-read the recipe and basically used a quarter teaspoon instead of an eighth.) The cheese didn't add a ton to it, aside from a nice rich aroma layer. The craisins were good, but I could have used more.

The crust, however, was really pretty tasty. Again..there was some uneven baking due to the inconsistent thickness, but I'd definitely call it a success for my first time out. I'd eat it again. I'd eat another piece.

So... Successes, Failures, and Things I'd Do Differently:

Successes:
- I'd have to say that the crust was pretty good for a first attempt.
- The apples were nice and tart. I like a tart pie.
- I liked the subtext of the cheese...it was at least a good idea.

Failures:
-Too much nutmeg.
- Uneven and poorly pinched pie dough.

Things I'd Do Differently:
- I'd slice the apples waaaaayyyy thiner. First, they didn't all bake enough, so they had too crunchy a texture in some places. Also, I think they'd be easier to lay in the pie if they were smaller.
- I'd use a stronger cheese, or more cheese or something. As it is, it just sort of strikes me as a throw-away gimmicky thing. Doesn't do much for me one way or the other. Knowing how much I like to mix sweet and spicy, I'm sort of toying with like a hot pepper cheddar. Or something like that. We'll see... that may be too much.
- I'd use more craisins. Probably double what I did use.

All in all a success.

Coming up are my Countdown to Disney Blogs, plus the start of my Disney Trivia Contest. Stay tuned!