Posted on 12/15/2017 4:39:44 PM PST by Jamestown1630
While enduring a ‘bug’ this week that left me unable to do much but sleep or sit in front of the TV, I happened upon Clarissa Dickson Wright’s series, ‘Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner’, which you can find on YouTube, and which is a really interesting history of how our 'three squares', and the ways we partake of them, have evolved over time.
In the Lunch episode, she featured a pasty (yes, no 'r') crust design, executed by food scholar Ivan Day. This was so beautiful, I had to find the design, and know more about it.
On the way, I found some interesting stuff – including Day's great website on historic food:
http://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm
The pasty design seems to have been derived from Edward Kidder’s ancient ‘Receipts of pastry and cookery, for the use of his scholars’, published in 1720 (you can still buy a copy on Amazon ;-):
http://www.historicfood.com/Edward%20Kidders%20Lamb%20Pasty.htm
I’m not personally a fan of British pasties; but it seems to me that we could decorate our sweet or savory pies just as beautifully – it just takes practice, and starting small! And you don’t need cutters to do this; just find a design, make a cardboard cutout of it, and find a sharp knife to cut the pastry to each of the shapes; then do some detail on the pieces.
Food52 has a lot of starter ideas for ‘fancying up’ your pie:
https://food52.com/blog/8744-9-ways-to-fancy-up-your-pies
-JT
Tomorrow it is planned. Right after my haircut lol.
My shortbread turned out perfectly: sugary and melting. I use that Kerrygold Irish butter which tastes good and softens much more quickly then regular, stabilized American butter.
Thank you for the recipe... it sounds great (and everything is in my pantry or spice cabinet (except the curing salt... perhaps this is the pink salt?) Carol’s cookies... I couldn’t stand those episodes when Carol became all “Mother hen and Martha Stewart-ish”. I just remember thinking I hope I don’t survive the Zombie Apocalypse if we can’t find powdered cocoa.... or semi sweet chips. :)
Wishing you and and all of our Cooking Tread friends a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year!
Thank you Jamestown for the wonderful Cooking Thread. I look forward to seeing what the surprise topic is going to be and the ensuing great ideas and recipes from everyone on the thread!
If Kerrygold is what I recall, it’s very good for you as a regular table butter. I was diagnosed with osteoporosis recently, and one of the nutrients we really need to get calcium into the right places is K2, which can be scarce in the modern diet; but some cheeses, and butter from grass-fed cows, are still good sources.
It’s my pleasure, beethoven. Thanks for coming to our “party”; and I wish you very Happy Holidays!
I think it was in last weeks thread and I think it was you that posted the apricot/coconut balls. I thought I had some papaya in the pantry and was ready to make them this morning but discovered the papaya was really dried mango. So I made them anyway. Very easy recipe and they are super yummy. Made a double batch. Tomorrow it’s my toffee day. Will give a container of each to my egg lady friend and our neighbors who help us even though they have 7 young kids. Other than some shortbread I made last week that is it for me.
ALMOND PASTRY PUFFS / makes 2
ING —2 c flour, divided 1/4 tsp salt cup cold butter, divided 2 tb+cup cold water, divided 1/4 tsp almond extract 3 eggs
METHOD Combine cup flour and salt; cut in 1/2 cup butter to coarse crumbs. Add 2 tb cold water; fork/stir/blend. Shape into ball; then half. Place 3" apart on ungreased sheetpan; pat into 2-12x3" rectangles. Spread w/ Filling. Lightly brown 400 deg 18-20 min. Cool 5 min then remove to wire racks.
FINAL Ice; sprinkle with 2/3 c chp toasted almonds.
FILLING BTB butter and water. Offheat; stir in extract and flour to a smooth ball; let stand 5 min. Add eggs, singly, beating ea well. Beat smooth/shiny.
ICING beat smooth 1-1/2 cups conf, 2 tb butter, 4 tsp water, 1/4 tsp almond extract.
It’s a good butter, like Finlandia. I use them for baking because I don’t have to wait 24-48 hours to soften American butter, lol!!
DOUBLE RUM COFFEE
METHOD In heatproof tumbler, stir/dissolve 1/2 c hot strong coffee, 2 tsp sugar.
Stir in oz ea gold/dark rums.
Add softly-whipped cream, grated chocolate, long thin orange peel strips.
SERVE w/ a cinnamon stick.
About to spray the pan and bake. I would like to know, though, how to make a batter denser.
Kerrygold is the healthiest, best butter easily available. If they stop selling it everywhere I will have to go buy a cow.
I use it every morning to make our eggs, and if I run out and have to use an inferior, even organic, American butter, I see the difference in a millisecond as the pat hits the pan. Kerrygold is actual butter. It hire the cast iron and melts into a lovely puddle. Not American butter. You drop that in and it foams and releases so much air and water. Who knows how they get the water into it but you can tell it’s adulterated with all that nasty foam.
Plus, the taste. Oh, the taste.
Thanks!
The flames passed through their neighborhood. They still can’t get home, but they have heard there is smoke damage, whatever that means. Two other family members are poised for evacuation but haven’t had to leave.
I missed anything about a secret topic. Excited anyway.
Thanks Jamestown1630 for the least combative thread on FR (we beat even the religious threads there!). Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, delicious new year.
And to all of our cooks and eaters here too!
Ok, changing the recipe to an orange flavored pound cake for density, learning from you. Now I can’t bake until everything reaches room temp. I sprayed that nasty stuff in the pan, hope I didn’t over spray. Is there too much?
If you see this in the next hour, suggest the %age of fill to each house, like 2/3?
Our place burned all the roof and 1/3 of the way down the upper floor. Tons of smoke and water damage. Hopefully they have good insurance although I suspect any restoration services will be pretty busy. Baking soda on cookie sheets works well for smoke but they still had to repaint. Basically rebuilt a 2 year old home. The firefighters were great they saved all our artwork and did things like open drawers and sweep jewelry, etc on top down into the drawers.
Hi Yaelle! I think a pound cake sounds like the perfect density. The gingerbread turned out really well and that was a Similar density The only way I would think to thicken up a recipe would be to add more flour, but that could mess up the proportions and then we might get a brick.
I had read some of the reviews about the metal pan, and one person said to spray, spray again, and then spray more. So it doesn’t sound like you could get too much! The tops of my first batch had holes in them, and I thought maybe that came from the spray. I’ve never used it before. I put on a pretty thick coating, only because that seem to be the way it came out of the can. I didn’t add any extra. But I figure the silicone pan could be manipulated to push the cakes out. Which is something I did have to do.
Are used a half a recipe from each other recipes and that came out just perfect. They were each probably filled between 2/3 and 3/4 full. I think those recipes were up for a full-size Bundt cake, if that helps at all.
Two of mine rose over the top of the pan. One just rose even with the pan. If they rise to high all you do is cut off the bottoms. And then you get a nice snack! And get to test the flavor. So I wouldn’t worry about over filling. In fact, I think it’s a plus because the cakes on mine that didn’t over rise were very slick on the bottom. When I tried to put them on a plate to take pictures they all slid down to the bottom together. The ones that I cut had a bit of traction.
I miss the secret topic as well. Is that similar to a secret Santa?
I agree, this thread is very calming. As is the gardening thread. It is nice to have a place to go to come in from the battlefield :-)
Thanks! Still haven’t started so your advice came in time. I do hope to get a little taster snack because if they come out good my mom can give them to her friend as a little Christmas gift tomorrow when her friend visits. So just to get that taste, I’ll fill about 3/4...
Good to know about the spray. Might even spray again.
Assuming you can’t taste that stuff. I found only the Pam for baking brand at Target (it does have the flour in it).
I didn’t know there was another option besides Baker’s Joy. That was all that our Walmart had that had flour in it. My husband swears that he can taste Pam and he just hates it. So I normally just use one of those misters that I can put oil in. It sounds like from the reviews people used a variety of stuff. Some use plain Pam and then sprinkled in flour. So I’m using melted butter and then covered with flour. Nobody seem to complain about it sticking at all.
I’m thinking about getting the metal one, hoping that the silicone one will fit inside it. I’ve had great luck with bundt cakes that way. I get the stability of having the metal pan, along with the correct details because the silicone isn’t allowed to wiggle. And then it releases really easily.
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