The perfect homemade soft pretzel: the research continues

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The nice folks at King Arthur Flour, in their most recent catalog, posted a recipe for pretzel sandwich buns.  I made them, and they were very nice, but I thought: well, why sandwich buns? Why can’t I make nice soft pretzels at home?

I can, as it turns out.

But not a single batch has turned out perfectly yet. Some have a nice sourdough flavor, but lack consistency. Some are too bready. Some are too tough.

I’ve made at least four batches so far. They’re all good, but none has been perfect.

I’m still working on it.

Here’s the best version so far:

Combine –

·        2 cups flour (white, or a mix of white and whole-wheat)

·        1 tsp salt

·        1 T instant dry yeast

·        1 T butter

·        A scant cup of warm water

·        A pinch of sugar, or a scant teaspoon of honey

Mix, and knead for at least five minutes, using enough extra flour to make a nice smooth non-sticky dough. Put down in a greased bowl, covered with a dampened cloth, in a quiet place, for at least an hour (preferably more), until the dough has doubled. (A longer rise gives a yeastier flavor, which I like.)

Punch down the dough, divide into eight pieces, and roll each into a long rope about 15 inches long. Tie into a pretzel shape. Here’s a video to show you how:

(You can tie a double knot too. But practice a bit first.)

Place your eight pretzel children on a greased surface, cover with a dampened cloth for 15-30 minutes, and let them rest. While that’s going on, prepare for the end of the process as follows:

·        Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

·        Prepare a water bath: a saucepan with about a quart of water and about ¼ cup baking soda, heated to boiling.

·        Also break an egg into a large bowl and beat it.

·        Also line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or (second best) grease a baking sheet heavily.

Carefully drop your unbaked pretzels one or two at a time (depending on the size of your saucepan) into the boiling-water bath. Flip after 30 seconds or so. Take out of the boiling water after a minute.

Let the boiled pretzels rest for a few seconds. Give them a bath in the beaten egg (both sides), place them on the baking sheet, and dust them with coarse salt. (Coarse sea salt is inexpensive and easily available, at least locally.)

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden-brown.

Cool, and serve with butter or mustard. If there are any left the next day, reheat them in the microwave for (literally) ten seconds or so, and they’ll be almost like new.

Still not perfect, I know. Something’s missing.

But I’ll figure it out. I’ve got lots of time on my hands.

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How to thicken your blueberry pie

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Boy, I bet that title got your attention, didn’t it?

 

 

Anyway.

 

 

You know I’ve been baking blueberry pies lately. Partner and all his family members love them, and I enjoy making them.  I have mostly perfected the process.

 

 

Except that I have always struggled with the juiciness issue.

 

 

Berries are naturally very juicy.  In extreme cases (as when I use frozen berries), this results in a crust filled with sweet blue soup. More often, it’s just an issue of messiness. Also, it’s hard to sop up all that good blueberry flavor when it’s running around liquefied in your pie plate.

 

 

So we use a thickening agent. And, mama, I have tried them all. Cornstarch is moderately effective. Flour has seemingly no effect at all (though my friend Cathleen swears by it). Tapioca creates a nightmarish blue/white solid mass inside your pie that looks like Styrofoam; it tastes okay, but it looks horrible.

 

 

(Yes, I know this is not the most pressing problem in the world, and not in the league of – say – world hunger, or a cure for cancer. But I set myself small problems to solve, and I generally achieve my goals.)

 

 

I was browsing the King Arthur catalog a few weeks ago when I noticed a product called “Instant Clearjel,” which promised to make runny / juicy pies a thing of the past.

 

 

For $4.95 plus shipping, it was worth the gamble.

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, hats off to this product. It is the greatest invention of our time.

 

 

The package said to add anywhere from two to five tablespoons, with berry pies getting more. I decided to be cautious in my first attempt, and added two.

 

 

The result was spectacular. The pie, when I cut into it, was glorious: a few berries crumbled away, but the filling held its shape. The individual berries glistened like dewdrops in the morning sunlight.  It made me feel like Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray all in one. Partner pronounced it one of my best pies ever.

 

 

I have no idea what’s in this stuff; the package says only “modified food starch.” Modified how? Shot out of a cannon? Exposed to gamma rays? Combined with something that came out of a meteor?

 

 

I don’t care.

 

 

All you pie bakers out there: save your nickels and dimes and buy some of this stuff.

 

 

It’s wonderful.

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By request: my piecrust recipe (by way of the King Arthur Cookbook)

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Since writing my blueberry pie blog the other day, I’ve gotten innumerable (read: two) requests for my crust recipe.

 

 

I’m flattered.  But I need to tell you that this is the classic piecrust recipe from the King Arthur Flour 200^th Anniversary Cookbook (with very tiny modifications). It got me over my fear of making piecrust. It’s easy, and fairly quick, and very reliable, and everyone seems to like it (I haven’t gotten any complaints yet). As with any piecrust recipe, you will end up covered with flour. I was wearing sweatpants while making my most recent batch, and wore the same sweatpants to the health club the next night, and realized belatedly that I looked like I’d been sprayed with ranch dressing. Or something.

 

 

Herewith the recipe:

 

 

-        3 cups all-purpose flour.

-        1 teaspoon salt.

-        1 teaspoon sugar (if you’re making a fruit pie; omit for a quiche / chicken pot pie crust).

-        Approximately ¾ cup vegetable shortening, or other fat (some use half butter, half shortening; I get better results with shortening. I know it’s a trans-fat. So what? How often do you make a pie?).

-        Very cold water (as in refrigerated; we use a Brita pitcher, so there’s never any problem finding good ice-cold water).

 

 

Measure the flour, salt, and sugar into a large bowl, and stir together lightly to mix. Add the shortening and methodically work it into the flour/salt/sugar mixture with a fork or pastry blender. (I prefer a fork.)  You want a sort of grainy / pebbly look when you’re completed this step: no big chunks of shortening left, and the flour should have darkened very slightly.

 

 

Stir in a few tablespoons of very cold water. (Don’t stir too hard – just try to blend them in.)  Then a few more. Then a few more. You’ll see the flour/shortening mixture turn gradually to piecrust consistency. If you overshoot the mark and add too much water, try adding a little more flour to even out the batch.

 

 

When you have a satisfactorily doughy mass in your bowl, turn it out onto your (floured) rolling surface.  (Partner’s sister gave me a big wooden plank, which works very nicely.) Work it with your hands a bit to make sure it’s thoroughly mixed, but not too much; if you work it too heavily, it’ll turn tough.

 

 

When it’s nice and uniform, split it into two equal masses, and plop one of them back into the original bowl, and put it in the refrigerator to wait its turn.

 

 

Roll out the first mass of dough, using flour liberally to keep everything non-sticky. (This is how flour gets everywhere.). Roll it to your desired thickness (I like it a little thicker than most people; with a juicy pie, it’s nice – the thick crust will absorb a lot of juice and be very flavorful).  Pick it up (carefully) and put it in your pie plate. (This is a terrifying moment. Be brave.)

 

 

Fill your piecrust with the filling of your choice.

 

 

Take crust #2 out of the fridge, roll it out, and do what you will with it.  (I used to do latticed crusts, which are very attractive, but Partner let me know that he doesn’t care so much about latticed crusts.  This is flattering, actually, because it tells me he actually likes the way the crust tastes, and doesn’t mind having a little more of it in the pie. In any case, do as you wish.)

 

 

Finish the edge of pie in your preferred manner.  (I pinch mine; it’s simple and very Early American.  My mother used to do an elaborate thing like a ribbon around the outer edge of the pie; it was beautiful, but I (frankly) can’t be bothered.)

 

 

There will almost certainly be lots of extra crust hanging around the pieplate.  Trim it off with a knife. 

 

 

(This recipe creates a lot of extra crust, if you do it the way I do.  I take the remaining crust (after trimming), roll it out in sugar, cut it in strips, put some honey and cinnamon and extra sugar on top, and bake the strips for about 20 minutes in the same oven with the pie; they’re a nice little snack while you’re waiting for the pie to cool.)

 

 

See how easy?

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The first blueberry pie of 2012

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I am an American, and I like apple pie. And I can make a damned good apple pie, too.

 

 

Somehow, however, I ended up with Partner, and he (and all of the members of his family) prefer blueberry pie.

 

 

I have adapted to this. I have made blueberry pies for years now. I have it down to a science.

 

 

Well, it’s June, and Stop & Shop just put blueberries on sale (two for one!), so it was time to bake my first pie of the season.

 

 

The big problem with blueberry pies is juiciness: if you’re not careful, you get a pieplate full of blueberry soup. I’ve tried all kinds of thickeners: regular flour (no effect at all), tapioca (which creates a creepy gelatinous Blueberry Tapioca Pudding filling), and cornstarch (which is best of all).

 

 

(I’ve ordered something from King Arthur called ClearJel which promises to solve all these problems. We’ll see.)

 

 

The other problems are sweetness and flavor. Blueberries really aren’t very flavorful, and need some help: sugar, spices (I take my lead from the King Arthur cookbook and add a little cinnamon and nutmeg to my blueberries). Too sweet? Not sweet enough? Hard to tell. If the berries look nice and mature and ripe, I trust them a little more, and add less sugar. If they’re small and nondescript – or if (horrors!) I’m using frozen berries – I add a lot more sugar.

 

 

So, on Sunday night, I baked the first official blueberry pie of 2012. The berries were nice and big and fat, so I wasn't too worried about flavor; I added less cornstarch, and less sugar.

 

 

The final result was (I will say) a success. It was sweet without being overpowering, and the spices assisted, but didn’t intrude. (The topic of piecrust deserves a blog of its own someday. But this was a very nice piecrust, savory and soft and agreeable.) The berries stayed whole, but popped pleasantly when you bit into them.

 

 

All in all, a good attempt.

 

 

(But I would rather have had an apple pie.)

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Dried plums (AKA prunes)

I’ve seen TV commercials for a product called “Sunsweet Plum Amazins.”  They are dried plums which are being marketed as dried plums.

 

 

(I’d always thought that, in the English language, dried plums were called “prunes,” in the same way that dried grapes are called “raisins.”  Evidently I am wrong about this.  Dried plums, in the Sunsweet universe, are their own thing.)

 

 

My late great-aunt Estelle always said that the trees in her yard were “Italian prune trees.” I always wanted to tell her that they were plum trees, but I didn’t want to correct her, as I loved her dearly, and also she was much bigger than me.

 

 

I’m sure that some plums make better prunes than others.  But still!

 

 

On the same topic, more or less: my friend Apollonia has a thing for sour cherries.  I watch for them on her behalf, and I noted them the other evening in the King Arthur catalog. 

 

 

A jar of sour cherries to make one pie costs $14.95 (plus shipping)! 

 

 

Apollonia can go without those cherries, thank you very much.  At that price, anyway.

 

 

Maybe I’ll get her some dried plum/prunes instead, whatever you want to call them.

 

 

She can use the fiber.