Tips for a perfect Lemon Pie

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So I’ve been asked a couple times recently, “what went wrong with my lemon meringue pie?” Lemon meringue is beautiful and Summery and a perfect balance of sweet and tart. The usual lemon meringue pie is written for home cooks and designed to be easy. They do sometimes flop. The heat from the oven for example, can break the emulsion of the lemon curd. The more you heat a thickened substance, the more it loses it’s thickening strength. To prevent this, I suggest cooking each layer on it’s own and it has some other benefits too. 

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Here is how I would recommend you adapt your recipe to follow these tips. But, for a great pie, you need to start with a great crust. 

- First, I think there’s a huge difference between store bought and home made pie dough. Of course I might be biased. My Mom used to always make her own pie dough and my Dad claimed that was the only pie he’d eat, so I grew up with that belief. 

- Always use the flour called for in the recipe. Different flours have different amounts of protein and using an all purpose flour when the recipe calls for pastry, will make your dough heavy and gummy, not tender and flaky.

- To make pie dough, sift all the dry ingredients. Not for measuring. You can measure before that. Although, the best way to measure your baking ingredients is to weigh them. You get a much more accurate measurement. Sifting just removes the lumps so you don’t end up with a dough with dry, floury bits. 

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- The fat you use, whether your recipe calls for lard or butter, should be cold. Cut it into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or dice with a knife and use your fingers to blend the fat. Over mixing is your enemy here. You want a chunky mixture. 

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- Use cold water, or milk or buttermilk. Whatever liquid you use, make sure it’s just out of the fridge, cold. Mix it just enough to bring the dough together. 

- Rest in the fridge for several hours or overnight. 

- Try to use only as much dough as you will need for the pie to prevent over working. 

- Roll the dough thin and press into the corners of the pie plate. (Where the bottom meets the sides). 

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- Leave the dough higher than the sides of the plate since it will shrink in the oven. 

- Flute the edges and put in the fridge to help it hold it’s shape in the oven. 

- Dock the bottom of the pie dough by stabbing it with a fork. This prevents steam from getting trapped and expanding upwards. 

- Weight with beans on top of a piece of parchment paper to prevent the dough from puffing up. (Keep the beans and use again for every pie you need to weight- just don’t try and cook with them now.)

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- Bake until done all over and the edges are golden brown. You can wrap the edges in tin foil if they brown too fast and the rest of the dough is not done. 

- Cool on the counter. 

- For the curd, always use real lemons. You can really taste the difference in store bought lemon juice and fresh squeezed. It might be cheaper, but I only used about 4 lemons and only the zest of one. So, you can use the zest for other things as well, but it adds tons of sweet, lemon flavour too. 

- Follow the stove top directions to make the curd, but bring to a boil and boil for a full minute to cook the yolks so they are safe to eat. Stir in the butter once off the stove. 

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- Let the curd cool, just a touch before pouring it into the cooled pie shell. Don’t let it cool too much as it will start to set pretty quickly. 

- Cool the pie in the fridge. 

- For the meringue, make an italian meringue, where the sugar is cooked with about 20% it’s weight in water to 240-250 degrees F and is then poured over the egg whites at soft peak stage, while they are being whipped. Adding the hot sugar cooks the whites so they are safe to eat, but be careful. The sugar can cause really sever burns at this temperature. 

- Top the chilled pie with the meringue, spreading with a spatula. 

- Use a kitchen torch to brown the top of the meringue, moving the torch, constantly to prevent scorching. 

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- Keep in the fridge and make sure the whole pie is thoroughly chilled before cutting to keep the layers thick and holding their form. 

- When cutting the pie, dip the knife in warm water and wipe it dry after each cut. This will keep the beautiful layers pure and prevent them from blending. 

Enjoy your pie and send me your own tips. 

Orange Scented Caramel Sauce

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I put this sauce on top of my Orange, Vanilla bean ice-cream in my last post. You can always save it for something else though, or if you don’t have an ice-cream machine, just enjoy it on store bought ice-cream. You can make your own adjustments. The Grand Marnier makes it a little boozy, but it can easily be skipped. It’s also pretty thick unless it’s warm. Adding some extra cream will thin it out a bit. Whatever you don’t use, just put in a sealed container or mason jar, and store it in the fridge.

Also note, that cooking sugar to this temperature can be very dangerous and cause severe burns. Keep kids out of the kitchen for this one and wearing gloves is always a good idea.

Here’s what you will need:

- 1 cup sugar

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

- 2 Tbsp butter

- 1/4 navel orange’s juice

- Splash of Grand Marnier

Place the sugar in a small pot and cook until it is a dark caramel colour.

Turn the heat down and add the cream, juice and alcohol. Once the mixture stops bubbling up, return the heat to medium high. The caramel will have hardened as the cream was added. Cook until it is all smooth and lump free.

Remove from the heat and immediately add the butter.

If you’re not using it immediately, reheat when you do. Chill in the fridge until then.

Let me know how this works out for you!

Orange, Vanilla Bean Ice- Cream

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Check out my last post for a detailed account of how to make ice cream at home. This is my first original recipe, so I am really excited about it. It tastes like a creamsicle, but grown up a little. I also topped this with an orange scented caramel sauce. Yummy!

Here’s what you’ll need:

- 3 cups whole milk

- 1 cup heavy cream

- 1 vanilla bean

- 8 egg yolks

- 10 oz sugar

- zest of 1 navel orange

- juice of about 1/4 of a navel orange

First, scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean and put the pod along with the seeds in the milk and cream. Heat both to a simmer on the stove.

Stir the sugar well into the egg yolks so you have one homogenous mixture.

Once the milk mixture is boiling, temper the yolks by slowly ladling the milk into the yolks while stirring. (It’s good to have a helper here). Keep adding the milk and then put the whole mixture back into the pot and bring to 180 degrees F.

Remove from the heat and add the orange zest and juice. At this point you can taste the mixture since the yolks are cooked. I would recommend cooling it first as the taste will diminish as it cools (and that’s how it will be served). You can add more juice as you see fit. Cool the mixture completely in the fridge.

Cool your ice-cream machine down as specified in the directions. Fill the bowl as specified for the machine and churn until the base looks like soft serve. Freeze in a sealed container until fully set.

Top with my orangey caramel sauce too if you’d like and tell me what you think!

All About Ice Cream

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There is something really wonderful about homemade ice-cream. The best Birthday present I ever got was my ice-cream maker (thanks Dad!). It’s fun to be able to make all your own flavours, make sundays and toppings and know that you don’t have any nasty preservatives in them. There are however, a few things you will want to know about making ice cream.

For starters, you will need an ice cream machine or churner. In this situation, you get what you pay for. The best machines are the commercial ones made for restaurants and big operations. You can get very good machines that are smaller and cheaper, made for home use. Machines sell for as low as $50 and go up to several hundred dollars for a good home machine. It’s always a good idea to talk to a knowledgable sales person or friends about what brand and model would be best for you. If you are looking for a better model, you want one that has a lower churn time. Churning adds air and volume to the cream base, but also takes away flavour and richness. (Something to keep in mind when shopping commercial ice-creams too).

There are two types of ice-cream. American and French. French ice cream uses egg yolks as a base that is first cooked and then cooled before churning. Because of this, they are a bit more labor and tine intensive. They do Have a nice rich taste though.

If you get into making ice-creams a lot, you may want to invest in ice-cream stabilizer. I have had some troubles with ice crystals forming on my ice-cream. This can be solved with a stabilizer which will bond the water molecules to the fat, preventing separation and ice crystals in the freezer. I use agar agar, which can be found in some specialty markets or online very easily. It seems quite expensive, but you only use a very small amount at a time. As far as other special ingredients go, with most of the books out there right now, they are written for commonly used ingredients. These recipes all work just fine for home use, with the exception that I usually use some stabilizer. If you start looking at more professionally written recipes and get really into ice-cream making, you may eventually want to invest in some extra ingredients.

When you get an ice-cream maker, read the directions carefully. They will explain the specific machine. Usually when making ice-cream, a machine will have a cool only button. Cool the machine down for a few minutes before adding the ice-cream base. If you are making a cooked base, make sure that is cool too. It should go in the fridge for an hour or two or you can make it the night before. Fill the bowl according to the machine’s directions to ensure that you don’t overflow or churn too much air in. The instructions will usually also give directions as to the amount of time needed. As a rule, you are looking for your base to look like soft serve before removing it from the bowl and placing it in a sealed container in the freezer to finish freezing. Flavourings that are liquid, like honey or steeped, like vanilla beans or teas, should be added to the milk before it’s churned. Chunky ingredients like nuts or chopped fruits, should be stirred in after the base has been churned, but before it’s frozen. Jams and other ingredients can be swirled in after churning and before freezing as well. Have fun with the flavours.

Ice-cream has been an ongoing science project for me. It’s a lot of fun to try different flavours, made up or from a recipe. I will probably add my newest tips and tricks to this page as time goes on. In the mean time, let me know about your own ice-cream successes or disasters and your favourite recipes.

Easy Peasy Hand Pies

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So, the other day, I came home from class with some extra puff pastry. I also had some homemade strawberry, vanilla bean jam and some apple butter from this Summer and Fall. Because I already had these ingredients, the pies only too about 15 minutes to prep, granted I already made the puff in school. Puff isn’t too difficult to make, though it is a bit time consuming. It is also available in most super markets. Jams can be bought too if you don’t have your own supply. 

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To start, roll out the puff and cut large circles out using a cutter or a pairing knife to cut around a bowl. Remember to only re-roll the dough once and gather the scraps by stacking them together. Puff pastry gets its puffiness by the moisture in the butter pushing layers of dough apart. For this to work, the butter needs to remain layered in the dough. 

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Roll each circle into oval. If they are too narrow, roll them width wise as needed. 

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Put a little blob of whatever you are using close to the centre, but off to one side. Brush a little water or egg wash around the edge. 

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Fold the dough over on the jam and press it together on the water or egg wash with your fingers. 

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Use a fork to crimp the edges. 

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Or fold the edges up.

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Or Flute the edges like a pie crust. 

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Then egg wash the tops with one whisked egg, a small splash of milk and a pinch of salt. Sprinkle with sugar if desired and bake at 375F until brown and crisp on top. 

This could easily be done with diced fruit or in a tart shell. Just press into a mini tart tin and spread a little jam or apple butter on the bottom. Top with sliced fruit and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. 

Enjoy your hand pies. 

My Top Ten Valentine’s Day Ideas

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So, V day is right around the corner. Maybe you have a big, romantic date planned, or maybe you’re feeling bitter about it. Either way, enjoy it with something delicious. Here are my favourite ideas for Cupid day. 

1) Red velvet cupcakes scream Valentine’s in my opinion. Check out the Joy of Baking website for a recipe. Top the delicious cream cheese frosting with a butter cream rose. I like this tutorial best. If you’re single and bitter, like me, make your roses black. Here are mine. 

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2) Want to take those cant, message hearts to the next level? Make sugar cookies and write messages on them in frosting. Or write one cookie saying “I love you like” or “We go together like” and write the next with phrases like “peanut butter and jelly”. If you’re of the mind set that Valentines is just a commercial holiday, make broken hearts by cutting the hearts in half with a pairing knife before you bake them. 

3) Chocolate dipped strawberries. ‘Nuff said. If you’re feeling creative, dip them in white chocolate first, then dark chocolate to look like a tuxedo. You can even pipe on a little bow tie and buttons. 

4) Champagne’s romantic right? Get a bottle of your favourite, (mines Moscato) and some wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. Place a flower in the bottom of a Champagne flute with a little syrup. Add the champagne. The flowers look beautiful and add a sweet flavour. And if you’re spending the evening alone or with friends? Didn’t someone say that champagne is how classy people get drunk? 

5) Set up an electric fondue pot with broth or oil, cut up some meat and veggies and make or buy some dips. If you are using an oil based fondue, you can also make a batter. Battered shrimp and cauliflower are delish. Set the lights on dim, or use candles. Fondue is great as you spend a long time at the table, allowing for conversation. Plus, making your own food at the table is fun. 

6) Whether or not you start with fondue, ending the evening with chocolate fondue is never a bad idea. Grab a Toblerone bar and slowly melt it with some cream and liqueur and put it in a chocolate fondue pot. Cut up some berries, bananas and what ever other fruit you have on hand, because let’s face it, chocolate anything is always a good idea. 

7) For something fast an easy, slice open some strawberries and fill them with whipped cream. Then, melt some chocolate and drizzle it over top. 

8) Get a nice loaf of French bread for a good bakery, some high quality cheese and olive oil. Infuse the olive oil with some garlic and herbs over very low heat. Mix well with balsamic vinegar, cut up the cheese and some fruit and have a picnic. Get a blanket and some candles and eat with your fingers. Romantic right? Or of you’re feeling depressed, carbs are a good go to. 

9) Nothing tells someone you care like putting the time in to make their favourite indulgence, (and uh, remembering what that favourite dish is). Plan in advance, get the groceries and do any prep you can the day before. The day of, light the candles, get some flowers, and set the table, even if it’s just mac n’ cheese. 

10) If all else fails, or if you’re just not on speaking terms with the kitchen, find a local, high end chocolate shop. A box of ganache filled chocolates or salted caramels should do the trick. 

Happy (anti) Valentines day! Please share some of your favourite V day recipes and traditions (or anti- Valentine’s recipes and traditions). 

 

Apple Croissants

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For Thanksgiving, I took on the task of making breakfast. Pumpkin pie was dessert, so I thought apples should be represented too. These make a great fall treat especially with apples being in prime season. 

Some things to keep in mind about this recipe, I used pretty ripe apples so they were sweeter than other apples might be.

I used two green apples which added a bit of bitterness. If you use all Granny Smiths, you may want to up the sugar. 

Taste as you go!

Most croissant dough recipes will require you start them at least one day in advance, usually two, so remember to plan!

For the dough, I used the recipe from the Macrina cook book. Any croissant dough will do though. You can find a recipe online or from another baking book. Croissant dough should be sweet and fairly sticky. The dough will need to rise before you fold in the butter. I did this by putting it in the fridge overnight. Chilling the dough slows down the riding process. The next morning, I pounded out the butter required. I prefer a French rolling pin for this so you can beat the butter flat and roll as needed. The butter should be in parchment paper, with enough room to expand. The butter should fit, sandwiched inside the dough with enough room around the edges to seal it in. Pat the dough over the butter, squeezing the air out from the centre to the edges, sealing the sides as you go. Then, fold the two edges into the centre, then on top of one another, brushing off the flour as you go. This is called a double fold. The dough should be refrigerated now for about 15 minutes. Remove the dough from the fridge and with the “spine” (imagine the dough as a book that you just folded) on your left, roll the dough out and repeat the process. When you remove the dough from the fridge again, you will only need to do a single fold, where the dough is folded into thirds on itself. Chill again. 

Croissant dough is very similar to puff pastry though it has yeast where puff does not and uses the same methods. Puff pastry is also referred to as “mille feuille” in French, meaning “a million leaves or sheets”. The flakiness is made when the water content in the butter turns to steam and pushes the dough up. That’s why the folds and layers are so important. It’s also important that the flower gets brushed off the dough before you fold it in as when mixed with the moisture, it will create a gummy paste, preventing the steam from forming layers. It is also important that the dough be chilled and that the dough and the butter are the same temperature or it won’t roll out evenly and the butter will slide. 

For the apple filling, I used six apples and chopped them very small. I heated them in a pan with about a tablespoon of butter. Add half a cup of brown sugar and taste for sweetness. Then add two teaspoons of cinnamon and half of each ginger and nutmeg. If needed, mix some corn starch in water or apple juice and add it to the pan. Once the liquid is fairly dry, you can remove it from the heat. 

Use large cutters and cut circles out of the dough. Fill one circle and top it with another, using egg wash to seal the edges and pressing them lightly with a fork. When it’s time to re roll the dough, gather the scraps and pile them rather than squishing it all together to help keep the layers of butter. Do not re roll more than once. 

At this point, I put my croissants back in the fridge overnight, but you can let them rise normally for a couple hours and then bake them. 

Before baking, brush them with a little egg wash and sprinkle white sugar on top. Cut slits or ‘”x’s” in the top.

These went over well with my family. Hopefully yours enjoys them just as much. 

 

Lemon, Asparagus Risotto with Halibut and Compound Butter

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So, there are several things I love about this dish. First, is that it is easy to make but still pretty impressive. It looks more complicated than it really is. (It’s impressive right?) A lot of the work can be done ahead of time, so you just have to throw it together when it’s time to eat. And you can make substitutions where you see fit. You could change the fish or even use scallops (yum!) or you could use another vegetable, in the place of the asparagus. Kale would make a lovely substitution.

There are several elements to this dish, but I swear, they’re all easy! Chopping, grating and blanching of the asparagus can be done before hand and the compound butter can be made and kept int he fridge or freezer. You won’t use all of the butter, in fact just a tiny bit, but it can be kept in the freezer for fish, poultry, meat, or veggies. It would go nicely with potatoes. I tend to cook by taste rather than by measurements and I encourage you to use your own judgements. Use this as a guide, not the be all, end all. This recipe serves 2, but could easily be stored as left overs or doubled. If you are going to be keeping the risotto in the fridge, keep some lemon zest to add later. It will freshen up the dish.

Start with the compound butter, so it can chill again.

You will need:

1/2 cup butter, softened and salted or just add a pinch of salt

1 1/2 Tbsp chives, minced

1 1/2 Tbsp parsley, minced

1 tsp lemon zest

Directions:

Combine the herbs with the butter. I find its easiest to just mix it with my hands.

Add salt if needed.

Roll into a log, wrapped in plastic wrap and chill in the freezer or fridge.

For the Risotto:

About 16 stalks asparagus (more or less as desired)

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 shallot, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

3/4 cup arborio rice

1/4 cup white wine

About 4- 5 cups vegetable or chicken stock

2 Tbsp butter

Juice of 1 lemon

Lemon zest

About 3/4 cups finely grated parmesan or to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley, minced

Directions:

Remove the woody ends and save them for soup, in the freezer.

Cut the asparagus in a bias into bite sized pieces.

Blanch in boiling, salted water. Shock in ice water and drain.

Heat the oil and butter in a saute pan. You can substitute both fats for clarified butter.

Sweat the shallot and garlic. Add the rice and saute until blistering, being careful not to colour the shallots.

Deglaze with white wine and reduce until there is almost no liquid left.

Add stock about 1 cup at a time, waiting until it is almost all absorbed before adding more.

Once rice is almost done cooking, season with salt and pepper.

Turn heat off and add butter, lemon juice to taste and almost all the cheese. Cover and let sit.

Taste and add zest to taste.

Serve in bowls, topped with remaining cheese and parsley. Top with fish and butter.

Halibut:

Olive oil

2 halibut fillets

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Before adding the last cup of stock to the risotto, heat oil in a pan.

Once hot add seasoned fish until crisp on the first side.

Turn and cook until crisp. If the fish is a thick piece, it may not be cooked all the way through. In this case, place in oven until done.

Serve on top of risotto with a small slice of compound butter. It will melt over top. Serve with a side of garlic bread, home made or store bought if desired.

Now go impress the pants off someone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, Honey

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So, this is something that I don’t tell people until I know them pretty well. It’s not anything like that. They just tend to think it’s kind of weird. But I have always wanted to be a bee keeper. Not professionally or anything, just a hive or two in my back yard, (when I have a yard and a garden and all that). I know a lot of people who think that bees are scary or pests. I think bees are great. They tend to keep to themselves and only sting when they are feeling like the hive is really being threatened. Most people know that a bee sting kills the bee. It literally rips her body in half, so chances are, she’s not going to sting you if you don’t get in her way. Bees are also responsible for about 70% of our crop production. The fact that the bee populations are declining is really scary to us as a race because we depend so heavily on them to pollinate our plants. That being said, bees are also great if you have a garden. If you have a garden and you are looking to make it thrive, but you don’t want to raise honey bees, you can just make your yard more appealing to bees by giving them space to nest and planting good bee flowers in hopes that a colony will nest in your garden.

Bees also create what some might describe as the perfect food. Honey is the only food on the planet that never goes bad. Most honey bee keepers, buy man made hives that can be opened and have a wire structure built into slats that can be removed. The Queen bee is kept in a small area of the hive by making the holes too small for her to pass through, as she is bigger than the other bees and thus preventing her from laying eggs where the honey will be kept. The bees, all females, work together to collect pollen, guard the hive, tend to the eggs, build the hive, make the honey and control the temperature. They make honey and control the temperature by beating their wings. The male bees, are expected to go out and find a Queen, who collects as many eggs as she can to lay. Any males left in the hive at the end of the Summer get expelled from the hive. Only the females work the hive. Talk about girl power, eh?

The queen will sometime lay an egg that will become another queen. Of course, only one queen can exist in the hive. In this case, one queen will often leave the nest with some of the hive. They will swarm until that can find a new place to nest. Experienced bee keepers often use swarming to split a hive into a new one and will often help beginners by getting them started. Most areas have beekeeping associations that you can contact and meet other, experienced bee keepers. Most are very friendly and willing to help new members get started.

Whether you’re interested in beekeeping or not, I have yet to meet someone who does not like honey. You may have noticed that there are many different kinds of honey. Bees travel for miles to collect pollen and that makes it difficult to control what they use in the production of honey. However, the flavours do transfer to the honey. Some producers also infuse their honey. I particularly like this raspberry honey I found. That being said, organic honey is hard to come by because the bee keepers can’t really know exactly which plants the bees have visited. I do like to buy locally though.

There are three types of honey that can be purchased. Liquid honey is the most common. Commercial producers will use a machine usually that extracts the honey without damaging the honey comb. This way, the bees do not have to rebuild the comb and you get more honey faster. The second type of honey you can buy, usually in grocery store rather than farmers markets is creamed honey. This is processed and carefully crystallized to be spreadable. It is lovely on a nice toast. I especially like it when I am down with the flu as it’s easy on the stomach and somewhat of a comfort food for me. Then there is the honey comb, which is a real treat. Honey comb is the whole comb, taken out in pieces with the honey inside. It holds its structure though you can mash it a bit and spread it on toast. It also goes well with fruit and cheese or yogurt. It really adds a wow factor to a cheese plate at a dinner party or an open house and it is amazing to eat. I put it on a plate with some brie cheese, some havarti flavoured with caraway seeds which really complimented the honey and boursin cheese flavoured with sage. Rain crisp chips are a wonderful brand made with seeds and nuts and lots of flavour.

 

You may also know that wax is collected from hives to be made into candles and what not. Pollen can also be collected and is usually sold in health food stores. It is often sprinkled over dishes to help with allergies. Both of these products are wonderful, natural products that you may have interest in trying.

I hope you get a chance to pick up some honey comb. It really is a treat and I know you’ll like it. If you would like to know more about beekeeping and honey, I use “Keeping Bees and Making Honey” by, Alison Benjamin and Brian Mccallum.

Until next time.