Merci!

This perfect sugar cookie recipe comes courtesy of Commonwealth Edison. During the 1970 holiday season, the company was kind enough to present is employees and their families with The Christmas Cooky Book: a garishly photographed and illustrated pamphlet (a bit skimpy to be called a book, really) filled with saccharine wonder.

As my uncle worked (and still works) for ComEd, my aunt and mother were both lucky Cooky Book recipients. I’m not sure what drew either of them to the Cooky Book over more established cookbooks of the time, but perhaps it was the quaintly antiquated spelling of “cooky” in the title. Or, perhaps, the curious (and generous) use of pastels to decorate the pages:

Who isn’t craving a flaccid, pink, wet, candy cane coffeecake after thumbing by this picture?

And break out the kneelers, girls, because I know I’m moved to prayer at the sight of these festive marshmallow Cathedral Cookies!

As if these pictures weren’t enough, this cookbook also contains what will no doubt go down in history as the greatest sugar cookie recipe of all time, ever, in the world. It’s been my family’s go-to sugar cookie recipe for over forty years, so there you go.

This sugar cookie is simple yet flavorful with the perfect balance of butter and sweetness. Some other sugar cookies might be gussied up with lemon zest or, God forbid, almond extract (please, there is a time and place), but this cookie doesn’t need it. It is the Perfect Cookie, and please don’t let the fact that the major holidays are over discourage you from your baking pursuits. There isn’t a person alive who would refuse a plate of these cookies to help him/her celebrate … say… Father’s Day. Or… Bastille Day. Or don’t let’s tell anyone that you’ve made them and just shovel them all into your own fat little maw. While you’re standing. In your kitchen. At 10:30. On a Saturday night. And maybe you choke on a couple pieces and a hunk you cough up lands on the table and then you eat that too. Relax, you deserve a break.

But I digress. Let us move on to the baking.

Ingredients:

1 c butter, room temperature (as the recipe was written in 1970, this means salty butter)

1 c sugar

2 egg yolks (freeze the whites for a rainy day!)

1 t vanilla extract

1/3 c milk  (whole, skim, it doesn’t really matter)

½ t salt

1 t baking powder (make sure it’s not expired!)

3 c sifted all-purpose flour

Our friend Jaimie took this professional-quality ingredient photo for me.

In a large mixing bowl, Cream the butter and sugar together. Perhaps this is a good place to note that I usually mix everything by hand unless a recipe calls for some very aggressive egg whipping. Is this Puritanical of me? Maybe. But if I’m going to the trouble of making something from scratch, I want to really feel like I made something.

Next mix the salt and the rest of the wet ingredients into the bowl and stir to combine.

Now, add the sifted flour and baking powder and mix everything together until it becomes one cohesive mass. Sometimes the dough turns out a little dry and needs a little coaxing and a knead or two from clean warm hands to pull it all together. Do not be ashamed if you need to resort to this, but maybe don’t advertise it much. Some cookie eaters are sensitive to overly manhandled foodstuffs.

Chill the dough overnight (or at least for a few hours). I should add that this is a dough that, while very palatable in its raw state, is actually much tastier after being baked. Remember, patience is a virtue.

Now that your dough is chilled, let’s get down to business. Here’s where things can get a little fussy.

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Grab a fat fistful of dough and set it on a clean and floured surface. The goal is to roll out the dough pretty thin — the Cooky Book says 1/8 of an inch — but just eyeball it and do the best you can. The key is to keep every surface well floured and to keep the dough on the cool side. If you find that it’s too sticky to work with, put it in the fridge for a little longer and maybe even try rolling it out between two sheets of wax paper (not parchment!). There’s no shame in asking wax paper for help. Because I baked these during one of the many short heat waves we’ve had this summer, I left the oven off while I rolled out the cookies so that my kitchen was as cool as possible.

Once you’ve worked out your rolling situation, cut shapes from the dough using the adorable set of cookie cutters you no doubt own. Failing this, use the floured rim of a drinking glass.

After you cut out your cookies, carefully transfer each one to a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Or nothing because you forgot. The point is: don’t grease the sheet. Bake for about 7 minutes. Maybe.

Keep an eye on the cookies while they’re baking especially if you’ve lovingly cut them into particularly intricate shapes. These cookies can look fine one second and burn the next and sometimes are done cooking in about 5 minutes. If any of your cookies brown, you should immediately give them to a nearby dad to eat so that there’s no evidence of your grievous error. Dads love cookies but have low cookie standards and thus won’t mind “fixing” your mistakes. If no dads are present, consume yourself. This is called quality control.

Once out of the oven, let them sit on the pan for a couple of minutes, and then set them somewhere else to finish cooling. Growing up, we always lined the kitchen table with torn up brown paper grocery bags and set the cookies there, but now that I see that in writing it looks like I grew up in poverty (but we always had each other). I suppose a wire rack will work just as well. La-di-da!

The dough should turn out a few dozen cookies, but all that depends on how thick you roll it, how large you cut them and, duh, how much dough/baked cookies you eat.

This cookie (ahem, cooky), bland though it may look, is delicious on its own. Even without any kind of colored sugar or icing, it doesn’t taste as though it’s missing anything. In fact, if you’re so inclined, you could even leave these cookies naked. However, who doesn’t love bells and whistles?!

Frosting:
Once your beautiful lightly-golden-not-brown cookies have cooled, it’s time to make ‘em pretty. While you could sprinkle colored sugar on the dough before you bake it, I prefer using frosting (homemade, of course!) instead. I would describe this frosting as something between a buttercream and a glaze: he consistency allows for some intricate decoration, but not much. It’s really the taste that’s important. It’s a perfect fit for these cookies and I would never use anything else. Certainly not royal icing. Hork.

Frosting recipe:
Some powdered sugar (a cup or two?)
Some butter at room temperature (a couple of tablespoons?)
Some milk (keep half a cup on hand?)
For decorating: food coloring, sprinkles, choc chips

I’m going to do something now that you’ll hate: I’m going to tell you that I don’t really have a recipe for the frosting; I just go by how it looks and tastes. I’m sorry. But this is the only recipe I can do this with! Just let me have my one moment of looking like a supremely competent baker full of innate talent! Please? This frosting is so easy though, I promise. Soon, you too will be able to amaze your friends and relations by smiling coyly and saying, “Oh, this frosting? This ol’ thing? I don’t really have a recipe.”

Just remember one thing: you can always add more milk, but you can’t take it out.
(And measure twice, cut once)
(And a penny saved is a penny earned)
(And loose lips sink ships)

In a medium-ish/small-ish bowl, cream some powdered sugar (um, like a cup… or maybe two, I don’t care) with some butter (not a whole lotta butter, just maybe a few tablespoons, or something). When you’re done, it should still look mostly like powdered sugar but maybe a little clumpier here and there.

Now, VERY SLOWLY, stir in some milk till you can form a paste. This is tricky because you don’t want it to be too thin like a glaze, but you also don’t want it to be too thick and unspreadable. GO SLOWLY and use your best judgment. Like I said before, you can always add more milk, but you can’t take it out. (If you get to a point where you really wish you could take it out, try adding some more powdered sugar.)

When (if?) you finally manage to get the right texture, have at those cookies. When I’m frosting cookies, I like to really get creative and let my hair down (and then promptly put it back up because some has inevitably gotten in the frosting). While I think white icing covered in colored sugar turns out the prettiest cookies, I also like to experiment a bit with food coloring and pastry bags.

I don’t like to critique other’s decorating, but is that your best work? Hmm.

Once you’ve finished with the decorating, you must wait until the frosting sets before you serve/eat. Remember, patience is a virtue. Well, maybe you can sample a couple of cookies for quality control purposes. So long as you say the words “quality control” aloud before you eat them, it’s permitted.

Kept in a sealed container, these cookies will last about a week. Flash freezing is also an option.

There are some incredible things about being back in the US that I still haven’t gotten over. Internet speeds, for one thing (streaming 30 Rock and HIMYM for free? who needs a TV anymore? not this guy!) Standard American portion sizes are another. Seriously folks, there is a Mexican place near my apartment that serves scrumptious $7 burritos that are literally the size of a baby. Also, having more beer choices than “dark,” “light,” and “really light” has been nice. Then again, I knew all of these obesity-inducing phenomena were waiting for me upon re-entry and I fully expected to overindulge in them upon my return (check and double-check, thankyouverymuch). However, much akin to the miracle of Pandora Radio, there are some things I didn’t know how much I had missed until I got them back. And in the food department, that thing was sweet potatoes.

“Sweet potatoes?” You might say. It’s true. Turns out I love them. Like love-love them, and ever since I’ve re-discovered them you’d be lucky to find a day where I don’t have them sitting in my fridge. See, the sweet potatoes in Central America (yes, they exist) are sort of the wonky, lame cousin of the sweet potato we’re used to. For starters, the buggers are purple on the outside (truth bomb) and white on the inside, with a slightly sweet but not-quite-sweet-enough taste that’s just sadly bland. The consistency is that of a regular white potato, rather than the super-soft and fibrous texture that make orange sweet potatoes so good for mashing up and dousing with butter. It sucks, is what I’m trying to tell you. Coming home to a Trader Joe’s full of ‘Murican sweet taters was a sight for sore eyes. I haven’t looked back since.

These impostors fail to perform.

While it turns out that I’m newly obsessed with US sweet potatoes, of course I’d find a way to incorporate them into a baked good. Sweet potato pie was a real hit at Thanksgiving (foreshadowing? what!?) and had the added bonus of getting to use an old family recipe, but is ultimately a bit time-consuming for a random weeknight baking foray. Thus, I discovered sweet potato bread through adapting a recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. It’s a quickbread like any other, but the moist sweet potato makes it dense and rich without relying on buckets of butter. The color is also gorgeous. Side note: adding golden raisins to this is not a mistake. No, not a mistake at all.

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) cold butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup milk (preferably whole)
1 egg
1 cup mashed baked sweet potato
½ cup golden raisins (optional)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with butter.
2. Stir together the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into bits, then use a fork, 2 knives, or your fingers to cut or rub it into the dry ingredients until there are no pieces bigger than a small pea. (You can use a food processor for this step, which makes it quite easy, but you should not use a food processor for the remaining steps or the bread will be tough.)
3. Beat together the milk and egg. Pour into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten; do not beat and do not mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the sweet potato, raisins and the nuts, then pour and spoon the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.

Although cranberry sauce isn’t my favorite part of Thanksgiving, it’s certainly safe to say that without it, Thanksgiving dinner would just be another meal of meat and potatoes—at least as far as I’m concerned. My mom makes cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries, oranges, and lemon zest—it’s more lively and distinct than the muddled, slightly dirty flavor of the canned stuff (sacrilege!). When I was in college, I studied, one fall semester, in Paris, and our program director held Thanksgiving dinner at his apartment. I ferreted out a bag of fresh cranberries, which are uncommon in France (and probably most of Europe, though I haven’t checked) from a small American-food-store in the Marais—the store also sold peanut butter, boxed macaroni and cheese, and marshmallows. The bag cost me nearly 12 American dollars, which was a lot for a broke college student struggling with a less-than-friendly exchange rate, but in my mind it was worth it: I would have cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving.

Around 10 o’clock on Thanksgiving night, I was still traipsing around some unknown part of Paris, no minutes left on my pay-as-you-go phone, not a single cab willing to give me a ride anywhere (“But it’s Thanksgiving!” doesn’t have much effect on Parisian cab drivers, turns out), and decidedly put out. I had written down the wrong address and initially had ended up, plastic bowl full of cranberry sauce in hand, in front of a long-ago closed locksmith’s.

The whole thing was very disappointing, I’ll say that much. I finally did make it to the director’s apartment, though most of the meal was gone and people were mostly lounging on the couches, basking in the post-meal haze. I had a plate of pie and cranberry sauce.

This is sort of a transitional dessert (or breakfast, depending on its accompaniment). It’s a week or two after Thanksgiving, but I’m certainly not yet ready to give up the cranberries, and it takes full advantage of wintery pears, cinnamon, and ginger. It’s also very, very easy, and looks pretty enough in a bowl to bring to a party.

I’ve adapted the recipe from several different sources: Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, and Deb Perlman of Smitten Kitchen all have versions. This one features ginger and cinnamon, and some cornstarch to thicken the fruit juices. Make sure your pears are ripe (almost gushy) so that they soften enough during baking. For breakfast, serve with yogurt. For dessert, serve with a healthy scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Pear, Cranberry, and Apple Crisp (makes about 8-9 servings, depending on your appetite)

Ingredients:

Filling

4 bartlett pears, sliced

1 golden delicious apple, sliced

about 2 c fresh cranberries

1 t cinnamon

1 t ginger

1 t vanilla

1/4 c cornstarch

juice of 1/2 lemon

Topping

1 1/2 c flour (I used whole wheat because it’s what I had on hand—this worked nicely, I thought, and the whole-wheatiness was pretty undetectable)

1/4 c white sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 t salt

1 c rolled oats

1 stick butter, melted and cooled

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

In a 9×12 in baking dish, combine the fruit, sprinkling the lemon juice and vanilla on top. In a separate bowl, combine the sugars, salt, and cornstarch. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the fruit and toss to combine.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients for the filling, and mix thoroughly with a whisk. Drizzle in the butter and mix until thoroughly combined. The mixture should be crumbly, and will hold together if pressed.

Cover the fruit with the oatmeal topping, and place the dish in the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes, or as long as it takes for the juices to bubble through the top. May be served directly out of the oven.

Hi.

I know I haven’t been here in awhile. I’m about to type something that, I think, is the lamest thing in the world. But it’s true, so here goes: I’ve been really busy!

I can’t stand that. Everyone is busy. Everyone does all kinds of things that keep them from doing other things like baking and writing and taking pictures that they think they ought to post on the internet. So, I’m sorry.

In case you’re curious, I’ve been busy trying to be a high-school teacher. When I decided to abandon the PhD track in favor of the slightly more humble pursuit of teaching 14-18 year-olds about social studies, many of the most important people in my life warned me about how challenging and time-consuming the first year of teaching is. I scoffed. I AM A WORKAHOLIC! I laughed. I HAVE BEEN IN SCHOOL FOREVER! ALL I DO IS WORK! I WAS IN LAW SCHOOL ONCE! I CAN HANDLE WORK!

The arrogance. The hubris. I did not know how much work this whole endeavor would entail. I suppose I didn’t really understand that working at something you care about will inevitably take more time and energy than working at something you do not care about. Example: I did not give a flying-you-know-what whether or not my Master’s thesis would turn out to be publishable. I therefore didn’t wake up at 5:15 in the morning thinking about how I needed to polish my topic sentences or further buttress my ever-so-nuanced historical arguments or ferret out that one remaining piece of esoteric historical evidence. Oh how things have changed. One of the classes I’m teaching in U.S. Civics, and I’m convinced (probably not only out of arrogance and hubris this time, but narcissism and inflated self-importance as well) that if I don’t properly plan this or that lesson, my students, on the cusp of adulthood as they are, will not be equipped with the tools necessary to living up to their limitless (an impossible task—I understand) potential as citizens of the United States of America. They have the potential, you see, to dig us out of the dismal trench of civic apathy that we as American citizens are currently sitting in. They can MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. But first, they have to know how a bill gets turned into a law, what the Fourteenth Amendment says and why, and what the difference between socialism and communism is. What I’m saying is, now I wake up at 5:15 in the morning. To work.

Well I guess that sounds like a lot of histrionic bluster and that who the f cares just bake a damn pie already. Okay fine well I did. I made a couple, in fact, thankyouverymuch, and I made them ahead of time, froze them (freezing the pie actually does wonders for the flakiness of your pie crust, FYI), and brought them to my family’s house for Thanksgiving.

My sister, Paula, and her boyfriend, Jamey, on Thanksgiving.

It was a good day. I went on a good run through a bunch of mountainside farmland, I sat around and read (I just started Last Night in Twisted River, which is the latest book by John Irving, who I really really like, not least of all because he writes about food in a way that only someone who loves cooking and eating can), and I did a minimal amount of kitchen work. Mostly I just sat and watched my younger sister’s boyfriend Jamey de-seed a pomegranate. He wanted to have something to do.

Anyway, so I don’t have much more than that. Today I am kind of regretting living in Salt Lake City, because the valley is very inverted and the air quality is so bad that running outside feels like what I imagine smoking a full pack of cigarettes would be like. On days like this I really miss Chicago. But, my students are learning about the First Amendment, and they seem to care, so all in all I can’t complain. I will be back soon with some actual baking and instructions on how to do it.

The space between one phase/state and another is called liminality in anthropology. This is the transitional phase, and it comes from the Latin word for “threshold.” Many cultures go to great lengths to guard against this state, usually using rituals or strict rules. It’s a dangerous region where anything can happen: you are not one thing nor another; there is no structure or order; it’s like floating in an abyss full of uncertainty and ambiguity, and hoping to come out on the other side. Sounds fun, yes? For me, this area is also called post-graduation. Oh, happy times!

Post-college, I decided to hold off furthering my education and instead glide into a life of full-time-job-stability. My schedule would be set: no more ungodly early coffee shop hours, no more working for tips, no more weekend shifts (hallelujah!). A new, shiny stage, and munayyy to burn, honey booboo chile!

…Cue the wah-wah noise. Turns out, liminality came back to bite me in the you-know-what. As a 9-5er, I was commuting 1 ½ hours each day (in a gas-guzzling Blazer, mind you), bored to death, and having to pull money from savings to support myself. I was miserable, so I quit. Now, I’m back to the service industry, waiting tables, and sighing heavily on the weekends, in preparation for work.

But… It’s okay, I’ve realized. We have liminal stages, and we can’t escape them. I tried to bypass swimming in obscurity by forcing myself into what I thought was a mature, steady life. People guard against liminality because it translates as “the unknown,” and that’s scary. James Taylor said that the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time. It sounds simple, but these words are golden: to actually enjoy the space between phases, instead of combating it—refusing to agonize over the future or the past, letting yourself be right in the middle of the passage, and liking what you see. My threshold has given me a cookie recipe, and used the time I used to spend driving in rush hour to bake them.

I decided on a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie with Cream Cheese Frosting. The special thing about this cookie is that the red comes not from dye, but from beets. That’s right. Earthy, rooty, beets. Just like liminal phases, these beets will surprise you.

So, here we go… The baking. Now I have to preface this by saying that I am no baker. Repeat: I did NOT inherit the baking genes of which my beautiful and precise sister Lillian boasts. I love to cook, but part of my love of cooking is the ability to be (as my dad describes my method) “fast and loose.” Furthermore, I just seem to have bad luck baking. Case in point, as I was pureeing the beets used for this recipe, the circle plastic thing that goes in the middle of the blender lid dropped into the blender as it was blending, sending pieces of plastic everywhere, including throughout my beets. So, of course, I had to literally plop every small spoonful of pureed beets into my hand to carefully extract each and every little plastic chard before putting it into the measuring cup. (Please scroll to the 21 second mark of this video.)

So, that said. Here’s the recipe! (Watch your moveable parts! –Lillian)

1 cup sugar (granulated)

¾ cup coconut oil

¾ cup red beet puree

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

½ cup agave nectar

½ cup cocoa powder

2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1. In a large bowl whisk together the coconut oil and sugar. I had to melt the coconut oil in increments in the microwave because it hardens at room temperature here.

2. Beat in the beet puree, vanilla, and agave until smooth.

3. In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder. Add this to the big bowl with the beets.

4. Leave this mixture in the fridge overnight to firm (yes, sometimes liminal stages take time). I just covered the bowl tightly with a plastic bag and threw it in there.

5. The next day (or at least until the dough is pretty firm), roll the dough into 2-3 inch balls, and bake them in a 375 degree oven on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Let cool when done. I smooshed mine flat a bit right out of the oven to prepare them for their fate as whoopie pies.

As they are cooling (or baking if you prefer), make your frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

5 Tbsp butter, soft

2 Tbsp vanilla extract

2 cups powered sugar

Whisk the cream cheese, the butter, and the vanilla together. Add the powered sugar in increments until the sweetness suits your taste. I used about 1 1/3 cups.

Drop a dollop onto a cookie and smoosh it together with another one. I like to keep them in the fridge so they stay cold.

So, these cookies did not come out as red as I was hoping, unfortunately. Just as my 9-5 gig did not come out as lovely. Next time, I might have to add some red food coloring just for presentation. But hey, they taste sensational, and after all, that’s what cookies (and liminal stages) are for, right?

A lot has happened.

For example: I moved to Salt Lake City. I lived out of a van for three weeks (more fun than it sounds). I took a job teaching (!). Also I left graduate school.

Now, I grew up in Salt Lake. And in many ways I remember my middle and high school years as one, long, desperate effort to get out. And I did! Boy did I ever. I moved clear across the damn country and spent four years as far away from Salt Lake City as one could get without actually getting on a boat.

Not satisfied with my sojourn, I then moved to Chicago, for four years of loving, very dearly, a very flat city.

Yowza. Both of those photos just sort of tugged at my heartstrings, I have to admit. Have you been to Chicago? You should go. September and October are the perfect months for Chicago. The oppressive, bring-an-extra-shirt heat lifts, the Lake is at its most perfect blue (whitecaps! sailboats! the most architecturally crisp skyline one could hope for!), the leaves start to turn, and you feel like you’ve truly made it—like you’ve really found the most lovely city in the world.

Oh wait, then winter hits. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO HAVE YOUR BOOGERS FREEZE?

Robbed of the pleasure that is Chicago’s autumnal beauty, you may then find yourself undistracted from the comparative tedium of things like writing a dissertation proposal, or studying for comprehensive exams, or preparing conference abstracts. What I mean is, with its stark landscapes and bitterly cold winds and not much for playing outside (not in the flatlands, anyway), a Chicago winter can be something of an, er, clarifying season.

Then, in the dead of winter, this past January, Bethany, dearest Bethany, came to visit.

Yeah! Bethany was still living in Costa Rica at the time, so I appreciated the visit all the more. We saw a movie, we drove around, we went to brunch, we talked about boys, and we went to bars. During one particularly, yes, clarifying conversation, Bethany said, “Well you don’t actually have to be a grad student. You can like, do something else if you want.” (Or something of that ilk.)

Utterly stunned by the brilliance of Bethany’s observation, I started to look for teaching jobs in places with mountains (actually I may have had a strong beer first). For I had recently started climbing, and, may I just say? Dear friends? Don’t start rock climbing unless you can afford to upend your life and move across the country, back to the hometown you thought you’d left for good, at least partially for the sake of, for lack of a better term, shredding le gnar. Le gnar, as it turns out, is an addictive thing.

Six or so months later, and Cristyn and I found ourselves driving across the country (Cristyn for the first time, as mentioned previously, and me, back, after eight years away), headed back to Salt Lake—a city, conveniently, with teaching jobs and mountains. Go figure.

So now, here I find myself—spending many nights at my parents’ house in a small town in the mountains near Salt Lake, climbing when I can (that was what the three weeks in a van were for, in case you were still wondering about that), teaching, and, since the dust has settled a bit, making this pie.

I made this this past Sunday. Bruce, a dear friend of the family who has been coming around, making homemade ice cream and playing guitars with my dad since I can remember, was in for the afternoon. So this pie was accompanied by—you guessed it—homemade ice cream made with honey and raw milk from the local dairy and eggs from my parents’ chickens, June and Emmylou. (Bruce says store-bought ice cream is poison. After being reminded of what his ice cream tastes like, I’m inclined to believe him.) May I just say? I’m glad I’m home.

Well! On with it, yes? (Blah blah blah I’m sure you’re so interested in reading about my life when you could actually be learning about how to make the pie mentioned in the title of this post.) After much ado, and some months away, I give you! DEEP-DISH PEACH PIE, À LA MODE ET À LA LILLIAN.

Pie can be intimidating! Well. Mostly pie crust can be intimidating. DO NOT BE AFRAID. You can do it. I did it, and for a long time I avoided pie crust like I avoid scrubbing the bathtub. I basically followed this tutorial, which I’ve used a few times before and which has not yet let me down. I especially like it because it instructs the baker to use all butter. Some might protest, saying no! You must use shortening as well! But I don’t really know what shortening is, and therefore am kind of afraid of it (isn’t that just the natural way of things?), and I also think in this case the fear is justified. Butter, on the other hand, well I think that’s something we can all get behind.

Pie crust is actually pretty straightforward: you just need to keep everything very cold (even the flour), and work quickly.

After cutting the butter into the flour, drizzling it with ice water, and pulling the crumbly dough together, you’ll then divide your dough in two, and wrap both parts in plastic wrap. Deep dish-peach pie only uses one crust, for the pie’s lid (think chicken pot pie but with fruit), so the other half is still in my parents’ fridge, waiting to be made into another pie this weekend.

While you’re waiting for the dough to chill (about two hours), make the pie’s filling. For best results use fresh peaches–I probably don’t need to tell you this but you should make this in either July, August, or September. This past weekend was the Peach Festival in Brigham City, Utah, meaning these peaches were absolutely, undeniably, perfect.

Deep-dish Peach Pie, adapted loosely from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book

One modification to the tutorial mentioned above: after the dough has chilled, roll it out between two heavily floured pieces of parchment paper. This makes rotating the dough as you roll much easier, and it also allows you to use the parchment paper to drape the dough over the pie.

Ingredients:

1/2 all-butter pie crust, rolled out

8-10 medium yellow peaches

juice from 1 lemon

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 c brown sugar, packed

1/2 t salt

1/2 t cinnamon

4 T flour

1/2 c butter

Preheat your oven to 450. Set an oven-proof cup or mug in the center of a 2 1/2-to -3 inch-deep casserole dish—the mug or cup will keep the crust from collapsing into the pie. While oven is preheating, slice your peaches and place them in the dish. Squeeze the lemon over the peaches. In a small bowl, combine the sugars, salt, cinnamon, and flour. Dust over the peaches, and stir so that the fruit is coated (your hands will work well here). Dot the peaches with butter.

Lay the pie crust, parchment-side-up, over the dish. Carefully peel back the parchment paper, sealing up any tears. Crimp the edges of the crust around the dish, and perforate the crust with a fork.

Bake at 450 for about 10 minutes, until you see the edges of the crust start to brown. (Watch the pie carefully here!) Then, cover the edges of the crust with foil, and reduce the heat to 350. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the crust is a light golden-brown color and the juices begin to bubble out of the perforations. Pie should cool for about 45 minutes before serving, but no one will blame you if you eat the whole thing 30 minutes or so early.

Serve with Bruce’s homemade ice cream.

]]> http://dillywheats.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/deep-dish-peach-pie-by-lillian/feed/ 3 dillywheats IMG_3930 Vassar Library IMG_3539 IMG_2507 IMG_3622 IMG_3866 IMG_3864 IMG_3883 IMG_3885 IMG_3889 IMG_3892 IMG_3894 IMG_3896 IMG_3916 IMG_3935 http://dillywheats.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/icebox-cookies-and-learning-to-fail-by-cristyn/ http://dillywheats.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/icebox-cookies-and-learning-to-fail-by-cristyn/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:58:59 +0000 cristynlikescats http://dillywheats.wordpress.com/?p=978 ]]>  

We have been away forever! But life has settled a bit and we’re back to baking. Make some cookies!

As most of you know and have probably been experiencing (unless you have been living in Antarctica or a space station) IT’S PRETTY DAMN HOT OUT. As Lillian has previously mentioned, this makes baking a bit more difficult than I would like. I mean, I know I basically live in a concrete jungle, but there is a lake! However, even the alleged “lake breezes” that grace the city felt more like dragon’s breath or a hair dryer being blown in your face. My diet for the last few days has consisted of salads made and eaten out of 2 quart mixing bowls followed by a big bowl of homemade banana  “ice cream” (which if you have not ever tried making, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. TRY IT AND MAKE IT OFTEN). But I have recently started a new job and wanted to spread some baking cheer to my new coworkers (and okay, maybe show off my vegan baking skills and convince everyone to like me). SO. I had a recipe for some Grapefruit Icebox Cookies that I had been meaning to try and thought this weather would be the perfect time to give it a shot! Here’s the thing: when I read “icebox cookies” I took it to mean that these cookies were formed and then set/firmed up in the refrigerator or freezer. As in, I assumed there was no baking involved at all. THIS WAS FALSE. And this false assumption was the beginning of the FAIL that would become this cookie making endeavor. Yet! This post is not all doom and gloom! You see, while I was faced with failure after failure during the course of these cookies coming to fruition (we will get to the details in a due time), with a bit of ingenuity and good old-fashioned rollin’ with the punches, the cookies eventually turned out just fine much to my delight and that of my grateful coworkers (maybe I can call them friends now?!). I guess the moral of the story is: sometimes perceived failures still work out in the end. You don’t have to scrap a whole project or recipe just because you bought white grapefruit instead of the prettier and sweeter ruby red version. (This mistake becomes egregious when I reveal that my new job is actually at a Whole Foods where I ring up produce all day. I SHOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE GRAPEFRUITS. AND THERE ARE SIGNS DAMMIT.) Despite my initial shoulder-slumping disappointment upon cutting open the fruit to reveal a humdrum, dull yellow pulp, I persevered with the recipe. I mean, a grapefruit is a grapefruit, right?

THEN came head shaking disappointment #2. I did not have enough grapefruit zest because even though the recipe suggested grabbing two grapefruits, I only got one and then after juicing half of it I immediately tossed it in the garbage, without zesting it at all. That’s half a grapefruit that could have been zested gone to waste. And while under normal circumstances I would have considered just plucking it out of the trash, rinsing it off, and pretending that never happened…this particular trash can also visibly contained the morning’s coffee grounds and Mr. Owl’s litter box scoopings. I did not want to add this combination of flavors and toxoplasmosis to my cookies.

THEN came huge sigh #3. I did not have enough grapefruit juice for the topping glaze because I did not read far enough ahead in the recipe and after adding the juice from half a grapefruit to the cookie batter, I thought, “I don’t want this other half to go to waste, I better just eat it.” So I did. Then I read the recipe for the glaze which called for another 4 tablespoons of juice and thought, “You dolt.” ANYWAYS. My point is, that even after all these hiccups, I found some lemons in my fridge and made those Grapefruit Icebox Cookies into delicious Citrus Icebox Cookies. So I guess I am trying to say two things. 1) Even though we have been conditioned to think that failure is an unacceptable, worst case scenario, I think it is okay to fail at somethings sometimes. 2) Even more importantly, some so-called failures really don’t belong on FAIL blogs. They just require a little finagling of semantics and self-acceptance.

Now. Without further ado here is the recipe. Feel free to adapt it in any way you see fit to avoid your own failure.

Ingredients for Cookies (I didn’t draw the ingredients because I really didn’t feel like it. Sorry.)

1/2 cup Earth Balance

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup fresh grapefruit juice

1 tablespoon grapefruit zest

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon corn starch

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for Glaze

2 cup powdered sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons grapefruit juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons red grapefruit zest (or lemon. or lime. or orange. or anything.) for sprinkling

Cream together the Earth Balance and the shortening. Beat in the sugar. I recommend using a mixer for this, unless you also want to kill two birds with one stone and knock out your arm workout for the day. Mix in the rest of the ingredients to form a soft dough. I mean soft, like you think maybe you forgot to add a cup of flour or something. You (probably) didn’t forget. The dough is just soft. Plop it out onto a sheet of parchment paper. You want to try and plop it into a long “log” rather than a round blob. This will help as you roll it up in the parchment to chill it. Roll the parchment around the dough and refine the form of the log a little. Maybe make it a little more rectangular than circular. Then maybe your cookies will look a little more oblong. If you want round cookies, by all means, make your dough log (sorry, that sounds gross) cylindrical. Twist up the ends of the parchment. It should look like a big tootsie roll. Pop this puppy into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. (Or maybe the freezer for like 30 minutes if you are really impatient.)

Once the dough is chilled, preheat your oven to 350° F, line a baking sheet with more parchment paper, and unroll your dough from its wrapper. Slice the dough into 1/4 inch discs and place on the baking sheet. Be warned!! They will spread out quite a bit as they bake. Leave lots of space between the cookies. Bake about 15 minutes, until the edges start to brown. The cookies will seem really delicate when they come out of the oven. Just let them cool on the sheet for a few minutes and then carefully remove them with a spatula and let them cool on a wire rack. (I generally find spatulas superfluous. If you do it just right, you can just ever so slightly twist a cookie and get it off the sheet without dirtying another utensil. HOWEVER. In this case, I highly recommend a spatula unless you want to be eating cookie crumbs.)

While the cookies are baking you can make the glaze. Just whisk together all the ingredients, except the zest for sprinkling, in a small bowl. It should fall in ribbons, not clumps or drips. Once the cookies are cooled, drizzle the glaze on top of the cookies and drop a few shreds of zest on top. Voila! The glaze should set up and not be sticky in like an hour or so. Or you can just keep them in the fridge. Or just eat them all in one sitting. I mean if you persevered through all the near failures that I did, you probably deserve them!

So I am a member of a CSA this summer, and I am super excited.  Every Tuesday, a delightful man from Pennsylvania drives his truck into the hot and grimy city, bearing the fruits and veggies of his labor to share.  Dandelion greens?  Don’t mind if I do!  Fresh blueberries? Yes please!  Zucchini? NO. NO. NO.

Zucchini and I have a complex relationship.  Mostly because I detest it.  My parents have a vegetable garden back at home, and by August, our kitchen would be littered with zucchini the size of a grown man’s calf.  Euch.  And it’s only June.  So if we’re getting four zucchini a week NOW, by AUGUST….I can’t even think about it.

Well, you know what they say.  When life gives you zucchini, make zucchini bread, throw in some chocolate chips, and eat a corner of it every time you walk by.

I like to call myself an experimental baker, but I have to admit, it’s mostly because I’m a little haphazard.  This recipe is based on a recipe for banana bread, and altered to accommodate whatever I had in my apartment.

Ingredients:

One cup grated evil zucchini (about one small to medium zucchini)
1 stick softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (I used white sugar today)
1/4 cup coconut oil (you can also use olive oil, or all butter)
2 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour (one cup white, one cup whole wheat if you want to get fancy)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 – 1 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a small loaf pan.  (This recipe can be doubled to make two small loafs or one large oblong pan.)
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Beat butter/oil and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each.  When mixture is fluffy, add vanilla extract.
4. Add combined dry ingredients to butter, alternating with the grated zucchini, starting and ending with the dry mix.  Careful not to over-mix.
5. Add chocolate chips to taste.  (My taste leans toward more chocolate chips.)
6. Spread batter evenly in the pan.  Bake 40-50 minutes for the loaf, and 35 for the oblong if you doubled.

Be careful not to over-bake, like I did, or else it will come out a little dry.  Next time, I might experiment with a little honey substituted for some of the sugar, to add moisture.  This bread is best kept in the fridge, so it’s nice and cold.

Happy summer and happy baking!

Bethany’s in the process of changing countries, Cristyn’s trapped in the muggy metropolis, and I’m a little preoccupied/overheated myself.

Anyway, so I’m just apologizing. We’ll be back.