It Looks Just Like The Picture!

I know you’ve done it: you see a beautiful photograph of some food item on a cookbook or magazine, and you buy it, full of hope that you will be able to recreate it in your own kitchen.  It rarely comes out looking just as wonderful as that enticing photo, although it usually tastes pretty good.  Then there is the rare occasion when the stars align and magic happens.

This recipe came from the Fall entertaining issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.  It snagged the cover shot and was the main reason I purchased the issue.  I dreamed of serving this beautiful pie to my loved ones on Thanksgiving.  It turns out dreams do come true!

One of the most interesting things about this recipe (and there are a couple) is that there is vodka in the recipe for the crust.  Apparently it is an irreplaceable dough tenderizer.  I happened to have a bottle of Grey Goose on hand for holiday entertaining, so I went for it.  The dough works up beautifully, and after I had rolled out the crust I had to taste it.  Not a whiff of the booze.  And it baked up beautifully and tasted great: flaky and light yet substantial enough for the tart filling.  I made a double batch and used the same dough for my pumpkin pie and it turned out beautifully as well.

The other interesting bit about the recipe was that you cook the cranberrry filling and apple filling seperately before putting them in the pie shell.  I was concerned that the filling would be mushy by the time the crust was finished baking.  I used golden delicious apples, and they held up well through both cooking experiences.  Tart cranberries, sweet-tart apples, and tender buttery crust.  What could be better on Thanksgiving?

Bakery Catch Up

Well, it’s been a bit quiet around here, hasn’t it?  My sincere apologies.  I haven’t been blogging, but I have indeed been baking.

As the crisp air of fall settled in and I could stand having the oven on for extended periods of time again, I made a simple pledge.  Bake something once a week.

That first week I made pumpkin cookies using a recipe from a fellow knitter and baker, A Friend to Knit With (view it here).  They were very soft and moist, and the texture was more like a muffin than a cookie.  They actually reminded me of muffin tops (the tasty kind, not the unflattering kind some of us have).

Then I made some cupcakes for Halloween.

Last week, in celebration of election night, I made an O cake in red, white and blue trimmings.

I used a chocolate organic cake mix that I found on the regular baking aisle at Stop & Shop, Dr.Oetker Organics.  Sometimes these things can turn out badly, but this was great.  It tasted like homemade, with just the right balance of sweetness to a more acidic chocolate flavor.

And finally, this morning I made a batch of chocolate chip Blondies.  The recipe came from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, The Foster’s Market Cookbook.  These were easy to make, but they use a ton of pantry staples, so if you aren’t stocked up on butter and brown sugar things could get dicey.

The recipe calls for 2 cups of pecans in addition to the chocolate chips, but I left those out, opting instead for another cup of chocolate.  When was too much chocolate every a bad thing?

I trimmed the edges off and crumbled them up to save for ice cream sundaes.  I had never made Blondies before, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these bars taste like thick, chewy chocolate chip cookies.  How could some of that goodness be bad sprinkled over ice cream?  In fact, one bar would go great under a scoop of ice cream drizzled in chocolate sauce.  I must be hungry…

As the wind whips through today and seperates the last of the leaves from their trees, I am comforted by the warmth and sweet smell of baking.  Do you have any baking pledges?  Are you thinking about holiday baking yet?