Berry Thyme Pie with Crisp Topping

If you know me and my writing, you know I love to bake pies. With berry season in full swing, I decided to make a mixed berry pie. Only instead of two crusts, I opted to top the berries with my favorite crisp mixture.

My berries of choice were strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. To thicken the inevitable juices I used a mere tablespoon of cornstarch. And for a bit of a twist, I added a tablespoon of fresh French thyme leaves from my garden.

I made the pie for a lunch I threw for my mom and a few of her friends. What made it easier was that I had a pie crust disc in the freezer already. I made it for a meal awhile ago and it was so handy to have that ready to defrost and roll out. So, if you're making pie, make an extra crust or two, shape them into discs, wrap them in plastic, then put them in a freezer bag. The night before you want to bake, defrost what you need in the freezer overnight.

You can do the same thing with my crisp recipe. This is something I always try to have on hand. A batch made with the recipe below will give you enough for a couple of pies at least. Or if you just want to make single serving crisps, cut up the fruit, place in a small baking dish, and then pull out the crisp from the freezer to top the fruit before baking.

I've included one of my favorite pie crust recipes below. This is from Belgian pastry chef and owner of Michele Coulon Dessertier. It's very easy--made strictly with butter, not butter and lard or Crisco. That means you should invest in the best butter you can find. For more tips I've learned from Michele, take a look at the piece I wrote years ago when she taught me how to make this crust.

Berry Thyme Pie with Crisp Topping
(printable recipe)

Yield: 1, 9” pie, 8 servings

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

5 cups assorted fresh berries

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1 pie crust (see recipe below)

Crisp mixture (see recipe below)

Directions

1. Mix together sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Add berries and thyme and gently toss to combine. Let stand, stirring occasionally while you roll out the crust. 

2. Roll the pie crust on a lightly floured surface into a 13” to 14” circle. Carefully transfer into a deep, 9” pie pan. Trim overhanging dough to 1” and fold underneath along the edge of the pie pan, then crimp decoratively. Freeze the crust for 20 minutes and pre-heat oven to 400° F.

3. Spoon berry mixture into chilled crust. Evenly sprinkle crisp topping over the berries. Place pie on parchment-lined baking sheet to catch any runover. Bake pie until crust and crisp topping are lightly brown—about 55 minutes. Cover the pie loosely with foil if the topping browns too quickly. 

4. Remove pie from oven and let cool before serving—at least 3 hours. 

Pie Crust à la Michele Coulon

Yield: 2 pie crusts, top and bottom. Cut recipe in half for 1 crust.

Ingredients

4 cups flour

1 teaspoons salt 

1 pound cold European-style butter cut into 1-inch chunky pieces

Directions

1.  Mix until coarse crumbs form.

2. Add 12 tablespoons or 160 grams ice water.

3. Mix until just blended. Shape into two discs. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate. 

If you don’t plan to bake the pie within a couple of days, wrap well and freeze. Later you can defrost the discs overnight in the refrigerator.

Caron’s Crisp Mixture

What I love about this recipe is that I can make the mixture in advance and store it in the freezer. 

Makes 8 to 10 servings, depending on how much you use per serving.

Mix together:

2 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

1 ½ cups lightly packed brown sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon fennel pollen

1 cup unsalted butter, melted

Store in the freezer until you’re ready to bake.

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The Big Holiday Pie Roundup: You Can Do It!

With Thanksgiving coming up later this week, I thought it would be helpful to do a roundup of all my pie-baking posts. Pies--or more specifically, pie crusts--seem to give people the most angst of all Thanksgiving dishes.

I've been baking pies since I was a teenager, more or less successfully. But over the years I've gained confidence, especially since 2011, when I went on a tear talking with San Diego pastry chefs about their pie-baking techniques. I learn, I try, I repeat. I learn more, try something new, and either go with it or revert back to the other technique. Regardless of what I do, I feel like I understand the science of it more and so can correct mistakes or make my own choices.

Over the years, I've met with Michele Coulon (Michele Coulon Dessertier), Rachel Caygill, Tina Luu, Kathleen Shen (Bake Sale Bakery), and Nick Brune (Local Habit). Finally, if the whole crust thing is still too intimidating--or you're just not into crusts, you can try my apple pie crisp.

First up is Michele Coulon. I loved the pie-baking experience with her. She basically just put me to work and had me make the pie as she instructed me. Michele is all about the butter--unsalted European butter. She has some very fundamental opinions about baking apple pies--everything from what type of pie plate to use and avoid to whether or not to add spices. So take a read. You'll find a great mentor here, like I did.

Then, there's Rachel Caygill, formerly the pastry chef at Bankers Hill. What a terrific teacher. We miss her terribly in San Diego, but while she was here she gave a group of bloggers a pie-baking class and invited me. I learned about making crusts in a very traditional way with a combination of butter (for flavor) and lard (for flakiness). You'll want to try this option, so read about it here.

Tina Luu recently left her long-time position as instructor at the Art Institute. Before she left, she invited me (or I invited myself--I can't remember) to her pie and tart class. What a revelation. Here's where I began to learn the science of pie doughs, like the differences between pie and tart doughs, how to create a flaky crust, and what options there are to do it. We also learned a lot about fillings and layering flavors. Dig deep here.

Kathleen Shen invited me to her pie-baking class at Bake Sale Bakery earlier this year. I came to the class thinking that I already had the skills, but Shen is a terrific teacher and the hands-on class she runs is irresistible. She gives you the confidence to go out and bake pies for every occasion. I learned so much here, mostly about technique. Like not fully incorporating butter and shortening into the flour when mixing because,"You want those pieces of fat because they create pockets of steam and thus flakiness," she explained. "And you want to minimize how much you work the dough to avoid developing gluten. Then the dough gets tough. Instead, it should just hold together." Here's another piece to read if you can't take the class. (Take the class!)

Now Nick Brune didn't teach me how to bake a pie crust, but he did share his secrets for baking a traditional Southern Buttermilk Pie. It's easy to make and will thrill your holiday guests as a change up from traditional custard pies. Add this to your repertoire.

Alright, maybe neither all these chefs nor I haven't convinced you. Or, maybe, like my dad, you don't love pie crusts--you just love the filling. For you I offer the apple crisp. This recipe makes baking a dessert easy and still feel traditional.

Caron's Crisp Mix
(printable recipe)

What I love about this recipe is that I can make the mixture in advance and store it in the freezer. Then I can create an individual serving for myself or a large dessert for company, using whatever fruit is in season. In cool seasons, I peel, core, and slice a Granny Smith apple. Then I toss the slices in a small amount of flour and sugar, and place the slices in a large ramekin or individual pie dish that I lightly coated with baking spray or vegetable oil. I’ll pull out the crisp mixture from the freezer and spoon out just enough to top the fruit, then bake. In less than an hour I have a pretty healthy, fiber-rich dessert.

Makes 8 to 10 servings, depending on how much you use per serving

Mix together:

2 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

1 ½ cups lightly packed brown sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon fennel pollen

1 cup unsalted butter, melted

Store in the freezer until you’re ready to bake.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare fruit. Toss with a little flour and sugar. Arrange in a baking dish lightly coated in baking spray or vegetable oil. Top with enough crisp mixture to cover the fruit. Store remaining crisp mixture in the freezer.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until fruit is bubbly and the topping is browned.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Easy as Pie at Bake Sale Bakery Class

There's clearly something I find addictive about pie baking. It's not just that I love to make them. It's that I can't stop learning how to make them from the experts. First there was my Nana Tillie, who had me rolling out dough for Thanksgiving apple and pumpkin pies when I was a kid. Much later I took classes at Great News!. Several years ago it got downright crazy--in a good way. Baker Rachel Caygill taught a class that highlighted her butter and lard recipe and technique. Michele Coulon of Michele Coulon Dessertier taught me her strictly butter approach. I got teased with techniques (but no recipe) by my buddy Elizabeth Harris of Betty's Pie Whole. And last summer I took a pie-making class that's part of the culinary degree curriculum pastry chef Tina Luu teaches at the Art Institute of San Diego.

You'd think I'd have had my fill--but no. When I learned that Kathleen Shen of Bake Sale Bakery teaches baking classes and that a pie-making class was coming up, well, I signed up, curious to see what more I could learn. And my intent that evening was to do what I often do at cooking classes when I'm going to write about them. Hover and take notes and photos. But Shen is an irresistible instructor and I found myself with a dusty camera by the end of the class because I couldn't keep from participating.

The class is intimate. Six students around a large marble-topped table. What's so brilliant about it is that it's both hands on and demo. Shen and her boss, owner Terryl Gavre, have figured out what concepts--like making the dough and piping meringue--students need to do at that moment and what can be done in advance and simply explained, along with a fulsome recipe. So, we learned technical skills and we learned why we do what we do so that, as Shen explained, we can figure out how to fix things when they go wrong. That's powerful knowledge in the kitchen.

We started out making a basic pie dough, of course. Shen likes the classic blending of butter (for flakiness and flavor) and shortening (for tenderness). She explained the science behind keeping the ingredients cold and why you want to have packets of fat. "You don't want to work all the fat into the flour," she explains. "You want those pieces of fat because they create pockets of steam and thus flakiness. And you want to minimize how much you work the dough to avoid developing gluten. Then the dough gets tough. Instead, it should just hold together."

Through the process of mixing it ourselves we learned how it should feel. Our dough, which we pressed into a disk, went into the fridge to cool. Then, with pre-made dough disks, we learned how to roll it out--always a source of anxiety. Shen's technique worked for me. Brush with flour and let the rolling pin do the work, not my arms. Roll. Turn it a quarter. Roll. Turn. Roll. Turn. You end up with a nice evenly rolled circle that doesn't stick to the surface. (For extra flaky dough, you can also fold your rolled out dough into quarters and roll it out again--like laminating dough for croissants or puff pastry.) Fold the now large circle  gently into quarters and lift it into the pie plate. Unfold. Press into the plate and that's it. Sure made me look good.

She taught us great tips for how to blind bake dough for pies with liquid fillings, like lemon meringue and chocolate cream. She taught us how to effectively add a second, top crust to a fruit pie so the edges would be both pretty and contain the filling. (Fold the top dough over the bottom at the edge, press to close, then crimp.)

Shen also gave us tips for creating novel crusts. Instead of graham cracker crust for our chocolate cream pie, she gave us a primer in making a cookie crust. Make a chocolate chip cookie dough, sans the chips, bake it, run it through the food processor to get the crumbs, and add sugar and butter. Then press into the pie tin and refrigerate until ready to use. Want to add some extra structure to a pie dough for lemon meringue? Instead of rolling the dough out with flour, use graham cracker crumbs.

We then learned techniques for making chocolate cream and lemon curd for our pie fillings. On individual propane burners we each prepared our chocolate cream after Shen demonstrated the technique. We poured the cream into our already prepared cookie crusts. Then she did a demo for the lemon curd and taught us how to make meringue, offering some great tips. (Use a clean bowl and room-temperature egg, add cream of tartar to relax the whites and only add sugar once there's volume in the whites.) Then we each had to each use a pastry bag with a tip to pipe it onto our lemon meringue pies, which then went into the oven.

We did all this in just over two hours. And we got to take everything home with us that we'd made: our chilled unbaked dough, an uncooked but oven-ready strawberry rhubarb pie, our chocolate cream pie just needing whipped cream, and our stunning lemon meringue masterpieces. Plus recipes.

Since lemon meringue pie is my mom's absolute favorite, I took it over to her the next day. She only allowed me a small bite, but it was terrific. Even overnight the crust remained flaky and the meringue stiff. The lemon filling was a perfect melding of tart and sweet. My mom says that she doled out small pieces to herself for a couple of days and even with the last piece the crust remained solid, not mushy. So, we've got splendid recipes and techniques here!

I'm feeling even more confident now.

Bake Sale Bakery holds a variety of pastry classes year round. To find see their schedule, go to http://bakesalesd.com/events/category/classes/.



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My Top 10 Online Thanksgiving Resources

I know. You're frantically scurrying around town to pick up all the ingredients and other supplies for your Thanksgiving extravaganza. But, how are you set for how you'll actually prepare your spread? We all know that Butterball has its inimitable hotline (800-288-8372) for freaked out turkey cooks, but where else can you turn for great recipes, advice, or inspiration. Well, here are my top 10 picks:

• The Splendid Table: I adore Lynne Rossetto Kasper and her weekly radio show. But don't miss out on her website, which has all sorts of great advice and recipes focused on Thanksgiving this week. If you need a turkey carving primer, it's there. A change of pace for cranberries? How about a Cranberry Port Gelee? 
• Gourmet.com: Yes, gourmet.com is an endless source for anything about food, but this specific page turned me around when it came to roasting turkey. Go with high heat. Here, this archived and priceless advice from Kemp Minifie explains how the Gourmet test kitchen tried every possible roasting scenario and returned to this method. Plus. there's advice on how to select a turkey and how to prep it.
• The California Cook: This is renowned food writer Russ Parsons' LA Times column. This particular link, though, is utterly charming as he recounts his mother's relationship with her Thanksgiving cranberries. It's something many of us of a certain age will relate to. But, of course, click on the link for the recipe. Too many people are intimidated by the idea of making cranberry relish, but it couldn't be easier--or more tasty than the canned.
• Food52: Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs have done a brilliant job of pulling in home cooks and curating recipes. But it goes way beyond that. Witness this wonderful, much needed piece on 5 Thanksgiving Disasters and How to Fix Them. Dry turkey? No problem. Yikes, you forgot to defrost it and it's Thanksgiving morning? There's a workaround here. Also, you must watch Amanda and Merrill making a Brown Butter and Cheddar Apple Pie with Dorie Greenspan.
• Zester Daily: If you love to read about food and you haven't discovered Zester Daily, give this roundup of their Thanksgiving stories a look. Zester Daily's writers are food culture junkies dedicated to their craft, many with name recognition like Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Here you'll find her pumpkin risotto, but you'll also discover Martha Rose Shulman's turnips and Louisa Kasdan's examination on to brine or not to brine the big bird.
• Dorie Greenspan: Dorie is one of America's finest bakers. Take a look at this gorgeous Cranberry Crackle Tart she developed for Thanksgiving, and then scan the site for inspiration for other sweets.
• Dessertier: This is Michele Coulon of Michele Coulon Dessertier's peripatetic blog. She doesn't blog much, but it's always worth a look. Last year, she did a three-part post on making pumpkin pie, including homemade pumpkin puree. It's worth the effort and Michele does a beautiful job explaining the process. If you're more of an apple pie fan, take a look at the fun we had making apple pie last year. This is the pie I make for my family and friends.

• Nourish Network: Lia Huber's innovative site that focuses on a nourishing, eco-conscious approach to food has a terrific Thanksgiving page with features that speak to the issues you'll face before, during, and after the feast, including testing your leaveners before baking, wine pairing, and dealing with leftovers.
• Punk Domestics: This site, created by Sean Timberlake, is dedicated the art and culture of preserving. I did a quick site search on Thanksgiving and it popped up with all sorts of creative ideas, including Cranberry Conserve with Apples and Pecans, Apple Sauerkraut au Gratin, and Pumpkin Pie-Infused Liquor.
• The New York Times Dining & Wine Section: I know, how original, huh? But where else can you get the wisdom of Bittman, Clark, Asimov, and Fabricant in one place? This special Thanksgiving section offers Jacques Pepin's Steam Powered Turkey, Melissa Clark's Breakfast Muffins, and even a "Thanksgiving-erator" quiz to help you plan your menu. 

That's it! Enjoy your meal, but more than that, enjoy the people you're with and the memories of loved ones who may no longer be with you (that's my Nana and Poppa up at the top--and while I miss them terribly, I love all this photo represents).

Happy Thanksgiving!

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"True" Tuscan Kale Salad

If you've been on my San Diego Foodstuff Facebook page, you probably saw a post I wrote just over a week ago: "I think my current favorite flavor combination is lemon, garlic, olive oil, and salt. Made the best kale salad with that as dressing, plus grated Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. I thank Nathan Coulon for that..."

Nathan Coulon, of course, is the chef and member of Cooks Confab who had been at Modus, at Quarter Kitchen, and, of course, long ago, at his mother's pastry shop, Michele Coulon Dessertier. A San Diego native, he'd departed for awhile to join True Food Kitchen--and now he's back and opening San Diego's  True Food Kitchen this week in Fashion Valley.

Nathan, Michael, Mike Bragg, and me--refusing to relinquish the salad

Nathan, and his boss, former San Diego chef Michael Stebner (Region, Nine-Ten, Azzura Point), recently were guests on the radio show I had hosted, Wine & Dine San Diego Radio, to talk about True Food Kitchen. They stayed afterwards to do a video demo of one of the restaurant's dishes. And that's how I was introduced to this fabulous kale salad, which, Nathan acknowledges, is a recipe originally created by Dr. Andrew Weil, a partner in the restaurant.

There's nothing fancy or complicated about it, but the flavors are perfection. Raw kale can be tough and bitter, but the lemon juice in the dressing "cooks" the kale and tenderizes it. The olive oil (use a great one), the cheese (again, use the best you can afford), the red pepper flakes, and the bread crumbs give it a richness of flavor and texture that makes this salad wonderful not just when it's freshly made but also the day after. In fact, it may be the only leafy green salad I enjoy when it's wilted a bit.

This will be my summer go to. When I made it this week, I topped it with toasted walnuts. It's perfection on its own, but you can add nuts, dried fruit, other vegetables, roasted shrimp, fish, or other proteins to it for a more filling meal. Or enjoy it in all its splendid simplicity.

Thanks, Nathan! I'm looking forward to True Food Kitchen's opening this week!

True Food Kitchen Tuscan Kale Salad
From Nathan Coulon
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
4-6 cups kale, loosely packed, sliced leaves of Italian black (Lacinato, “dinosaur,” cavolo nero), midribs removed
Juice of 1 lemon
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed
Salt & pepper, to taste
Hot red pepper flakes, to taste
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Toscano cheese (Rosselino variety if you can find it) or other flavorful grating cheese such as Asiago or Parmesan)
½ cup freshly made bread crumbs from lightly toasted bread

Directions
Whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper, and a generous pinch (or more to taste) of hot red pepper flakes.

Pour over kale in serving bowl and toss well. Add 2/3 of the cheese and toss again.

Let kale sit for at least 5 minutes. Add bread crumbs, toss again, and top with remaining cheese.

My home version...

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