When you are baking a fruit pie, the filling usually goes into a pie plate lined with uncooked pie dough and everything bakes together. There are quite a few types of pies out there – including many cream pies – that call for a prebaked pie shell without giving you much instruction on how to get the pie crust baked. Prebaking a pie crust is also known as “blind baking.”
The first thing you’ll need is a piece of pie pastry large enough for a 9-inch pie (recipe here). Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to fill a 9-inch pie plate. Transfer the dough to the plate and press into place. Crimp or trim the edges of the dough, then chill for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator to allow the dough to relax (this will help prevent the crust from shrinking as you bake it).
Once the dough has rested, use a fork to lightly prick the bottom of the pastry. Take a sheet of aluminum foil or parchment paper and press it into the pie plate, gently pushing it right up against the pastry. Fill the sheet of foil or parchment paper with pie weights, dried beans or even uncooked rice to hold it in place. This weight helps the pie dough hold its shape.
Even if you have a very large oven, sometimes it just doesn’t seem like there is enough space in there to bake everything that you want to bake. This is particularly true around holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, where many of us entertain large groups of family and friends for holiday dinners, but can be true any time of year that you are having guests over for a big meal. My oven, for instance, only has two racks and there are times when I’ve had to be a little creative in what pieces of bakeware I use to fit everything in there! Scandinavian designer Christian Bjørn developed this Oven-to-Table Stacking Bakeware Set that essentially puts several extra shelves in your oven. The ceramic baking dishes come in three sizes: Small (4.7″ w x 6.7″ l x 2.5″), Med *9.4″ w x 6.7″ l x 2.5″) and Large (9.4″ w x 13.8″ l x 2.5″ t) that are stackable in any number of different configurations. What makes them special is that they have scalloped cut-outs around the sides to ensure that there is plenty of airflow between each stacked layer so that everything will cook evenly no matter how you arrange them in the oven.
The dishes are all microwave, oven, freezer and dishwasher safe, so they’re easy to use and easy to clean and you’ll find yourself using them more often than just around the holidays. They’re also more than attractive enough to use as serving dishes.
Vinegar pops up in some baked goods as a quick and easy way to add an acid to a recipe, allowing a leavening agent like baking soda to get a little extra lift when added to a batter. Vinegar is rarely used as a flavoring agent and in the recipes that call for it, you can almost never taste it in the finished product. These cookies are an exception to that general rule because they use balsamic vinegar to add an extra tangy sweetness to a fudgy chocolate cookie.
I adapted a basic cookie recipe that which originally came from Alice Medrich recipe and has been a favorite of mine for years. The cookie itself is slightly chewy and tender, with a great dark chocolate flavor to it. The dark chocolate flavor comes from a generous amount of cocoa powder in the cookie, as well as some tangy plain yogurt in the cookie dough. I added some balsamic vinegar to the dough in addition to the yogurt this time around. I used a very syrupy, sweet Vanilla Balsamic Vinegar that a friend shared with me recently. It added a little extra depth of flavor to the cookies and a hint of fruitiness, without making the cookies taste like vinegar.
I’ve used balsamic vinegar in the past to highlight the sweetness of fresh berries, as the acidity of the vinegar (and the underlying sweetness of most balsamics) serves to highlight the natural sugars in berries. To play off the sweet-tart vinegar even more in this recipe, I marinated some dried cherries in a bit of vinegar before adding them to the cookie dough. Pick a sweet, syrupy balsamic vinegar that you like the flavor of for this recipe. The vinegar doesn’t come close to dominating the chocolate, but you’ll get a better result when you start with ingredients that you like on their own.
Cake decorating is an art form that is slightly more difficult to master than the televised cake-decorating competitions make it seem. Leveling cakes perfectly, getting a flawless layer of fondant and making a realistic looking rose out of sugar or icing are techniques that take more than a little bit of practice. The best way to learn the art of cake decorating is with a lot of hands-on practice, preferably with a skilled decorator looking over your shoulder to help you out. If you don’t have a master decorator on call, getting a detailed book written by one is the next best option.
Mich Turner’s Cake Masterclass is a book all about the art of cake decorating. Mich Turner is a highly accomplished baker and cake decorator who has put together a beautiful volume that will give anyone a solid course in cake decorating. The book starts out with some basic cake recipes, the types of recipes that provide good bases for decorated cakes. The next chapter is devoted to frostings and fillings, including recommendations for what types of frosting to use in what situations (and what can and cannot be refrigerated when you’re working in advance. The flavors are great and this is a chapter that, even if you’re not into decorating, most bakers will get great ideas from. The last few chapters are about the decorating, from preparing the cake layers to be covered all the way through the finished, artfully decorated, layer cake.
The decorating techniques described in the book range from simple to advanced, but each and every one is carefully explained and illustrated with many beautiful (and helpful) photos. It is as close as you’ll get to having a pro stand there and teach you in your own kitchen. There are designs for kids’ cakes and for elaborate wedding-type cakes, and they all seem accessible. If you do want a little bit more visual help, Turner has a few videos on YouTube that will give you some tips and basic techniques when you’re ready to get started:
Update: The US edition of the book is called The Art of Cake and it should be a little bit easier to find in bookstores and online. I haven’t done a side-by-side of the two editions, but they cover the same stuff with the same great tips.
Strawberry shortcakes are one of my favorite summertime desserts because I just can’t get enough fresh strawberries when they’re in season. I typically chop them up and add them to a shortcake whole, with just a little bit of whipped cream to dress them up. This time I did something a little bit different and added a tropical guava-spiked syrup to the filling. This made for a much more moist and flavorful strawberry shortcake dessert!
The shortcakes I used here are actually coconut scones. They’re light and buttery, with a generous amount of shredded coconut in the mix that gives them a tropical flair – and it also makes them much more interesting than the bland sponge cake that is so often used to make shortcakes. I added a little vanilla extract to the scone dough to highlight their sweetness. You could boost the coconut flavor by adding a little bit of coconut extract, too. The scones are actually delicious on their own, but the make a good base for these shortcakes because they are sturdy and are flavorful enough that they aren’t completely overwhelmed by either the strawberry syrup or the whipped cream topping.
The filling for these shortcakes starts with a very easy to make strawberry guava syrup (essentially the same syrup that I used to top these pancakes) that comes together in the microwave in just a few minutes. The strawberries in the syrup break down a bit during cooking, so I added back some freshly chopped strawberries to the mixture just before spooning it onto the shortcakes. Every serving is going to have great flavor, great texture and lots of berries. The syrup can be used warm or chilled if you want to prepare it in advance. The scones can also be prepared a day or two in advance and stored in an airtight container before assembly.
Cake decorating is an art form that is slightly more difficult to master than the televised cake-decorating competitions make it seem. Leveling cakes perfectly, getting a flawless layer of fondant and making a realistic looking rose out of sugar or icing are techniques that take more than a little bit of practice. The best way to learn the art of cake decorating is with a lot of hands-on practice, preferably with a skilled decorator looking over your shoulder to help you out. If you don’t have a master decorator on call, getting a detailed book written by one is the next best option.
