Pastry battles

[muckefuck]

My father makes excellent pie dough. But despite making a living as a teacher, he never managed to teach his children how to cook anything. Mom's cooking was--to put it politely--serviceable. She taught me cakes (more often than not from a box mix) and quickbreads, but anything more challenging than that--anything featuring shortening (like pastry or biscuits) or yeast (like bread and pizza dough) was beyond her ken.

As a result, I find most baking somewhat intimidating. My experience with dough (as opposed to batter) is a sad story of disappointment, littered with tough, inedible corpses. I'm somewhat astounded by my recent success with coques and its got me thinking of attempting Waie once more. Still, when the responsibility for making dessert at last week's festive dinner fell in my lap, I wasn't willing to go head-to-head with Dad and monshu by making a traditional pie crust.

Instead, I sought out a recipe for German Mürbeteig, which is subtly different and commands a fond space in my memory of my time abroad. Mimi Sheraton promised me a dough that was "foolproof" and she was damn near right. Even pressed for time, racing around under the impatient eye of the GWO, I managed to make a decent fist of it. My two mistakes were (a) trying to roll it out between sheets of wax paper (I've got bad memories of sticky doughs) and thereby incorporating some of this into it and (b) underbaking it.

Nevertheless, everyone had praise for the lemon-walnut flan from monshu's Julia Child book. I liked it because it's cheesecake-like but bakes up lighter, and it really showed off well the black walnuts Dad gifted me with for Christmas. After the flour had settled, I still had a ball of dough and a half cup of ground walnuts, and I began asking myself what good use I could put those to. (Fortunately, the dough keeps well in the fridge so I had some time to think it over.)

I finally had the sense to check the Joy of Cooking and found a "nut tart". Essentially, it's what Sheraton would call an "Auflauf", a simple soufflé combining eggs, sugar, nuts, and a little lemon juice. (Egg whites! Something else that have always bedeviled me!) Rombauer calls for muffin tins lined with tart dough, but I figured the little cassoleta we had handy would be exactly the right size and I was proven correct.

To avoid sogginess, I not only baked it blind as I did the previous pie but I removed the foil for a bit to dry out the crust more. I also let it go for a good half hour, trying not to check it too obsessively. It rose beautifully and had the sticky sweetness of a good pecan pie without resorting to that horrible Karo syrup. It was all I could do not to eat the whole thing myself instead of saving half for the Old Man as I'd promised.

Comments

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

Yummm! Black Walnuts!

I have some in the freezer that I ordered from Texas. They bring back happy memories of the nut huller at Highway 45 and Crossover Road who would pay you a few dollars for a large bag of unhulled nuts.