On Pleasureful Pastry

Chef Linda's Confection Commentary

Category: Pie

Oregon Strawberries Might be a Mathematical Wonder

By

On May 19, 2024

In Pie

A Mathematical Wonder?

I remember struggling with theorems in ninth grade math.

Was I resisting the mathematical concepts, or was I just a distracted 13 year old in the 1966 social chaos?  I had little understanding of myself, my preferences or my competencies at that age. Life was filled with big resistance.

Some form of inspiration arose in the second semester. I assembled my wits, buckled down and turned in dozens of pages of back homework. Mr. Miller’s educated eyes softened atop a sly smile. “I knew you could do it.”

Have you noticed how understanding shepherds revelation, even accomplishment? The following fall, theorems of corresponding angles, triangle congruence, circles and parallelograms fell into place. Visual evidence accompanied abstract theory. Pythagoras was my friend.

A key insight was that I process information visually and, in fact, it cements images almost photographically. I loved geometry.

In mathematics, the first of Euclid’s five general axioms is: “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”

Translated to food: considering the pairings of chocolate and strawberries and chocolate and bananas, it would then follow that strawberries and bananas have flavor affinities with one another. Hmm.

Mathematics notwithstanding, that distinctive and elevated flavor relationship is also true for strawberries and Oregon’s beloved Marionberry – and other blackberry varieties.

Saying that Oregon grows the preeminent strawberry way understates the significance of the Oregon berry’s history and its cultivars.

There are three types of wild strawberries indigenous to Oregon and Washington. Each variety is noticeably smaller in size than the ubiquitous garden strawberry, grows in very limited areas in Oregon and Washington – the western Cascades, higher elevations – and is distinctly richer in strawberry flavor.

The Oregon wild strawberry had a re-invention at the time of the colonization of the Americas. Breeders began designing strawberry lines that would become more disease resistant… a 10-15-year process from cross-breeding to market. Breeders cleverly placed the flavors of Oregon’s wild strawberries back into the fruit we love today.

“Let me take you down,

’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields.

Nothing is real,

And nothing to get hung about.

Strawberry Fields forever.” Lennon & McCartney

John Lennon had very specific memories as a child attached to playing in the garden of Strawberry Field, a children’s home in Liverpool, England.

 

What’s the first association you have with a fresh strawberry?

Is it tasting the tender burst of sweetness and slight tang?

Was it picking them – perhaps, wild – with friends?

Is your first memory of strawberries in your grandmother’s pie?

How about sandwiched inside layers of shortcake with whipped cream?

What did that experience evoke?

Carefree childhood summers?

A family garden?

Perhaps, the pure pleasure of the intoxicating scent?

 

Humans are wired to taste things deeply, and the memory of a taste or scent often lingers long.

Viewing images and shapes with an eye for scale, balance and triangular proportion serves me well as a pastry chef.

I have the angst of a 13 year old – and Mr. Miller – to thank for it.

 

Essential Strawberry Pie™

Yield: 1, 9″ pie | 8 servings

This is where the strawberry-balsamic reduction we did recently pays off. You may have noticed that I removed the word ‘Marionberry’ from the recipe title. Better that you’re encouraged to make a fabulous spring strawberry pie than to discourage you for lack of fresh Marionberries (which arrive in July) or blackberries. In this recipe, Marionberries/blackberries are optional.

Here, also, is where I make my case for enriched pastry dough. Essential Confection sells our luxurious foundational desserts to restaurants. After sampling a hotel executive chef with our pie, he asked if we could make the crust thicker. Huh? I’d always prioritized a thin, flaky, flavorful crust to ensure our fab fillings were the star.

With some hesitation, I complied and was, admittedly, rewarded. The thicker enriched crust is super-tender, has a lovely mouthfeel and is immensely flavorful. Some might say, it’s the best part of the pie. Debatable, but a lovely and worthy complement to any fruit pie. My fruit pie standard.

Ingredients

~75-100 grams | 2.6-3.5 oz (roughly 1/2 of the recipe yield) Essential Strawberry Balsamic Reduction

725 grams | 25 oz local strawberries, rinsed, hulled, sliced

300 grams | 10.6 oz Marionberries or blackberries (optional – see NOTE)

130 grams | 4.6 oz sugar

31 grams | ~1 oz cornstarch

2.6 grams | 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 lemon, zested

4.2 grams | 1 tsp VE (vanilla extract)

14 grams | 1 T unsalted butter, cut in 6 pieces

2 recipes enriched pastry dough (295-300 grams each, below, or you can use 212-215 grams for a thin crust)

1 egg

15 grams | 1 T heavy cream

NOTE: If Marionberries/blackberries ARE desired in the pie, reduce the quantity of strawberries by 300 grams.

Procedure

Roll one pastry disc to 11″. Fit into a 9″ pie plate sprayed with pan spray. (Prefer Crisco Pan Release) Sprinkle fitted dough with 1-2 T all-purpose flour. Roll the second disc to a 10″ circle. Place atop the bottom dough. Chill.

Combine cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon zest and sugar in a separate bowl. Add fresh strawberries and strawberry reduction (and optional Marionberries); toss lightly. Sprinkle with VE.

Dot filling with pats of butter. In a small bowl, stir together the egg and heavy cream. Brush egg wash around pastry rim. Place second crust on top. Press to seal thoroughly. Cut 4 vents in center of pie; cut 4 other smaller vents, staggered, around outer edge. Egg wash the entire top taking care not to allow wash to slide between the crust and pan. Ensure vents are open.

Bake at 360 F, conventional, for 55-60 minutes or until filling bubbles from the center vents and crust is evenly brown, rotating halfway through.

Cool at room temperature. Gently score top to facilitate slicing. Chill thoroughly and slice.

 

Enriched Pastry Dough

Yield: 7 thin crusts (212-215 g) or 5 thick crusts (295-300 g) each

Ingredients

750 grams | 26.5 oz all-purpose flour

125 grams | 4.4 oz sugar

375 grams | 13.2 oz unsalted butter, in 1/2″ pieces

60 grams (3) egg yolks

188 grams | 6.6 oz cold water

7.5 grams | 1-1/4 tsp kosher salt

Stir flour and sugar in the bowl of a standard mixer. Add the butter; beat until it’s well blended and no large lumps remain. Use your fingers to gently sift through. Butter pieces should be the size of tiny peas when fully blended.

Using a fork, stir the eggs yolks with the water and kosher salt in a large measuring cup until well mixed. With the mixer at low speed, add the liquid to the flour mixture all at once. Beat until it’s completely absorbed and no dry ingredients remain on the bottom of the bowl. Do not over-beat.

Scale dough into either 212-215 gram or 295-300 gram discs. Wrap individually. Use a marker to write an “E” on the wrap and, either, use immediately or freeze. Refrigeration for more than 1-2 days will cause oxidation.

Happy pie making. Buon viaggio!

A Small Step Guide to Helping Flavor Be More of Itself

By

On May 7, 2024

In Pie

I like flavors that hide in plain sight.

Never having been able to (and not expending much energy toward) overcoming my purist attraction for single flavors, I’m all about creating an inobvious mystery to the sweet and savory desserts and appetizers we produce at Essential Confection.

My other preoccupation is texture.

Texture that seeps into my marrow. And stays there. Closed eyes texture. My favorite way to get there is low-slow baking. I’m pretty sure it improves everything.

It’s early, early spring, and if sheer will to bring fruit to market were sufficient, it would have been here two weeks ago. This week my partner, Paul, and I had clandestine knowledge that the first Day-Neutral strawberries may make a covert appearance at our local farmer’s market. The Mother of All Farmers Markets. On the campus of Portland State University.

We dropped everything.

 

The Torture (Pleasure) of Portland Seasons

Today, we are still being punished… ahem… rewarded, with yet another stage of spring. It may be the Spring of Deception, though The Pollening in Mud Season is an undeniable suitor. Cold, wet misery, one might say.

The Pie Day Quandry

Here’s where I get to digress for a teensy bit from the topic at hand, which you cleverly guessed, is a strawberry-balsamic reduction. My as yet unexpressed purpose – there is often an ulterior motive – is strawberry pie. And this is where I circle back to flavors hiding in plain sight.

My premise is that a savory-silky-saporous reduction would bring the kind of mystery I like to slide into pie. Because pie is everything, and I’ve ordained that it is pie season – seasonal naming rights notwithstanding.

… last season’s Essential Bing Cherry-Berry Pie™.

Last summer, Paul and I in flashes of panic and wisdom, scurried to Sauvie Island to purchase a couple of flats of our beloved Oregon Marionberry. Much more on this indigo jewel as we again approach the two weeks of the year the berry is available.

Strawberries and Marionberries… all blackberries, actually… have affinity relationships with one another. So the goal today is to build the bones – a flavor and textural profile – for Essential Strawberry Pie™.

Predictably, the elusive berries had skillfully slid from the farms into the hands of a local fine food vendor who used the opportunity to charge a generous market rate.

We were undeterred.

Can a pie be aware of its own shortcomings? That’s what testing and tasting, and testing and tasting, is all about. Applause, applause.

 

Essential Strawberry-Balsamic Reduction

Yield: 155 grams | enough for 1, 9″ pie

Incorporating a berry reduction into a pie is a low-effort big-payoff step in baking. It’s infinitely adaptable to your own palate and to the type of seasonal fruit in your market. You’re taking a small step to guide the overall flavor into being more of, well, itself.

I’m a huge advocate of keeping a great pantry, both on my shelves and in my freezer. Building those pantry resources over time pays off in every project, every meal.

Only one thing needs to be said about balsamic vinegar. If there is anything other than cooked grape must and wine vinegar on the label, take a pass. In the three categories of balsamic vinegar – Traditional, Condiment Grade, Commercial Grade – Condiment Grade is a great choice for a reduction. Produced in Modena and typically aged for less than 12 years. (Keep a bottle of Traditional, 12-18 years aged, on your shelf to drizzle over fresh berries, au naturel.)

Ingredients

300 grams (~1 quart) Day-Neutral strawberries, like Albion

rinsed, hulled, quartered

36 grams sugar (3T)

32 ml balsamic vinegar (2T)

10 ml orange flower water (2 tsp) (inexpensive at Halal markets)

5 ml vanilla extract (1 tsp)

Procedure

Macerate strawberries and sugar, lightly tossed, in a bowl for 20 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients. Slow-roast on a sheet pan in a 250 F oven for 90 minutes, lightly stirring every 30 minutes.

Cook’s note: roasting delicately-flavored creatures like strawberries at low heat preserves their flavor, and allows other ingredients to further promote it. There’s pleasure in showing care and respect for the pristine ingredient you’re working with.

We’ve taken the first step in producing pies of extravagance and luxury. In upcoming posts, I’ll talk more about my pie preferences… expanding on simple flavor/texture tricks of the trade.

Join us, please! Until then, buon viaggio!

The Pi Day – Pie Day Quandary

By

On February 29, 2024

In Pie

The third month; the fourteenth day. Pi Day! Pie Day! March 14 is the annual, worldwide celebration of the mathematical constant, pi.

NASA scientists and engineers use pi to solve problems and explore the universe. The constant is used to send spacecraft to other planets; to drive rovers on Mars; to find out what other planets are made of; or to determine how deep alien oceans are. NASA issues yearly math challenges to students and amateur explorers to critically inquire the way they do in solving questions about, say, density and volume of rock samples on Mars that the Perseverance Rover will one day bring back to Earth.

Though pi’s decimals are limitless and non-repeating, JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, uses 15 decimal places to calculate interplanetary navigation.

 

Simple creatures like pastry chefs use 3.14 to scale related baking formulae up and down. Satisfying a common need to calculate the volume of one pan vs the volume of another requires little effort with the use of pi.

And… there’s comfort in the constancy of feeling you can exercise a bit of control over a domain that morphs endlessly. (Liquid : dry ingredient ratios vary with the freshness of the ingredient; humidity in the baking environment quickly transforms a tried-and-true recipe into a seized mess, etc.)

Costing recipes – using the metric system, of course – to four decimal places allows us to be reasonably precise about our profit margins. High school math, in action every work day.

 

We also love supporting other creative, adventurous confectionery souls who have beauty and love to spread. (Check out Salvatore Hall’s launch of #oneeightyconfections with four kicking pieces of artisan chocolate. He partnered with super-cake maven Johannah Zuniga, owner of Dream Cakes on Valentine’s Day, and we we lucky enough to snag their offering.)

 

As a poet, I love the rhythm of 3.14159. Last year in the “Voraciously” column of the Washington Post, Aaron Hutcherson wrote the following little ditty, explaining it as “the cheer used at the math and science high school” he attended during sports games:

Secant, tangent, cosine, sine

3.14159!

We all have ways of amusing ourselves…

 

Pi Day – Pie Day

Here’s a snippet of a poem I wrote to new bakers that will be the intro to my e-book, published later this year:

“Science, now the clever, stealthy patron

lays in wait, tugging at the baker’s imagination; no mercy.

3.14159.

Raise the hem of mystery

to reveal the cook’s

new nourishment.

Curtsy to

The Light:

Pi.”

 

All of this is to say that we’re celebrating Pi Day – Pie Day, too. We’re making four, 6” (only) pies available to our Portland Metro customers for pickup or delivery on or before March 14. Essential Apple. Essential Oregon Cherry-Berry. Essential Shaker Lemon. Essential Cranberry-Citrus. All restaurant-quality. As we approach the end of the glorious Q124 citrus season, any excuse to use exquisite tangerine-essence Meyer lemons and luscious, sweet Mandarins is excuse enough.

 

This whole exercise falls into the category of “a little bit of something special” but mostly, it’s just fun.

We look for things that offer comfort and humor. I hope you’re looking, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pie Baked in Humility

By

On November 9, 2018

In Pie

A sweet custard crevasse…

Two days ago I was trouble-shooting the unhappiness on my assistant’s face when he was pondering a batch of watery, curdled creme brulee. We decided the cream mixture was too hot to be tempered into the whisked eggs and sugar. My best advice: Have an inquiring, scientific mind and a small ego. Start over.

I’m living my own advice. The pastry goddess has her arms around me. That’s what I told myself each of the six times I failed to bake a perfect Creme Fraiche Pumpkin Pie. The dreaded pumpkin pie crack. Ugh.

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Research and experimentation are two of the things I enjoy most about being a pastry chef. Ingredients are notes on a page of music to me. I love evaluating ingredient performance. Nonetheless, my good humor spiraled downward each time I tweaked my recipe and had the same failure.

And tweak I did. Unbaked enriched crust; par-bake; fully pre-bake. Reduce whole eggs; increase yolks. Evaluate ratio of eggs to pumpkin custard. Evaluate ratio of sugar(s) to pumpkin custard. Does it stabilize or weaken? Analyze what effect the creme fraiche had as a liquid ingredient. I did a spreadsheet of three recipes to evaluate ratios of all the ingredients I wanted in my pie, and was prepared to swallow the frog of releasing or scaling down an ingredient, if warranted.

A major x-factor is my oven. I have the luxury (also interpreted as a curse) of using a combi oven… that is, a combination of convection and humidity. For the first three months I worked in the restaurant, the oven was smarter than me. Very humbling. Now, we hold hands. It only pokes at me occasionally, just often enough to ensure my ego never inflates.

Does a baked custard benefit from humidity? What percentage humidity? Is convection a detriment or an asset because it accelerates cooking? Set the (raw) crust and custard at a high heat as I do with my hazelnut cheesecake, then turn the heat down? To what temperature? 25 degrees less than a still oven? 50 degrees? How do you test for doneness? Dry edges and a slight jiggle in the center? None of this worked for me.

When I finally satisfied myself about ingredient ratios and a fully pre-baked crust, I remembered a blurb of advice from a pastry chef about baking any type of custard at a temperature below the 212 F boiling point in a convection oven. This was after the 6th failure. I also remembered the reco to bake to an internal temp (175 F), not a visual cue.

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The alternative at this point was to bake the pie in a still oven, a deck oven, and, frankly, that would have felt like another failure. So I loaded the pastry gun with every gram of steely determination I had left and went for it. Fully pre-baked the crust. Creamed the egg, yolks, sugars, flour. Roasted the pumpkin to remove excess moisure; processed pumpkin puree, evaporated milk, creme fraiche, spices, vanilla extract and salt in the Robot Coupe; blended custard and egg mixture together. Baked at 200 F for 1 hour, 30+ min; no humidity. Visual cues were not present. No dry outer ring. No jiggly center.

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Creme Fraiche Pumpkin Pie

1, 200-g recipe enriched pie dough

1 egg

4 egg yolks

1/4 C brown sugar

1 T all-purpose (AP) flour

2 1/2 C [610 g|7 oz] pumpkin puree

3/4 C [155 g|5.45 oz] sugar

3/4 C [175 g|6.15 oz] evaporated milk

1/4 C creme fraiche

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp vanilla extract (VE)

1 tsp kosher salt

Roll enriched pastry dough to generously fit a 9″ glass pie dish, leaving 1/2″ excess. Turn excess under itself to form a small rim. Freeze dough for 10-12 min, or until thoroughly frozen. Fit a sheet of aluminum foil tightly over entire surface of pastry, snugly fitting foil over pie rim. Bake in 310 F convection oven for 12-13 min, rotating halfway through baking time. Remove foil. Bake for 2-3 min more until pastry is matte.

While pastry is baking, spread pumpkin puree onto parchment-lined sheet pan. Bake for 8 min at 310 F to remove excess moisture. Move warm puree to food processor. Add evaporated milk, creme fraiche, spice, VE and salt. Process until smooth.

In either a stand mixer or by hand, beat eggs, sugar and flour until smooth and somewhat light. Fold pumpkin mixture into beaten eggs.

Reduce heat to 200 F. Pour pumpkin mixture into warm crust. Bake until custard tests at 175 F on an instant-read thermometer, rotating every 20 min to promote even baking. Bake time is 1 hour 30-40 min.

Cool at room temp for 2 hours. Chill thoroughly.

 

A Personal Pastry Hierarchy

By

On August 29, 2014

In Pie

In my own personal pastry hierarchy one category actually ranks higher than chocolate. Berries.  In-season, eyes closed, hands stained, stuff-them-in-your-mouth berries.

I’d only punish myself if I tried to rank my faves so I won’t, because dessert is the opposite of punishment.  I will say that blueberry pie is one of the grand dames for me, a pie so full of itself in flavor and voluptuousness, that I would fight for the last piece of it.  Cold.  Right out of the refrigerator.  Eaten from the pie plate.  Without a fork.

I mastered the minor art of pie dough many years ago when Martha told me I could do it. Actually, my grandmother influenced this process at a somewhat earlier time as I stood in the kitchen watching her literally sling pie dough around without fear.  A German lady with an unacknowledged French gene, she dominated the Crisco dough as she flipped it into the pie pan, slid in the fruit and sugar and willed it into the oven.  The way I knew she was German was that she always gathered the dough scraps and threw them together to make a little pie she called a Dutcher.  No one else in her family knew that.

Martha held dough court using butter as did Julia before her and, to be honest, her basic pie crust recipe never failed.  As a result, my Pie Lady confidence rose like a buoy.  Deep dish pies. Jam tarts.  I searched out any opportunity to find subtle ways to enhance the single berry flavors I loved.

Fast forward to today.  A pastry cook’s interests merge with her training and the guidance she receives in the professional world, which then evolves into her style as a chef. Promoting simple, deep flavor in every dessert is a driver for me.

So, pies are a simple category of desserts.  They actually require little technical skill to do well, and certainly not the skill set a trained pastry cook possesses.  Yet, pies represent what fundamentally attracts us to dessert: a satisfying taste and a connection to that which sustains us.

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Simply, fruit flavors pop when sweetened and when complemented by certain other flavors.  Raspberry with almond.  Black raspberry with anise.  Blueberry with lemon.

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This is all to say I feel a grounding in the quality of flavors which I wish to communicate to readers and, in the future, guests or customers.

Enough said.

Deep Dish Blueberry Pie (from Martha Stewart’s Pies & Tarts) [my editing]

Pate Brisee for an 11″ double-crusted pie, chilled

3 pints fresh blueberries, washed, drained, sorted [I’ve used 7 cups successfully]

Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon [my addition]

1/3 to 1/2 C sifted AP flour

1 C plus 1 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Glaze: 1 egg beaten with 1/2 C heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out half the pastry dough into a circle large enough to fit a 2″ deep 11″ tart pan or deep dish glass pie plate. Line and refrigerate.

Roll out remaining dough to a thickness of 1/8″ and cut out leave shapes using a sharp knife. Make the veins of the leaves by pressing the back of the knife into the leaf. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Mix the blueberries and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle with the flour, 1 C sugar and the butter. Gently toss berries to cover.

Brush the entire pastry crust (edges and bottom) with the egg glaze and pour the blueberries into the shell. Dot the berries with small butter pieces. Decoratively arrange the leaves on top of the fruit [or roll to lattice-work, if you prefer] , covering it almost completely. Brush the leaves with the egg glaze and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp sugar. Bake for 50 min or until the blueberry juices have bubbled and thickened in the middle of the pie. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Pate Brisee

2-1/2 C AP flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp granulated sugar (optional)

1 C (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 – 1/2 C ice water

Combine flour, salt and sugar in processor. Add butter and process for 10 seconds or until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Add ice water a few drops at a time through the feed tube with machine running just until the dough holds together in a ball, about 30 seconds.

Turn the dough onto a large sheet of plastic wrap, and press the dough into a flat disk. Chill for an hour before rolling.

 

 

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