Pantry Raid

I'm convinced that a person's pantry reflects her/his personality and mine is no exception. Just like everything else in my life, I get it organized to my liking and then, over time, I get lazy putting things back and it gets cluttered. Then I have to organize it to my liking again and so-on and so-forth. So, I'm curious: what's in your pantry?

Here's (the photo above) what's in mine. It's not the largest of pantries, but I can't complain considering I'm lucky I even have a pantry in my kitchen at all. It serves its purpose, but it does tend to burst at the seems when I get home from the Dekalb Co. Farmers Market.

Maybe this isn't interesting to anyone but me, but I'm always curious to know what staples people keep in their pantries. For instance, as soon as I'm out of organic light coconut milk, I have a little panicky moment, I write it on the ongoing fridge list, and I breathe again.

So, here it is. Shelf by shelf - what's in that crazy mess of jars and Snapware...?

Part I: The Baking Shelf

• Sweeteners: Organic Unbleached Granulated Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar (I just don't see the point in light brown), Icing Sugar (10x), Honey, Molasses, Stevia (I don't use this to bake with, but it's good to sweeten tea and such)

Flours: All-Purpose Flour, White Unbleached Flour, Unbleached Bread Flour, Whole Wheat Flour, Semolina Flour (for pasta and pizza doughs)

Dried Fruit: Cranberries, Cherries, Grapes (haha... raisins)

Chocolate: 75% Cocoa bars, White Chocolate Bar (I'm not a fan of white chocolate (because it's not actually chocolate), but sometimes I find that I need it), Ghiradelli Large Semisweet Chocolate Chips, Natural Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

Other Stuff: Homemade Vanilla Extract (it's just vodka and vanilla beans, folks...) Organic Cornmeal, Wheat Bran, Organic Rolled Oats, Butter-flavored Crisco

So, what's in your pantry?

~ Mari

Blueberry-Peach Pocket Pies

We had an abundance of fresh blueberries in the fridge, so I thought I would use them in these cute little pocket pies (I got the idea from this month's Fine Cooking). They were ridiculously easy because I just happen to keep frozen pie dough around. It's a good idea to make more than you need (I usually do by accident anyway) when you do make pie dough so you don't have to make it every time you need it.

Basically, all I did was mix fresh blueberries, roughly chopped peaches, about 1/4 cup granulated sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, and some ground cinnamon in a bowl. Then I rolled out the pie dough into circles, put a blob of the blueberry mixture into the middle, and folded the sides up all around it.

Then I took the leftover blueberry mixture and cooked it down (with a little water) and made a sauce.

Then I strained the sauce (to get all the peelings and stuff out).

Mmmmm... deep purple goodness...

After the pies cooled, I drizzled the sauce on them and put a dollop of fresh whipped cream (just say NO to Redi-Whip if you can!). DELISH!

Yummers! I loved it because it wasn't too sweet - it was just the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness.

Enjoy!

~ Mari

Making the Markouk

Markouk (mar-kook) is a Lebanese paper-thin flatbread that my grandmother and great-aunt used to help their mother make when they were little girls. When my great-aunt comes to visit over the holidays, she usually brings four or five bags of it with her. Shocker, I know, but no one in Sevier County, TN sells Markouk. And if they did, whoever bought it would probably be lynched for being a "terrorist." Gotta love the G-burg.

Anywho, since our Markouk indulgences are few and far between, Mom and I decided we should figure out how to make it. And, since I'm in "Advanced Baking," we thought we could ask Chef Hallman (the omniscient) if she knew how to make it. Of course, she didn't let us down. And here is what we made today, on our last day of Advanced Baking...

Ladies and Gents... Markouk. Sevier County style.

Ingredients:

3 tsp. instant dry yeast
2 tbsp. sugar
2.5 cups warm water
7 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt

First, combine the flour with the yeast and mix in an electric mixer on low speed (with the dough-hook paddle). Next, add in the rest of your ingredients into the mixing bowl.

(NOTE: When adding "warm" water to any baking recipe, test the water with your finger before you add it. If it feels warm to you (warmer than your body temperature) it is much too hot for the dough and you will start the cooking process to soon. If it feels like your cheek (feel free to feel your cheek... haha), it is the perfect temperature - around 98.6 degrees F).


Mix on medium speed until it becomes a dough glob. As it spins in the bowl, it will pick up the excess flour on the sides.



Once it looks like dough (it will be a fairly stiff dough), cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature until it doubles in size (for the amount of dough in the pictures, it took about 30-45 minutes to ferment).

When it has doubled, dump the dough out onto a lightly floured work space and "punch" it. No, don't hit it with your fist, just stretch it a little and fold the four "corners" underneath until it looks like a smooth ball. Let it rest for five minutes (aka: leave it alone, on the counter).

After the dough rests, divide it into 2 oz. balls. Then flatten each dough ball with your hand, roll it out with a rolling pin, and stretch it with your hands. Honestly, do whatever you possibly can to get it flat and even. If it gets stiff and hard to work with, let it rest again. Dough is quite temperamental when it comes to being poked, prodded, and stretched.

Once they are rolled out, put them on a sheet pan and layer parchment paper between each layer of dough discs.

Now, ladies and gents, comes the fun part. Toss them around! It's great fun, I promise. But, if you are uncoordinated like me, don't be too upset if you lose a few to the floor.

Onto how to cook these bad boys... Traditionally, Markouk is cooked on a heated metal dome. We, however, did not have a fancy Middle Eastern heated metal dome for cooking Lebanese bread, so we made due with what we did have: a Wok. And hot damn if it didn't work like a charm. We just oiled the back of a Wok, put it over a flame (a burner would do just fine), and went to town!

I know that the photo above shows Lanna using tongs... don't use tongs. It rips them to shreds and is quite awkward. Instead, use your fingers to flip the bread once it cooks on one side. But, be careful! Woks are thin and get super duper hot!

As they cook on the Wok bottom (hehe), the will bubble and brown. Yum! Just use your judgment to decide when they are to your liking.

And would you look at that! Fresh, homemade, Lebanese bread in the hills of Sevier County. If you'd told me this would be happening yesterday, I wouldn't have believed you. So, if you are intrigued, I suggest you try it! They were delicious. You can eat them plain, sprinkle them with salt, brush them with butter, or use them to dip into Hummus or some delicious dip. Enjoy making your Markouk! I know we did!

- Mari

A Little How-to-Do

Since I found this fascinating, I thought I would share it!

How to cover the sides of a cake with a chocolate ribbon:

Step 1: Temper chocolate.
Just heat some melting chocolate (nothing with paraffin) in a double boiler until it is melty and liquidy.


Step 2: Spread the chocolate on measured plastic
Measure a piece of shiny, thick plastic (a heavy duty garbage bag would work well) to be the height, width, and circumference of the cake. Make sure that it is a little longer than you want it so you can overlap it a little bit. Then spread a thin and even layer of chocolate on the plastic with a spatula.

Step 3: Put the chocolate ribbon on the cake
Place the chocolate ribbon, chocolate side in, on the cake and press lightly so that the melted chocolate will attach, somewhat, to the sides of the cake.

Step 4: Peel it off

Let it sit for a minute or two and peel the plastic backing off of the chocolate. Try to overlap a little where the seam is. You can take a hot spatula and fix that area later.

Step 5: Ta dah!
And there you have it... a shiny, smooth, and easy way to make any cake more beautiful and, best of all, more chocolate-y!

- Mari

Exam Week

Today was my Bakery Skills practical final exam. I've never taken a practical final... so it was a bit awkward for an essay test-taker pro like myself. But, it wasn't too horrible. We had to draw a random sheet of paper and make whatever was on it. I ended up with Whole Wheat Soft Rolls and Standard Pie Crust. Luckily, I had made both before (except for the whole wheat... which was the tricky part). So, first, we had to convert each formula into the yield amount that Chef gave us. This would have been easy except my roll formula did not have any percentages. So, I had to convert the original weights into percentages, and then do the baker's percentage formula. Not the easiest feat. Especially, since we had never done that before. But, luckily, I studied quite a bit and knew how to do it. If you haven't ever done this before, this part of the post probably makes no sense, but just think of it as weird science/algebra - baking style.

The pie crusts came out great. I was excited about that. I got darn good at making the things the other day when Chef had Megan and I make 20 lbs. of dough... and all the pie crusts that come with it. But, we learned it, dangit! The directions were to blind bake one pie crust and not bake the other at all. And that was exactly what I did.

My rolls, however, were another story. They were just beautiful to behold (as you can see in the above picture), but weighed as much as a darn baseball. When I handed it to Chef Hallman her arm dropped. It was hilarious... at my expense, of course. Hah. I didn't let them proof enough before I baked them, sadly. With whole wheat flour, it takes longer for the dough to rise & proof because the whole grains react with the glutenin and gliadin... causing it not to rise as well. But, you live and you learn. And now I know: whole wheat flour = longer proofing time. Simple, really.

Tomorrow I have two written exams, so I won't be taking pictures (for obvious boring reasons). Wednesday I have my Culinary I written & practical exam. I shan't be taking any pictures, though, since I have to focus all of my energy on my knife cuts, veloute sauce, bechamel sauce, chicken fabrication, and chicken cooking. Sigh... lots to do in only 2 hours!

I'll blog about that later. Right now, I need to try my very hardes to motivate myself into studying. Yeah. We'll see how that goes...

My, Oh My, Sweet Potato Pie

How thrilled were we to be making pie in Bakery Skills? Quite. We were to make two flaky pie crusts, one graham cracker crust, one sweet potato pie, and one key lime pie.

Have you ever tried to make flaky pie crust from scratch? It is not an easy feat. It's quite hard to keep it from being too crumbly... which causes it to fall apart while trying to put it in the pie pan (not that that happened to me...). I definitely over-mixed my shortening into the flour. If you mix it slightly you'll get a flaky crust and if you mix it as much as I did, you get a mealy crust. A mealy crust might be desirable for a custard, but not so much for a sweet potato pie.

The pie filling came out quite well, though. Lots of brown sugar and evaporated milk (makes a more rich pie than whole milk). Yum. Mine might have gotten a little overcooked, but nothing too bad. You want the middle to be very jiggly when it comes out of the oven. Mine was only slightly jiggly. Fail. :)

The key lime pie came out pretty good... looking, that is. We didn't get to try either pie in class, but I got to taste the sweet potato pie today in Culinary Cafe. It was divine. I always thought pumpkin pie was the perfect fall pie... I was wrong. Sweet potato pie is amazing (especially with REAL whipped cream).

So, I am quite excited about the upcoming weeks. I have to make a ginerbread house or a specialty bread for the final baking project. I'll definitely put some pictures up of that. I'm also choosing my classes for next semester. Ace of Cakes... here I come (I'm taking cake decorating)!

Off to watch the most important election.... ever. I hope I won't have to stay up too late, considering I have to be in class at 8:00 am tomorrow. ;)

"I Would Buy One!"

Our assignment (after making literally tons of gingerbread sheets) was to make cookies... any cookies from a formula in our text book. My group (Megan, Jeff, and I) had trouble choosing between peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. So, we made both.

They were quite easy to make... and were delicious. One woman in our class took a bite and said, "Oh... I would definitely buy these cookies." I thought that was a good compliment.

Did I mention they were HUGE? We use ice cream scoops to scoop out the batter onto the sheet pans... and I think we got the big scoops today. Either that or we were making them the size of our hunger. Never make cookies on an empty stomach.

So, it was an enjoyable day in the bakery. Good cookies, good times.