Blueberry Hand Pies

Fruit + sugar + thickener + pastry. This isn’t a recipe, per se, so much as a technique; some of the best ones are. The blueberries around Baltimore are incredible right now—plums too. Raspberries, grapes, and ground cherries keep popping up, and it’s been a delicious season for white peaches and nectarines as well. You can make fah-ncy pop tarts out of any of this stuff by cooking a small amount of fruit into pie filling and then stuffing your favorite pastry with it. Rye pastry, rye pastry with beer, frissage’d buttery goodness, the food processor method, even a lard-based or cream cheese dough would work here: this is a pie for people who love crusts. And if you’re inclined toward blueberries, the filling outlined below is a super delicious way to go: strictly blueberries, sugar, salt, and thickener, there’s no lemon or vanilla to complicate flavors; it would work for any fruit. Here, the result is unbelievably berryish. Plop some hearty spoonfuls of cooled filling onto the pastry of your choice, seal, pinch, egg wash, toss with sugar, bake, and there you have it. Summer in an unfussy, buttery envelope.

Assembly

1 full recipe pastry (rye pastry below)

Fruit filling (blueberry below)

Egg wash + large-grain sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 400, and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Divide pastry in two, and roll out into long rectangles, about an eighth-inch thick. Working with one at a time, cut each half into an even number of smaller rectangles or squares; these are the tops and bottoms of your hand pie. I made six giant pies, but you could make little square pockets or stamp out round ones too.

2. Place your bottoms on the cookie sheet, line the edges of each piece with egg wash, then spoon your cooled filling into the middle. I used a little more than a quarter-cup of filling per hand pie. Top each piece with its matching pastry, then press down the edges to seal; use a knife or rotary cutter to trim up the edges before pinching decoratively. Egg wash the tops, coat with large-grain sugar, poke some holes or slits in the top, and chill in the fridge or freezer while you assemble round two.

3. Make sure both sets of pies are very cool before baking; about 30 minutes in the freezer should do it. Pop them into your screamin’ hot oven, and bake for about ten to 12 minutes, until pastry is golden and filling is bubbling out the top or around the edges. Cool, and enjoy! Best if eaten within one day.

Rye Pastry

Adapted from Kim Boyce, Good to the Grain

For rye dough

1 cup rye flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ sticks (6 ounces) cold unsalted butter

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Ice water

1.  Sift the flours, sugar, and salt into a large bowl, dumping any grains that remain in the sifter back into the bowl. Cut the butter into half-inch pieces and add to the mixture. Rub the butter between your fingers to break it into smaller bits, until the butter ranges in size from hazelnuts to peas; work quickly!

2.  Add the vinegar and eight tablespoons of ice water to the mixture, using a rubber spatula or your hands to cut the liquid through the dry ingredients. The dough should come together as one shaggy lump. Squeeze it together to see if a ball forms, and if it’s too dry, add more water one tablespoon at a time until dough comes together. Pile the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, sprinkle with a few dots of water, wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.

3.   (This next bit is a tad technical, but folding and rolling the dough like this creates seriously flaky layers of pastry.) Unwrap the dough on a floured surface and pat it into square. Roll it out to a rectangle that’s roughly 8 ½ by 11 inches. The dough will be crumbly, but fear not! It will come together. For the first turn, fold the dough in thirds like a letter; the seam should be on the left. Rotate the dough so that the seam is at the top and parallel to your body, and roll out into an 8 ½ by 11 rectangle again. Fold and roll again, and repeat the process for a third, final time. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for another hour at least, until ready to use.

Blueberry Filling

1 pound blueberries

2 ounces granulated sugar, or half honey, half sugar

.5 ounces cornstarch or tapioca starch

healthy pinch salt

1.  Whisk all your dries in a bowl, making sure the cornstarch is well blended. Toss the berries and dries in a wide, shallow pot, and cook over the highest heat, stirring all the while. The mixture will be dry at first, but in just a few minutes, the juices will start flowing and the filling will turn dark, beautiful purple. Continue cooking until filling boils, then boil for two to three minutes, until the opacity and smell of the cornstarch dissipate; you shouldn’t be able to taste it at all. Pour the filling out into a dish, press plastic to the top to prevent a skin, and cool in your fridge for about an hour or two.

Black Fruit Tart: Figs, Grapes, and Blackberries

Years ago, there was one particular tree in my Berkeley neighborhood that dripped with Black Mission figs all throughout the summer. Its proximate sidewalk was littered with sweet, rotting fruit—this was prior to the agricultural foraging maps that are all up on the internet now—and every walk or bike ride braked for a figgy snack. It was cherished excess.

When I finally moved out east, I was sorely disappointed to learn that figs are somewhat of a rarity ‘round these parts, and good figs are even more of a wonder. But a few weeks ago, our oyster shucker and resident knower of things was explaining an island off the coast of Maryland where an acquaintance is growing a whole orchard of four heritage fig breeds. This mythical person infrequently gives cuttings to compelling Baltimore folks, apparently. And a few days ago, our barista brought in a bucket of the most beautiful, tiny, yellow and purple figs foraged from my neighborhood (BUT WHERE?!). So maybe the figs aren’t so plenteous as be sidewalk litter, but they’re here.

Originally plotted to be a breezy peach and blueberry pie, this tart happened when my market proffered black seedless grapes, blackberries, and Celeste figs all on the same table. So rich that it’s almost savory, this is a bitter chocolate and red wine tart, or a sitting outside at 3:00 a.m. talking with your roommate and not missing California tart. A west coast dessert with a dark and jammy east coast edge. The rich fruit combination won’t be for everyone, but the fruit + jam technique will work to showcase whatever your summer has on hand, be it nectarines and blueberries, plums and currants, peaches and more peaches, or your long-lost favorite fruit. The method, inspired by Kim Boyce, is also here with an apricot blackberry tart, and here, with an apricot sugar plum tart.

Black Fruit Tart

Makes two

1 full recipe pastry dough (below)

24 to 30 figs, stemmed and halved if small, quartered if large

1 cup blackberries

1 cup black seedless grapes, whole

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons black currant jam

4 tablespoons sugar

pinch salt

1 egg + milk + large-grain sugar for finishing

1. Divide your pastry in two, and work with one piece at a time. Roll out your dough to two 15-inch circles; trim rough edges. Slide onto the back of two parchment-lined sheet trays and chill while you prepare your filling.

2. Add your washed and cut fruit to a large bowl, and toss with two tablespoons of jam, your sugar, and salt.

3. Smear a quarter-cup of jam across each pastry round, one at a time, and evenly divide and arrange the fruit in a circle, leaving a two- to three-inch border of crust. It’s okay to freewheel it here: the piled look is just fine. Fold the edges of your crust up, pleating as you go, then freeze for about a half-hour to rechill your dough.

4.  Meanwhile preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Whisk your egg with a splash of milk until no streaks remain, and brush the top of your crust with it. Toss your large-grain sugar generously and evenly over the tart crust and center. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, rotating pans halfway through, until crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling. Can serve hot out of the oven or cooled to room temperature!

Pastry Dough

From Apt. 2B Baking Co. and I Made That!

12 ounces pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

8 ounces (two sticks) very cold butter

4 to 6 ounces ice water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1.  On a clean counter, dump your flour and salt; mix it around with a bench scraper. Chop one stick of butter into quarters, and cut it into the flour with your bench scraper. When butter is about the size of lima beans, cut in the second stick, pulling, folding, and tossing with the bench scraper as you go, until the butter is about the size of quarters. Add the vinegar to the ice water.

2. Using your fingers, flick the water onto the butter-flour mixture, gently folding with the bench scraper all the while. You have added enough water once the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should still be very shaggy.

3. Next, push the butter into the flour. Using the heel of your palm, push a small section of the dough down and away from you; this creates long layers of butter in your dough, which translates to long flaky layers in your crust. Use your bench scraper to scrape up the smear, and put it a bowl. Repeat until all the dough has been smeared and you have a bowlful of long, buttery layers. Push these into one mass, divide in half, wrap each in plastic, flatten into disks, and chill at least two hours, or better yet overnight.

Stone Fruit Hazelnut Tart with Corn Flour Crust

Time really is a luxury these days. It’s rich to even notice when I’m too busy and to be able to contrast it with my more free-wheeling moments, but damned if I ain’t truly swamped. When my folks came out to visit a few weeks ago, my dad set about installing a set of gorgeous shelves in our sweet little kitchen. I thought I’d fill them up right quick with kitchen paraphernalia, but they’re stocked with nary a thing as I’ve hardly stepped foot in that bad boy since moving to Baltimore. Well, unless you count traversing the kitchen on the way to the back porch for too many 4:00 a.m.-beers and Spray Tan cocktails.*

This tart, then, is sort of a time suck miracle, borne primarily of the guilt of buying way too damn much produce at the farmers market that I found en route to Woodberry. These yellow egg plums—firm, fleshy, and sweet—sat sad on the counter next to a few wilting white peaches before I eventually mustered the stomach to be in My Kitchen on a rare day off from The Kitchen. And so I took a page from Yossy’s book, and cobbled the thing together as quickly as possible—press-in shortbread crust, no macerating, no chilling, a few ground hazelnuts because they’re the best—and there you have it. A surprisingly quick, easy, and downright good summer dessert: the barely sweetened fruit sings above the hazelnuts, and the corn flour tart shell is like one big salty-sweet cookie. Get busy or don’t, but definitely make this when you’re looking for an easy way to showcase that summer stone fruit.

*Ahem: coined by my sister in honor of my fantastic roommate, the Spray Tan is tequila, lime, and pompelmo, usually accompanied by a watermelon snack. Get it.

Stone Fruit Tart
Adapted from Apt. 2B Baking Co.

For the crust

4 ounces corn flour (or very fine cornmeal)

4 ounces all purpose flour

1.75 ounces sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 ounces butter, melted and cooled

1 egg yolk

1. In a medium bowl, stir the flours, sugar, salt and lime zest. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add in the olive oil, butter and egg yolk. Stir gently to combine.

2. Turn the dough out into a 10-inch removable bottom tart pan and pat it evenly on the bottom and up the sides. Pop into the fridge while you prepare the filling.

For the Filling

2.5 pounds plums or stone fruit of your choosing

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Scant 1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons demerara sugar, divided

1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast hazelnuts on a baking sheet for eight to ten minutes until the skins are darkened. Wrap them with a clean kitchen towel, let steam for a couple of minutes, then rub together to remove the skins.  Add the nuts and 1/4-cup sugar to your food processor, and pulse until nuts are very finely ground. Set aside.

2.   Turn oven up to 450 degrees F, and quarter your pit fruit while you wait for the oven to heat. Spread the ground nuts evenly over the bottom of your corn flour crust, and arrange plums and peaches evenly on top, in three, tight rings. Top the fruit with remaining two tablespoons of sugar and dot with the butter. Slide tart onto a cookie sheet, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until crust is deep golden and fruit is baked and bubbling. This tart is best if eaten within a day or two.

Honey Rhubarb Fool with Cardamom Chèvre Cream

“New school, new baby pool!” Or rather, new city, new so many tons of things to be doing all of the time, including my brand new intense job, that this will be a quick blog post. When I posted last, I was courting a production baking job in Portland, Maine, and lazing away the start of summer with my folks in their dreamy log cabin up north. All of the sudden, I found myself instead with the pastry opportunity of a lifetime in Baltimore, and I’m here now (!!), working away as a pastry assistant at Woodberry Kitchen. Check ‘er out, dudes. It’s an amazing restaurant, business model, idea, influence, etc., that supports farms all over the Chesapeake Watershed by putting their produce to exclusive, consistent use. Farm-to-table in the sense of it being for the benefit of farmers, more than for the delight of eaters, but delight we do, and it sure is a ton of work. 

On one of my precious days off last week, I hopped down to DC to retrieve all of my things, and whipped up this rhubarb dessert in compensation for my trespassing unannounced in the house of my sister and buddies. It’s an April Bloomfield recipe that I’ve had my eye on for awhile, and in the spate of 90-degree heat, it seemed a lot more appealing than a rhubarb Bundt cake, both to make and to eat. It ended up being finished just in time for a sparkling wine–fueled round of porch Carcassonne and visits from the dearest friends, and I’m so thankful to be back home. So please come visit in Baltimore, and eat at Woodberry Kitchen! I’ll be the gal in the back covered in flour and rhubarb splatters.

Honey Rhubarb Fool with Cardamom Chèvre Cream and Pistachios

Adapted significantly from April Bloomfield, via Lottie + Doof and the LA Times

Here, I used honey in place of sugar, omitted rosewater, reduced the cardamom, and used goat cheese instead of creme fraiche in the cream. The original recipe calls for the addition of one to two teaspoons  rosewater to the rhubarb. I think that sounds good, but I wanted to round it out with honey for a nice base to the chèvre instead. If rosewater is your thing, add it to the rhubarb once it’s finished cooling, a 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until you reach a flavor strength that you’re down with. And to see the original recipe, check out Bloomfield’s book, or pop on over to L + D or the LA Times.

Rhubarb

1 1/4 pounds of rhubarb, topped and tailed, then sliced into 3/4-inch pieces

3 tablespoons mild honey

1 tablespoon superfine sugar

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1.  Toss the rhubarb and sugar in a medium pot. Add the white wine. Use a knife to scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod into the pot, and toss the pod into the pot too. Place the pot over medium-low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb is very tender but still more or less intact, about 10 minutes—keep a careful eye on it as a totally stringy pulp is not what you’re going for here. Set aside to cool.

Cardamom Chèvre Cream

5 green cardamom pods

3 tablespoons confectioners sugar

4 ounces mild, fresh chèvre

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Handful of roasted, salted pistachios, for garnish

1.  Smash the cardamom pods, discard the husks and pound the seeds in a mortar and pestle or grind in a spice grinder until finely ground. If using a mortar and pestle, grind the sugar into the spices toward the end.

2.  Combine the goat cheese, heavy cream, cardamom, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Chill until ready to assemble. When ready to assemble, whisk the mixture to soft peaks—about two minutes.

3.  To assemble: Use four 8-ounce glasses, or a large glass bowl (so as to see the layers, counsels Tim Mazurek!). Layer the rhubarb and whipped cream and top with chopped roasted and salted pistachios. Cover the fools and let them chill in the fridge for an hour or so before serving. They will keep for longer, but really are best served about an hour into chilling.

Rhubarb Pie A La Mode with Rhubarb Syrup

Let’s not beat around the bush—this is my absolute favorite pie. I’ve shared before that I was first introduced to rhubarb by way of a terrible dessert that my grandmother’s older sister made when I was a kid. Once Eloise had left for the night, Grandma Phyllis hung her out to dry during Balderdash, when she submitted as the definition to a squelchy word, “The sound you make after eating Eloise’s dessert.” Sisters through and through. I had rhubarb again as part of the pies made famous by the touristy gold-mining town near to where I grew up, but it was always cut with something: strawberries usually, blueberries sometimes, the occasional cherry bunch, or a ridiculously sugary crumb topping. More recently, I’ve enjoyed it paired with raspberry and with ginger, but rhubarb is absolutely my very favorite when it’s jumbled up with nothing.

Maybe the squelchy Eloise-type desserts of yore gave rhubarb a bad rap, but it never seems to be all that present on restaurant menus. Sure, most people I know love the heck out of it and find infinitely creative ways to use the plant, but I can’t think of the last time I saw a rhubarb dessert on a menu, unless it was strawberry rhubarb pie; even my own main dude, number one eater of rhubarb baked goods spilling forth from my kitchen, “can never remember whether I like it.” Fruity, zingy, earthy in a way—it’s one of the most distinct flavors around, and I’d love to see it get more of its due. In the meantime, this simple pie can be yours. The rhubarb profile is strong, brightened up with a touch of orange, and rounded out with a splash of vanilla. I’ve been experimenting with partially cooking fruit pie fillings, and it really helps nail the consistency here: broken down, but not mushy, juicy, but not runny, tart, but not puckering. And with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of rhubarb syrup? It’s just my favorite iteration of a slice of pie this time of year.

Rhubarb previously: rhubarb ginger jam, rhubarb ginger jammers, raspberry rhubarb crostata, and strawberry rhubarb pie.

Flaky pie crust

Adapted from I Made That!, via Apt. 2B Baking Co.

Makes two crusts, or enough for this double-crust pie. Feel free to substitute in your favorite recipe or technique!

12 ounces pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

8 ounces (two sticks) very cold butter

4 to 6 ounces ice water

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1.  On a clean counter, dump your flour and salt; mix it around with a bench scraper. Chop one stick of butter into quarters, and cut it into the four with your bench scraper. When butter is about the size of lima beans, cut in the second stick, pulling, folding, and tossing with the bench scraper as you go, until the butter is about the size of quarters. Add the vinegar to the ice water.

2. Using your fingers, flick the water onto the butter-flour mixture, gently folding with the bench scraper all the while. You have added enough water once the mixture holds together when squeezed; it should be very shaggy.

3. Next, push the butter into the flour. Using the heel of your palm, push a small section of the dough down into the counter and away from you; this creates long layers of butter in your dough, which translates to long flaky layers in your crust. Use your bench scraper to scrape up the smear, and put it a bowl. Repeat until all the dough has been smeared and you have a bowlful of long, buttery layers. Push these into one mass, divide in half, wrap each in plastic, flatten into disks, and chill at least two hours, or better yet overnight.

For rhubarb filling

Inspired by Apt. 2B Baking Co.

8 cups rhubarb (from about 2 ½ pounds), chopped into half-inch pieces, divided

1 ½ cups granulated sugar minus two tablespoons

Zest of half an orange

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

¼ cup cornstarch

For assembly

2 tablespoons butter cut into bits, optional

1 egg yolk, for brushing onto crust

2 tablespoons granulated sugar, large grain if you’ve got it

1.  In a large, ungreased skillet, mix six cups of rhubarb, the sugar, your zest, and a pinch of salt. Over high heat and stirring gently all the while, cook the rhubarb until it releases its juices; this will only take about three minutes. Strain out the fruit, reserving the juices, and in a shallow bowl, mix the cooked rhubarb with the two remaining cups of uncooked rhubarb and the vanilla extract. Then, in a small bowl, make a slurry by whisking two tablespoons of the reserved, warm juices with the cornstarch until smooth. Fold the slurry into your fruit and pop the bowl into the fridge to cool for about a half-hour; reserve the remaining juice if you wish to make a syrup out of it.

2. While the filling cools, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Roll out one of your pie dough pucks into a 12-inch circle, and fit it into a 9- or 9.5-inch pie plate. Pop into the fridge to chill. Then roll out top dough to 12-inch circle, and if proceeding with lattice top, cut into 11 or 12 one-inch strips. I like to slide my strips onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet and into the fridge while I ready everything else.

3.  Once the rhubarb has cooled, pour the filling into your prepared pie shell. Dot with butter, if using, then weave your lattice across the top, fold the bottom crust up over the lattice edges, and crimp. This is my favorite lattice-top instructional site, although I prefer to use wider strips. Beat your egg yolk with a fork until smooth, then brush it across the lattice and crimp; sprinkle with the remaining two tablespoons of sugar. If you suspect that your pastry has warmed, chill the pie in the freezer for about 15 minutes, otherwise, slide pie onto a cookie sheet or foil to catch any drips, then bake at 475 for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for an additional 30, until the top is golden brown and juices are bubbling. Cool for at least two hours before serving. Pie will keep for three or four days, covered, in the fridge or at room temperature. Put 

4.  If interested in turning the rhubarb juice into a syrup for using atop an a la mode slice, just simmer the juice in a small saucepan over medium heat for about ten minutes, until the concoction has thickened. Stir occasionally throughout, and keep an eye on it, because the syrup will turn to rhubarb caramel in a flash if you’re not careful (although that’s not exactly a bad thing).