Applesauce

'Tis the season... for applesauce! Actually, it's almost past, but in most places you can still get apples for a pretty good price right now. Depending on where you live, you may still be able to go and pick your own in a nearby orchard. (My favorite site for finding pick your own farms is this one here.)

I love homemade applesauce. However, I am an applesauce snob, for sure. While you can make decent applesauce out of almost any variety of apples, there are a few apples that excel in this department. While everyone has slightly different taste and texture preferences when it comes to applesauce, I am all about Cortland apple applesauce. I first came across this apple in 2006 when we lived outside Dayton, Ohio. Once I tasted Cortland applesauce, there was no going back. It has the perfect balance of tart and sweet. The finished texture is everything I want in an applesauce: it breaks down nicely but doesn't end up mealy. It makes life easy because I don't need to run it through a food mill (although you certainly can, if you prefer that texture). They are a beautiful apple. Red with green streaks and green at the stem end or on the shoulders (watch out, if the green is too extensive, then the apples are not fully ripe). The flesh inside is quite white and is slow to brown. While they are not a super crisp apple, they are still wonderful for eating out of hand. I love them. Unfortunately, until recently, it'd been a few years since I'd come across Cortland apples.

A couple of months ago, we went on a short vacation to Door County, Wisconsin. Low and behold, I came across a bag of Cortlands in one of the farm stands there. They were a little pricey, so I only bought a half-peck bag. Unfortunately, that batch of applesauce was small enough that I polished it off in only a few days. I started looking for more. I was so excited when I found a half bushel at the last farmers' market of the season... and for a decent price too! I polished off half of that batch of applesauce in a few days before I managed to finally put some in the freezer. I was a little despondent because I knew that wouldn't last me long (and my boy, who loves the stuff, has started to put away his fair share). Wouldn't you know that the very next time I went to the grocery store, they had Michigan apples, including Cortlands, on sale for 59 cents a pound? I now have fulfilled my applesauce destiny for the year!

In the last eight years, I have processed a LOT of apples. Bushels and bushels and bushels of apples. The method of preparing apples that I will share here is, in my opinion, by far the most efficient way out there. The other day I processed a peck and a half (about 15 pounds) of apples about 45 minutes. Here's how I do it. You need a paring knife, a vegetable peeler, and a melon baller.

Step One: Cut all of the apples in half. This method is an assembly line method. As the years went by, I found I used up a lot of time picking up and setting down my tools. I discovered it was much more efficient to do each step to every apple before moving on. You do not need to worry about excessive browning if you are doing a bushel or less, especially if you are using Cortlands.

Step 2: Core the apples with a melon baller.

Step 3: Notch out the stem and blossom end with a paring knife. It is important to do the coring before the notching in order to save time. Since the melon baller is only so large, you can easily cut out any core or stem bits you might have missed in step 2.

Step 4: Peel with a vegetable peeler. You can use a paring knife. but I find two problems with that. First, I end up with a lot more of the apple on the peel and I like to maximize my efforts. Second, I find my hand cramps a lot less using the vegetable peeler when I'm doing a large batch.

Step 5: Cut the halves into wedges and put them into a heavy duty pan. Obviously the size of the pan needed will depend on how many apples you are cooking.

Now that the hard part is done, you can while the afternoon away to applesauce nirvana! Add a small amount of water to your pot (I use about 1/4 cup water per peck of apples). Place the lid on the pot and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples have broken down. They should break apart as you stir. When the apples are close to being completely broken down, add your sugar. There is no recipe here because every batch of apples have a different sugar content. For a peck, I usually start with a half cup of sugar. Stir it in and then taste. Add more as necessary until it is right for your tastes. I like to add cinnamon as well. Again, it's all personal preference, so simply add a small amount at a time and keep tasting. Continue cooking until the applesauce is the texture you want. I think I usually cook my applesauce for between one and two hours. Cool and refrigerate or freeze... or can!

If you want to can the applesauce, you can process it in a water bath canner. If you have never canned before, you can check out my Canning 101 post for instructions. Applesauce should have a half-inch head space and be processed 20 minutes for both pints and quarts. Please note that when canning applesauce, I strongly recommend leaving the jars in the canner for 5 minutes with the heat off after the processing time is done, as they can ooze horribly if you yank them right out of the hot water. Lastly, when canning applesauce, I always add extra water to the mixture before putting it in the jars. I find that the applesauce thickens during canning as moisture is lost during the pressurizing process and I find it unappealing.

Whole Wheat Pasta

There's just something about homemade pasta. In particular, there's really something special about homemade whole wheat pasta. In my opinion, most store bought whole wheat pasta just isn't worth a darn. Now, I won't lie to you... making pasta is definitely more labor intensive than opening a box, but I'd say it's worth it - at least some of the time. What does that mean? It means that depending on what I've got going on, either I will open a box or I will prepare a batch of noodles from scratch. The nice thing, is that you can make extra when you do make homemade noodles and freeze or dry them for future convenience.

Making whole wheat pasta surprisingly provides you with a plethora of options. Not only can you decide how much whole wheat flour you want to use... go with 100% or 25%, whatever you fancy, but you can decide which type of whole wheat flour to use. Five years ago, when I first came across white whole wheat flour, it was a bit tricky to find. Now days, however, it seems to be everywhere. White whole wheat is only different from your typical whole wheat in the type of wheat berry that is ground up. Your regular wheat flour is usually a hard red wheat. White whole wheat is hard white wheat, which is lighter in color and more delicate in taste. In the picture below, you can see the differences (from left to right) between white whole wheat, regular whole wheat, and all purpose flours. I chose to use white whole wheat for this pasta because it would have a softer, milder flavor that I think is better in a pasta. After all, for the most part, pasta is a vehicle for other flavors; it shouldn't overpower them.

I strongly advise using a stand mixer to make this pasta. While you can mix the dough by hand and roll it through a hand-crank pasta mill... phew! I've done it. it's hard work! The KitchenAid will do most of the heavy lifting for you. Mix all the ingredients in the bowl of the mixer, fitted with a dough hook. Turn the mixer to speed 2 and process until the mixture is completely wetted. Notice that it will never completely come together on its own, but will continue to look like crumbles. Once it is completely mixed, continue processing for another 2 minutes.

Because ambient humidity can lead to significant differences in the moisture of the dough, you will need to test the moisture level of the dough. To do this, turn the mixer off and grab a small handful. Squeeze it together. If it forms a cohesive mass, then you are good to go. If it falls back apart, crumble the handful back into the mixer bowl and add another tablespoon of water. Mix for 1-2 minutes before testing again. Continue until the moisture level is right.

Grab handfuls of crumbles and press them together to form balls. Shoot for 8-9 balls. Place them in a plastic bag to keep them from drying out. Let them rest for 20-30 minutes. You will be amazed what that short amount of time will do to the texture of this dough. When you first shape them, the dough will be fairly rigid and slightly crumbly. Afterwards, it will be more tender and malleable. It's still a stiff dough, but you will definitely be able to tell the difference.

After the dough has rested, pull one dough ball out at a time. Press the ball flat on the counter.

Feed the dough through the flat roller fitted to your stand mixer. Start with the widest setting. The first couple of feeds, all on setting one, are a continuation of the kneading process, so don't skip them. I run it through the first time just as the flattened disk. Then I fold the result over and feed it folded seam first back through the roller, still on setting one.

After doing that a few times, the shape is often a bit funky, so I fold it up like a tri-fold brochure.

I then feed the tri-fold brochure through the roller open end first. This leaves you with a nicely shaped piece of dough. It takes a little practice to get it perfect, but remember, even if it doesn't look perfect, it will still taste good!

Now you can start reducing the width of the rollers. Once I get off setting one, I only roll it once each through the remaining settings. In this case, I went up to setting seven; I wanted my pasta fairly thin.

The dough gets really dang long, so I cut it into manageable lengths with a pizza cutter. In this case, I cut them into 6-8 inch lengths. The dough is dry enough that it can be stacked without the layers sticking together.

The next step is to cut the pasta. I made fettuccine. I placed a large bowl underneath the cutter to catch the pieces. What is that in the bottom of the bowl, you might ask? Semolina flour, which is a coarsely ground flour works really well to keep pasta from sticking together. What is great about using the semolina in this function, is that it falls off the dough when you cook the pasta. If you use all purpose of whole wheat flour to keep the dough from sticking, it gets goopy and sticky when the pasta cooks and makes a bit of a mess of it.

Periodically, toss the pasta around to get it well coated so that it doesn't stick together.

Lay it out on sheet pans while you cut the rest of the pasta. You now have a couple of options: you can cook the pasta immediately, you can let the pasta sit on the counter until you are ready to cook the pasta, you can spread the pasta out a single layer thick for a few days until it is brittle dry, or you can gently place it into bags and freeze it.

If prepared fresh, this pasta takes almost no time to cook... 2-3 minutes at most, so be prepared!

Whole Wheat Pasta

Yield: 1 - 1 1/2 pounds of dough

3 1/2 cups flour (for proper hydration, use at least 50% whole wheat)

1/2 tsp salt

4 large eggs

water

semolina flour, for dusting

In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour and salt. In a liquid cup measure, break four whole eggs. Gently beat and then add enough water to make one cup of liquid. Add the liquid to the flour mixture. Process on speed 2 until it is completely wetted. Check for proper hydration by taking a small handful of the mixture and squeezing it into a ball. If the ball falls apart, add another tablespoon of water and process again. Continue in this manner until the dough forms a nice clump, then mix another 2 minutes. Press the crumbles into 8-9 balls of dough. Place in a plastic bag to rest for 20-30 minutes. The dough is then ready to be processed in a pasta mill. For details of this processes, see the above post.

Croissants - Mastered!

Aaaacckkk! I just went to make a batch of these and realized, the hard way, that there was a typo in my recipe. I have made the adjustment below so it is now correct; I had an extra cup of water written into the recipe. I'm so sorry if anyone ran into problems because of this!


I am so excited to share this with you today. I absolutely love it when I finally get something right. After my initial flops and then the tasty, but not quite the real thing attempt, it just makes me giddy to get it right. You should have seen me crouched in front of the oven the other night giggling with excitement as I watched these bad boys bake.

I've made three batches of these things in the last four days. The first batch was good, but wasn't folded enough (I'll talk about that later). The last two batches were a controlled experiment where I only changed the type of yeast (and I'll talk about that later too). All in all, after these three batches, I feel very confident that I could whip out croissants with success whenever I want. I like that feeling! I like it a lot. And now I am excited to share it with you so that you can jump right to that success part without having to eat croissants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for four days straight.

Don't worry, it's a sacrifice I am only too happy to make for you! .:burp:.

The first step is making the dough. There is absolutely nothing strange about making the dough. It's like making any other basic bread dough. I like to use my stand mixer, but it's a dough that could easily be made by hand. Knead for about five minutes and then place in an oiled, covered bowl and let rise at room temperature for one hour. Knock the dough down by folding it over on itself two or three times. Cover it back up and refrigerate for 8-16 hours.

In my previous attempts at croissants, I tried too hard to simplify the butter process. For proper flakiness, you must follow this process exactly! Fortunately, it's not a hard process, just a little involved.

The first step is to prepare the butter packet. To make a well shaped butter packet, let a piece of parchment do the work for you. This is a half-sheet of parchment that I folded into a roughly 7x9 inch envelope. If you have a roll of parchment, that might even be better; the more overhang you have on your folds, the less they want to open on you while you are rolling the butter.

Once the packet if folded, open it up and place your butter. One batch of croissants requires two sticks, or half a pound, of butter. You want it cold, but not rock hard. If it's too hard, just let it sit for a few minutes. Now, these are the long skinny butter sticks; in some places you may have the short fat butter sticks. Don't worry, you just may want to cut them a little more to facilitate pounding them out. In this case, notice how the butter has no more than an inch to spread in any direction.

Fold the packet back up and place with the folds down. Get your rolling pin out and get crazy! As you might imagine, you may not want to do this while the baby is napping. It's noisy! My dog was very concerned at first. Pound, pound, pound! It may be necessary in the beginning to rearrange the parchment slightly to maintain your packet shape. Once it's pounded fairly flat, then you can start rolling the butter toward the edges.

It softens up as you work, so it ends up being fairly easy to make a nice flat packet. Once it's finished, stick it in the refrigerator to firm back up for at least thirty minutes.

After your butter packet is chilled, get your dough out. Dump it onto a lightly floured board and start to roll it out. Use flour as necessary to minimize sticking, but try not to use too much. Roll the dough into a rectangle of such a size that your butter packet will sit in the middle as shown. The nice thing is that you can actually use your wrapped butter packet to test your size. Once you have it right, peel off the butter from the parchment and onto the dough.

Fold over the ends so that they match evenly in the middle. Pinch together to seal. Also pinch the edges together to seal. Notice that the butter did not go right to the very edge of the dough; that gives a little room to press the edges together.

Rotate the dough 90 degrees so that the sealed ends are now at your 12 and 6 o'clock position. Roll the dough out, again adding flour as necessary to keep the dough moving nicely, until it is about the width of your rolling pin and a little over two feet long. Don't forget to rotate before starting to roll! It is very hard to roll against the folds.

Once it is long enough, cut off the uneven edges. Cut off about one inch from each end. Not only does this tidy up the impending seam, but it ensures that the butter now goes to the very end of the dough. Discard or save the dough for some other purpose (more on that another day!).

Now, fold the dough into a tri-fold brochure. Make sure to keep the edges as even and neat as possible. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least thirty minutes. After thirty minutes (or longer), roll out again with the folds on the side and the open edges at top and bottom. Roll out to the same dimensions as before and make the same tri-fold brochure (called a "single fold" in the pastry world). Refrigerate for thirty minutes before doing it one last time. All in all, you will complete this roll and fold scheme three times. Again, work carefully to keep things as straight and even as possible.

After the last fold and chill routine, roll out the dough the same way as before, but this time, try to get it fairly thin. Shoot for at least 2 1/2 to 3 feet long (still less than a rolling pin wide). It will fight you at this point and will not want to get much thinner than a quarter of an inch. The gluten in the dough may also be making things a little challenging, but don't worry, it will all work out in the end. Use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut triangles out of the dough. You can experiment with croissant size, but a four inch wide base is a good starting point.

Cut a small notch in the base of the triangle and then stretch the dough out a bit. Place the triangle back on the counter and pull the two notched edges apart slightly and then start rolling toward the peak of the triangle. Place the now rolled croissant with the point down onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

Brush the rolled croissants with egg wash and let sit to rise at room temperature until at least double. Depending on your household temperature, this process may take one to two hours. I recommend against covering since they are so delicate at this point. If they seem like they are drying out at all along the way, brush them again with egg wash. Once they are nice and puffy, brush them one last time with egg wash and place into a preheated 425° F oven to bake for 20-25 minutes. Do not remove them until they are nicely browned. The outside should not start browning significantly until the inside is well baked. Gently remove to a cooling rack to finish cooling. To store for less than 24 hours, simply wrap is a flour sack towel. If storing for more than 24 hours, place into an air tight container after they are completely cooled.

Now, a couple additional points of interest. This picture here shows what happens if the dough is not folded enough. See how the flakes of dough are very easy to see? Each time you complete a single fold, the dough between each layer of butter gets thinner, leading to more flakiness. These croissants were good, but the texture was not quite as flaky as you expect from a true croissant.

The other point I want to mention is yeast type. When making enriched and/or laminated doughs that have a lot of fat or sugar in them, it is recommended that you use osmotolerant instant yeast. (I got mine here.) Most of the literature I've read describes the need to use osmotolerant yeast in high sugar dough because sugar tends to rob the yeast of moisture, which can lead to uneven rising. While I've found no discussion on how osmotolerant yeast helps high fat dough, most of the professional formulas I've seen for high fat dough call for this special type of yeast.

How important is it? Well, as you can see from the picture below, in croissants, not hugely so. The croissant on the left was made with osmotolerant yeast while the one on the right was made with regular instant yeast. Notice that the crumb of the croissant on the left is a little more open? It did make a difference, but not enough that you should worry about making croissants without it. If you're an absolute perfectionist in the kitchen like I am, then you'll probably want to order some, otherwise, soldier on.


Croissants
Yield: 8-16 croissants, depending on size

3 3/4 cup bread flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp table salt
2 tsp (osmotolerant) instant yeast
1/2 tsp malt powder (see note below)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 TBS butter
3/4 cup + 2 TBS warm water

Butter packet: 1/2 lb butter (2 sticks)

In a stand mixer, stir together the first five ingredients. Heat the milk and butter together in a microwave until lukewarm. Add the milk/butter mixture and the water to the mixer bowl and, using a dough hook, mix on speed 2 until it starts to form a ball. Once it forms a ball, mix on 2nd speed for another five minutes. Place dough into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature for one hour. Knock dough down by folding it over on itself 2-3 times. Return to the bowl, recover, and place in the refrigerator for 8-16 hours.

Prepare the butter packet by folding a sheet of parchment into a roughly 7x9 inch envelope. Slice two sticks of butter in half the long way and lay into the middle of the parchment envelope. Close the parchment and pound and then roll the butter until it has evenly filled the parchment and is nice and flat. Chill for at least 30 minutes before using.

Roll the chilled dough out on a lightly floured counter until it is a rectangle slightly larger than twice the size of your butter packet. Place the butter packet in the middle of the dough so that it is sitting long ways across the short direction of the dough (see photos). Fold the dough around the butter packet, pinching to seal.

Rotate the dough ninety degrees so that the folds are on the sides and the pinched edges are along the top and bottom. Roll into a long rectangle a little more than 2 feet long and about the width of your rolling pin. Carefully fold the dough into a tri-fold brochure, making sure the edges are nice and neat. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. Repeat the roll out, fold, and chill routine two more times. Always be sure to place the dough and roll with the folds on the sides and the "open" ends at top and bottom.

After the last chill period, roll the dough out (folds on sides again) so that it is the width of the rolling pin and 2-3 feet long. Use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut into long triangles with the base around four inches wide (you can play with this dimension to adjust the size of your croissants). Cut a small slit in the middle of the base of the triangle and then stretch the triangle slightly. Pull the edges of the base of the triangle and roll up. Place with the point tucked on the bottom onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush with egg wash and let rise, uncovered, until doubled and puffy. Brush with egg wash again before baking. Bake in a preheated 425° F oven for 20-25 minutes, until nicely golden. Carefully move to a cooling rack to cool completely. If storing for less than 24 hours, wrap in a flour sack towel. If storing for more than 24 hours, store in an air tight container.

NOTE: While the malt is not technically required for this recipe, I think it really adds to the authentic flavor of these croissants. I used diastatic malt powder, but it doesn't really matter if you use diastatic or non-diastatic malt powder, as in this case, you are only using it for the flavor.

Pizza Crust

The other day I posted a recipe for a great calzone in which I urged you to make your own crust. I suppose if I am going to do that, I should probably suggest a good recipe to you. This is the crust I use most of the time when I am making full size pizzas (versus my pizza crust rounds, which I make and freeze in individual portion crusts).

I exclusively use instant yeast in my kitchen, but if you use active dry, just check out the note at the end of the recipe for conversion instructions. Lastly, while this dough is super easy to make in a stand mixer, it is also very hand-making friendly. Simply mix in a bowl leaving out half a cup of the flour and then knead that last bit of flour in by hand.

I really like the hint of sweetness and complexity of flavor the honey adds in this recipe, but you may omit it if you desire.

Pizza Crust
Yield: approx. 1 pound of dough

1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
3 cups flour (all purpose or bread)
1 tsp table salt
2 TBS vegetable oil
3 TBS honey (optional)
1 cup warm water

Mix all ingredients together in the bowl of a stand mixer outfitted with a dough hook. Process on medium low until the dough become smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place the dough in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 45 minutes to an hour. Knead the dough a few times to deflate and cover with the plastic wrap to sit for 4-5 minutes; this lets the gluten relax slightly and makes it much easier to work with. Roll out on a floured board. Top and bake at 425° F. If you a topping fiend, I recommend baking the crust slightly before topping.

NOTE: if you use active dry yeast instead of instant, use 2 tsp instead and mix it with the water and a dollop of the honey and let it sit for 5 minutes before proceeding with the recipe as usual.

Definitely Worth the Effort: Dried Thyme

In these hectic modern days, it seems every decision is a cost-benefit analysis... is the end result worth the time it takes to do it yourself? In many cases, the answer is yes for me, especially when it comes to the kitchen. However, sometimes, life starts making some of those decisions for you. The other day I mentioned how we had to leave our little Ohio farm behind a few years ago. When I had my farm, I don't think I ever purchased store bought herbs for any reason... I grew them all myself.

Now days, I have to be a little more selective about what I plant. I currently have only 64 square feet to work with. That's less than one half a percent of the garden space I had in Ohio. This deficiency leads to some hard choices. Which crops are so much better home grown that they deserve some of that tiny little space? While I grow a number of fresh herbs in pots on my patio, I've recently realized that growing a few thyme bushes in my garden so I can have enough to dry my own is definitely worth the effort.

I came to this realization when I bought some thyme at the grocery store a few months back. Can you tell in the picture above which I bought and which I grew? Yeah, me too. Today, while I was shopping for some spices, I saw a jar of ground thyme that was brown. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure thyme isn't supposed to be brown. One other benefit of home dried thyme? It actually smells like thyme. I know, you've probably started to forget that dried thyme actually has an aroma, haven't you?

Fortunately, thyme is super easy to grow. In fact, in Ohio, I started regretting planting all five thyme plants because by the third year, I had more thyme than I could eat, store, or sell. Drying thyme is also easy. I use my dehydrator because it dries it so quickly, which helps to retain that beautiful green color, but you could dry yours just as easily in an low oven or simply hanging in a warm, dry place. Once it's dried and stripped from the stems, it will last for years in an air tight container, provided you protect it from too much light exposure.