Blondies are Delicious!

Why are brownies so delicious? I know, this post isn't about brownies, but it's worth considering the question first. Personal opinion: Brownies are delicious because they satisfy certain needs: when done right, they're chocolatey, moist, and just the right kind of chewy. (Maybe some of you prefer your brownies cake-y. That's okay too, I guess) I don't even know. They have this texture that is just absolutely mind-blowing.

I think what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, you want the texture but not so much the taste. Maybe you're not in a chocolate mood. Maybe you're not the biggest fan of chocolate (*cough* *cough*) Either way, a blondie is an excellent alternative. It's like a brownie, but instead of chocolate, you have a nice caramel/butterscotch/brown-sugar flavor. They're deep without being too deep. And you can always add more or fewer chocolate chips to suit your chocolate tastes.

That being said, I decided one day to make blondies. The problem is, I'm a bit crazy, and the house didn't have butterscotch chips. 1 + 1 equals I make my own butterscotch. Let's get to the recipe.

Ingredients!


4 tbsp butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup heavy cream

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 egg
vanilla
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips


Yes, there is a space there in between some of the ingredients. Yes, vanilla is listed twice. This has to do with the whole making-butterscotch-thing. I used the recipe found here, but I'll describe my own experience with the whole process. All the butterscotch recipes I found seemed a little over-dramatic, with their dire warnings of having everything nearby and measured because otherwise you'll burn it all and everything will be ruined forever! As long as you know where the ingredients are, or have already brought them out on the counter, you have time to measure things as you go. Baking is not the LHC. Small errors can and do get lost in the noise. You're fine.

Directions!

Anyway, here we go with the instructions. (Step 0: Preheat your oven to about 350F.) First you're going to want to melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan. (Low to medium heat is fine -- you don't want to be a scorching temperatures) Keep in mind the fact that you will a) be adding a cup of sugar and b) these things like to bubble up well beyond the capacity for bubbling you assumed they had. When your butter is basically melted, toss in the brown sugar and stir it all together. At this point, it resembles something delicious. Resist temptation to eat. It gets better.

Wait for a bit, stirring to make sure you don't scorch the poor thing. It may not look like much, but after a while, the sugar will start to melt and the whole thing will start coming together into one giant mass. When it starts looking more like liquid than, well, sugar soaking in butter (this is a judgement call), you can add the cream. The recipe advises using a whisk at this point and that's a pretty good idea. It'll help incorporate the cream better, but it's not super-essential. Now cook this baby, but not too much. At the maximum, you should be hitting soft-ball stage, but thinner than that is fine. (If you're testing for hardness, feel free to take this moment to sample some of the butterscotch. It's really quite tasty.) Once you're satisfied with the butterscotch, take it off the heat and set it aside to cool for a bit. (I'm a fan of the refrigerator. Anyone else?) We'll need it in a second.

Now, while that's on its way to room temperature, mix together your dry ingredients here: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.You can sift if you're feeling nervous about your flour, otherwise, it's not really worth it. Set that aside.

Is your butterscotch cool yet? Is it? Well, okay, is it hot enough to cook the egg if you put the egg in? Ah, then we have a problem. When you feel the butterscotch has cooled down enough, you're going to want to whisk in the egg and a decent amount of vanilla. (That may be personal preference talking) If the temperature is really a source of worry, and your butterscotch is liquid enough to permit it, I'd say start with mixing the butterscotch into the egg. It's easier to bring the egg up to temperature of the butterscotch because the butterscotch currently has a majority vote. Eitherway, get that egg and vanilla in there.

Then start adding the flour mixture, a little at a time. You should end up with a delicious, medium-light-brown batter Try and keep it as smooth as possible. This recipe advocates sprinkling your chocolate chips on top, but I just mixed them in. They're all really going to end up on the bottom anyway. Do as you see fit. Pour that mixture into a buttered 9x9 pan. (There's really enough butter already in the butterscotch, but just in case) Slide that pan into the oven for 20-30 minutes (keep an eye on it, of course) and voila! blondies made from your own butterscotch. And it wasn't even that hard!

For the record, I doubled (tripled? I don't really remember) the recipe, because I had a bunch of people to feed. Compliments from all quarters. Really tasty with ice cream and even tasty when frozen solid (it was liquid nitrogen ice cream and we had extra LN2).

If you would like a picture, I only have this one of the batter in the pan. The blondies got eaten too quickly to snap any shots in between oven and stomach, so you'll have to deal with the raw goods.


Have fun making and baking!

~Chef G

Christmas in July: Peppermint Bark

Peppermint Bark is simple in idea and presentation, but is rather difficult to make properly. Essentially, it is a layer of white chocolate, one of dark/semi-sweet chocolate, covered with crushed starlight mints. I don’t have exact measurements, because I just improvised, but here’s roughly what you should do.

Ingredients:

White chocolate chips

Dark or semi-sweet chips

Butter/shortening

Cream

Starlight mints

----

Grease jelly-roll pan (cookie sheet with edges). Unwrap mints, and crush into chunks. If you have a meat tenderizer or hammer, place the mints in a large Ziploc bag, and hit each one individually. Alternatively, a rolling pin could be used over the bag. If you’re really desperate, put the mints in that bag, which can be slung into a counter repeatedly. That is what I had to do, because I couldn’t find any useful implements in the kitchen. Be careful when crushing the mints, because you don’t want a fine powder; chunks about 1/8” are actually preferable.

Heat cream in a double-boiler with a small amount of butter, warming until butter melts. Add in white chocolate chips, stirring until melted. The consistency should be thin enough to spread thinly, but thick enough that it’ll harden. Pour onto cookie sheet, and with offset spatula, smooth out the chocolate to the edges. Ideally, the layer should be about 1/8th of an inch thick. Let chocolate harden.

Repeat chocolate-melting process, but with dark chocolate chips instead of white. Once spread onto pan, sprinkle mint chunks, and press in lightly.

Refrigerate until serving time. If the bark is thin enough, it can simply be broken, but if the chocolate didn’t harden properly or is too thick, simply cut into bars and serve.

Apologies, but since I was making these for an all-campus party, and drunk people are hungry vultures, I unfortunately do not have pictures of these. Oh well, that simply makes an excuse to make them again, right?

~ The Baker's Apprentice/Chef A

Lemony Bars

This kind of feels like I’m cheating, in that this recipe is almost identical to the one provided on the back of many condensed-milk cans, but I do so adore citrus desserts. You’ll just have to bear with me.

Also, apologies for the horrid photo quality.

Ingredients:

2 cups AP flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons finely grated lemon peel, divided

1 can (14 oz.) condensed milk.

4 large eggs

2/3 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon AP flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

Sifted powdered sugar (optional)

----

Preheat oven to 350*, and for ease in serving and cleanup, line a 13x9 inch pan with aluminum foil, or grease it.

For crust:

Combine flour and powdered sugar in medium bowl. Cut in butter, and add vanilla plus one tablespoon of lemon peel; mix until well incorporated. Press into pan, and bake for 20 minutes, or until slightly golden.

For filling:

Cream condensed milk and eggs until fluffy. Add in all remaining ingredients, aside from lemon peel. Stir until uniform; fold in lemon peel. Pour over crust, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until filling solidifies.

Cool until room temperature, then refrigerate for 2 hours. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and cut into bars.

~ The Baker’s Apprentice/Chef A

Applesauce Cookies and Muffins

I found this recipe in an old cookie recipe pamphlet from the late ‘50s, and of course, have wanted to make it for a while. Additionally, Chef G recently acquired a contraption called the “Supershooter,” which oozes shapes, and is great for frosting and liquidy cookie batter. This batter ended up being too gooey, though, and didn’t hold its shape so well after extrusion. I added very few bran flakes, ‘cause I didn’t want them to clog the Supershooter, and so the cookies turned out to be very soft, but if you favor crunchier cookies, err on the higher amount of bran.

Supershooter in use

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon powdered cloves

1 cup canned applesauce

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup Crisco

1 cup sugar

1 egg

0-1 1/2 cups crushed bran flakes

----

Preheat oven to 375* and grease several cookie sheets.

Sift together flour, salt, and spices. In a small bowl, combine applesauce and soda. In a large bowl, cream shortening, egg and sugar until light. Add in dry mixture and applesauce alternatively, stirring until combined. Fold in bran flakes until texture suits you.

Drop by teaspoonfuls about 2” apart. Bake about 20 minutes, or until the edges darken slightly.

I got bored with the Supershooter, and it was late, and we had fresh blueberries. These factors aligned, and I decided to add blueberries (and a bit more applesauce) to the remaining batter and made muffins with them. They were quite delicious! I baked them for about 20 minutes as well, if I recall correctly. They should brown slightly around the side, and a toothpick inserted should come out clean.

~ The Baker's Apprentice/Chef A

Basque Cake!

(Sorry this is such a long post, there's a story behind everything here. tl;dnr -- scroll down for the recipe and some pretty pictures.)

I've been meaning to make this recipe for a while. About nine months ago, it came up in conversation that a friend of mine was actually of Basque heritage. It just so happened that I had recently been at a meeting where I was served some of what was introduced to me as Basque Cake.
It was delicious, of course, with an interesting array of flavors, contained in a some kind of shortcake. It suddenly became my mission to make this cake for my Basque friend.
Call it a desire to reunite her with her heritage. Call it an excuse to bake.
I call it tasty.

The actual process of making the cakes (yes, always multiple) turned out to be somewhat of a journey. I found my first opportunity to make a Basque cake in April. There was to be a spectacular dinner, and I signed myself to contribute dessert (no surprise). The seed for Basque cake had been germinating somewhere in the back of my mind for several months at that point, but it wasn't yet ready to make its way into the world. First, I wanted to foray into the realm of cheesecakes. I decided to make a chocolate-chip cookie-dough cheesecake. Simple enough in principle, but delicious-sounding and complicated enough to keep me happy.

It was not to be. (Or was it? Come back in another month) One of the other cooks making a dessert had decided that *she* wanted to make cheesecake, and as I was (unsurprisingly) late in submitting my choice for dessert, I bowed out of the competition. Now I was stuck, because I didn't want to make anything resembling a cheesecake, and dessert number three was slated to be something cookie-like (it turned out to be cinnamon rolls). Suddenly, I was struck with the realization -- the something in between a cheesecake and a cookie could very well be a Basque cake.

The Basque cake, in theory, is a shortdough crust filled with custard and then covered with a top crust and baked, and as it bakes the custard and the crust intermingle and produce one solid cake-like delicious mass. This was my way out! I quickly looked around for a good recipe.

It turns out that this is actually quite difficult. Paraphrasing one location, everybody has their own Basque cake recipe, and each one is different. And it was true. Every recipe I found had some different interpretation of what a Basque cake was and/or how to make one.

I decided to synthesize a recipe. I made myself a custard, and a crust dough. I assembled my cakes, and I put the two of them in the oven, side by side, brothers on a tasty mission. I checked on them over the next hour or so, as the crust appeared to brown nicely, but the central custard remained unperturbed. Finally, it seemed to have reached some kind of edible consistency, like a pie. At the very least I could hope to cut it, and not have it ooze out from the sides of the cut.

I took my cakes out of the oven, one at a time.

Tragedy struck as I took the second cake. A carelessly replaced oven rack tilted as I pulled it out for better access to my cake. The springform pan I was using, having a low coefficient of friction as any good pan should, started on its own, unintentional journey out of the oven. As it picked up speed, time slowed down. I heard it slide down the rack, looked down, tried to grab the cake with one clumsy oven mitt and the rack with the other, succeeded in neither, and jumped back just in time to get oven-hot custard all down the front of my pants.

I struggled to get the rack back in the oven, all the while aware that there was scalding-hot food just millimeters away from my skin. I was informed by onlookers and helpers that I should remove my pants. But the cake was too important. I grabbed the springform from the floor (where it had actually landed face-up -- crust empty of custard, but face up -- small miracles) and tried to figure out if I could scoop custard into the empty shell. But it was all either on me or on the floor, and mostly all undesirable.

The custard on my pants cooled actually pretty fast, so I had a tasty, portable snack (I had just done laundry, okay?) while I figured out what to do with the remains of my eviscerated cake. At the suggestion of another kitchen occupant, I made some whipped cream, spooned it into the cavity, and sprinkled blueberries on top. It looked beautiful, but it covered a heart of lies.
Fortunately, one of the cakes was still whole, so I served two different kinds of desserts that night -- a Basque cake intact, but with sadly very liquid custard, and a whipped cream pie in a cake-shell.

My Basque friend never actually made it to dinner.

When I set out a second time to make these cakes, I had learned from my mistakes. I used new parts of recipes and changed some, changed the amounts of crust and custard in proportion to each other, played around. What came out was just about enough for four cakes (though I only made three). I have halved the recipe here, so that you may enjoy smaller portions than I burdened myself with (it took me a week and a half of making cakes every few days to exhaust my supply of dough and custard).

Without further ado, I present you my interpretation of the Basque cake:

Custard:

4 cups milk
Vanilla (2 beans, if you have them, otherwise extract works fine)
1-1/2 cup white sugar
6 egg yolks
1 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
Flavorings

A quick note: These ambiguous "flavorings" I mention are any number of things that are supposed to be added to the custard and/or the crust to give it that special Basque flavor. Most often they include some kind of orange flavoring, as well as a spirit of sorts, whether it be rum, brandy, or Armagnac (a type of brandy from the Armagnac region in France). I rifled through what leftover alcohol was in our pantry and pieced something together. Don't worry too much about what goes into it, as long as you feel the flavor is sufficiently deep but citrus-y. You will need anywhere from 1 tbsp. to almost a cup of the liquid, depending on how strong you want the flavor. I kept it to a rough couple of tablespoons.

To make the custard, put the milk on the stove (careful with the selection of pot size -- when milk foams it nearly triples in volume for a moment, so try to avoid overflow) and add vanilla extract. If you have vanilla beans, split them open and add to the milk instead of extract. Bring to a boil. (If you are using beans, once the milk reaches a boil, take it off heat, fish out the beans, and scrape the insides into the milk, discarding the husk afterward.) Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until it turns a lovely pale yellow color. Combine the flour and salt, and then add that flour to the eggs/sugar and whisk until smooth.

Now the fun part. Add the milk (and vanilla) to the egg mixture. The milk is going to be a lot hotter than the eggs, so in order not to fry the eggs immediately upon contact, you must start with small amounts of the hot liquid, whisking the entire time, until the temperature of the egg mixture starts to raise to the point that pouring more of the hot milk in won't leave you with a scrambled-egg custard. (This is called tempering)

Once the two are combined, place them back on medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture becomes thick. At that point, add the butter (in small chunks) and the 'flavorings' to the custard. Stir until the butter is melted.
While it is still warm and pliable, pour the custard into a shallow dish, and cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap, pressing carefully to remove the largest of air-bubbles inside.

Refrigerate the custard.
This is what it looks like once it has reached custard-hood:


Crust:

2 cups finely-ground almonds
2 cups AP flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cup butter
1-1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
citrus zest (optional)

One of the recipes I used called for almond meal, and not having that, I put almonds in a food processor (okay, I'll be honest, a blender) and ground them into a fine powder. Be careful with this, though, because the almond is not entirely dry, and so you will start to get clumps of what is almost a paste, and it will be hard to completely pulverize all the almonds. I recommend getting the almonds down to a moderately fine consistency and then mixing in a bit of the flour before taking it down to almond-meal fineness.

Combine the flour, almonds, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugar, as if you were making cookies. Add the eggs and then the almond extract. (If you're like me, you might also add vanilla extract. There is nothing that vanilla cannot go into) If you want an extra citrus-y flavor, add a teaspoon or so of lemon or orange zest.
Slowly add the flour mixture. You should have what seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a cookie dough. Put it in the fridge to cool (or the freezer, if you're super-impatient, I suppose. Just don't forget about it).

Putting it all together:
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch pie tin. This pan worked so much better than the springforms I used the first time.
The dough is exceedingly buttery (read: delicious) so you'll have to be both swift and cautious with this part. Pull off about a quarter of the dough (remember, this recipe makes about two cakes) and roll it out to about 1/4-inch thickness. (It helps so much to roll between two sheets of plastic wrap. It doesn't stick to the rolling pin or the rolling surface.) You should have enough surface area to cover the bottom and sides of your pie pan. If the dough seems to warm and pliable, stick it back in the fridge for a few minutes. Lay this rolled dough into the buttered pan. Carefully press it down into the pan, filling all the edges without breaking the dough. It will probably come up over the sides. This is perfectly fine.
Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork as if you were making a pie. It will help the custard and crust come together more nicely.

Take about half of the custard you prepared and put it into the pie shell you have created for yourself. Take care not to make it too deep (unless you really like custard, of course). About 1/2-inch deep works well. (Don't worry about filling the pie shell all the way to the top)

Note: You don't have to (and may not) end up using all the custard you made. When I made this recipe, I gave about a third of the custard to Chef A for Nanaimo bars and still had enough for three cakes. Custard is a) delicious all by itself and b) good in many other recipes.

This is your cake at this point:


Now take another 1/4 of your dough and roll it out again, to about 1/4-inch thickness. (You may have to throw this one in the fridge as well) Lightly prick the surface of the dough with a fork, then invert it onto the waiting cake-shell-filled-with-custard. Press out all air bubbles, then crimp the edges of the cake, cut off excess material, and pop that baby into the oven. If you want to (and I recommend it) cover the edges with foil to prevent them from burning/browning too quickly.

Cook 20-30 minutes, then go in with a sharp knife and make a couple of cuts in the surface to release steam. Return to the oven.
Let it cook for another 15-20 minutes. The crust will turn golden brown and look deliciously crispy. Like so:

Remove from oven and let cool. Voila!

P.S. My Basque friend didn't get any of this cake either -- oh well, I guess I'll just have to make it again~!

Thanks for bearing with me,
~Chef G

High Time for Pie Time? Banana meringue pie

I love pie; it may be my favorite dessert category. I grew up not liking chocolate - I mostly credit or blame my super-chocoholic family. Whenever we would go out to eat, the majority unwaveringly ruled in favor of the most chocolatey, richest item offered. Not being so fond of the brownish-hued delicacy to begin with, you can understand my frustration while facing dinner after dinner followed by molten chocolate cake and brownie fudge sundae and chocolate mousse and triple-chocolate chunk ice cream and double chocolate chip cookies and... Well, you might think I'm crazy; most people do have an odd reaction when I tell them I'm not terribly fond of it. To this day, given the choice between a chocolate sweet and a cocoa-free treat, I'm as likely to pick one as I am to pick the other. I've grown to appreciate chocolate, but I still cannot tolerate dark chocolate; I much prefer white and milk chocolate.

I certainly bake with a lot of chocolate, as you can see, but that's largely due to the fact that 1) our kitchens almost always have chocolate in some form, 2) fruits are rarer in the quantity in which we use them and 3) the universe seems to start salivating when any of the senses detect a hint of chocolate. Even scientifically, the genus of the chocolate tree - Theobroma - translates to "food of the gods." I suppose, every time I make a dessert with chocolate, and my housemates and friends devour their offering, they reach closer to godliness. I believe I can come to terms with that, more or less.

Oh, but I've digressed so far away from the topic of choice - pies - that I must take a moment and breathe deeply and imagine a delectable slice of a lattice-worked, steaming, sugary masterpiece. Fruit pies, in my opinion, are the pinnacle of mouthwateringly-delicious non-chocolate desserts. The flaky crust, the gooey fruity filling, the crunchy top crust, the meringue, the whipped cream, the paired ice cream... I adore it all.

[Oh God, it's now past 2am and I'm so into this post that I'm famished, and the only option for me right now is a flourless chocolate cake made yesterday. If there exists a cake that is more chocolate-y, I've yet to meet it. Even with my blooming tolerance for chocolate, I'm rather terrified of that cake. Someone send me a slice of fruit pie through the interwebs right now!]

Back to pie. Specifically, Banana Meringue Pie. The idea for this came from a good friend, actually. Her mother and brother were coming to visit our area, and her brother had requested a banana pie. Immediately, we were drawn to banana cream pie, but after snooping around on the interwebs, we found a meringue pie. Lemon meringue pie is amazing, both to eat and bake, and despite my inability to properly whip egg whites for anything else, I have had remarkable success making meringue. The filling part is generally more problematic, though, but for this recipe, I increased the cornstarch because the innards are always more liquidy than any pie should be. I was also intrigued yet wary of the separate banana slices and pudding, but I think the end result was rather satisfying. The crust used here is my go-to pie crust recipe, as it's flakey and forgiving and filled with Crisco. If you're not a fan of crisco, butter can be used in its stead, but will of course give you a different taste and consistency.

For the crust:

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups flour + some for rolling

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon shortening

About 1/4 cup water

----

Preheat oven to 375*F.

Mix together flour and salt. Knead in the tablespoons of shortening to the other ingredients until crumbly. Add in the water slowly, while massaging the dough, until it forms a ball. Barely knead the remaining teaspoon of shortening in, so that some streaks of fat still remain; this will make the dough flaky and light.

Roll the ball between two sheets of parchment or waxed paper, or if you're desperate and live in an under-stocked kitchen, plastic wrap will suffice. The dough is pretty easy to work with and rather forgiving, so you should easily be able to make a 12" circle, a standard diameter for a 9" pie. Remove the top sheet, and flip the crust into your pie dish. Press the dough into place, making sure in settles into the pan, and then remove the other sheet. With a knife, remove the excess crust on the edges, and then poke holes in the crust with a little fork. And then hug a spoon, because it's feeling lonely and left out of the utensil-love.

Bake the pie for 10-15 minutes, until it's a light golden brown.

For the filling:

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

3/8 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups whole milk

4 egg yolks, beaten (reserve the whites for later, they'll go into the meringue)

3 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla

3 ripe to overripe bananas, peeled and sliced in 1/4 inch segments

----

Combine sugar, cornstarch, salt, and milk in large sauce pot. Whisk together and cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and slowly releases the bubbles. Cook on low for another two to three minutes. Pour a small portion of the milk mixture into the beaten egg yolks to temper them; stir together, and then add yolk mixture to remaining milk mixture. Return the pot to medium-low heat for two to three minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and add in butter and vanilla, stirring until smooth and well-combined.

Cover the crust's bottom with a single layer of bananas, and scoop a small portion of the pudding - enough to fill the spaces between the bananas and barely cover the bananas - into the crust. Add another layer of bananas, and once more scoop a bit of pudding on top. Continue until out of pudding or near the top of the crust (leave at least 1/8 of an inch of crust exposed, so that the meringue can fill the space and form a seal). If you end up with extra bananas, layer them on top of the pudding and gently press down. Set aside the pie.

For the meringue:

Ingredients:

4 egg whites (reserved from earlier, approximately room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

----

Preheat oven to 350*F.

Add egg whites to a large mixing bowl. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed until bubbled and frothy; now add the vanilla and cream of tartar. Continue beating until glossiness develops, then slowly add sugar to mixture. Beat another 4 minutes or so, until stiff peaks form - when the still beaters are removed from the batter, the shape is maintained. It's important not to overbeat the meringue, as it then has the potential to collapse, but I've never had serious issues with pies failing. Yet.

With a rubber spatula, cover the pie with the meringue mixture. Be sure to completely cover the pudding, 'sealing' it in with the meringue and the crust's edge. I like to create a gentle curve, and then I take the spatula and gently 'slap' the whipped egg whites to create the peaks characteristic of meringue pies. Repeat this a few times (don't overdo it!) until small peaks cover the pie.

Slide pie carefully into oven and bake 12-15 minutes, turning once. When the meringue has turned lightly golden at the tips, remove and cool to room temperature, then move to refrigerator. Keep uncovered to prevent the meringue from weeping; if it does, don't fret too much. I think the caramel-colored tears are actually quite pretty and tasty. Maybe that's just me, though.

Apologies for the lack of photos! As I mentioned, I made these with a friend for her family, and so I unfortunately couldn't snag any finished-product photos.

~ The Baker's Apprentice/Chef A