Apple Cider

Music- Phish- Junta

This band needs no introduction! We press cider to the best!

Baking-Apple Cider

THE PRESS

So we didn't really bake the apple cider. we pressed it with an apple press. its pretty straightforward and there won't be too many words in this post. more pictures cause pictures are awesome! The the press consists of two parts: a giant grinder to grind up apples and a giant press to press the apple bits so that we can squeeze the cider out of em! 4 1/2 bushels of apples turned into 10 gallons of cider! mmmhmmmmm! we are fermenting 5 gallons of it. i'll give you an update on that when its ready.

Ryan Gunther Bishop AKA The Apple Prince turning the press with a broom stick

Me turning the press with a PVC pipe

Catching the liquid gold!

Soren, Ryan and me turning the press

LIQUID GOLD

THREE GALLONS OF LIQUID GOLD

Fried Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Homemade Caramel Sauce

Music: Mount Wittenburg Orca by the Dirty Projectors and Bjork (Sorry Mike, not De La Soul) This album is pretty crazy. It’s a collaboration between the Dirty Projectors and Bjork. The songs mostly sound like ideas of songs that haven’t been finished yet but it’s definitely worth listening to. The Dirty Projectors ladies and Bjork are all super technical singers. Lots of fun.

Baking: Fried Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Homemade Caramel Sauce

We decided to make this recipe because it is incredibly southern and unhealthy, which meant it had a 100% chance of being delicious. It’s kind of like bananas foster but instead of frying bananas you fry banana bread. Unfortunately, we also didn’t light anything on fire. At least not on purpose. As an intense lover of banana bread I was excited for this one.

We started with my standard banana bread recipe, which is memorized at this point.

Dry ingredients:

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Wet ingredients:

2 mashed very ripe bananas

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup melted butter

The banana bread batter poised for baking

Fold wet into dry (Don’t over-mix! Never!) Then add as many chocolate chips as you want, which for us was a lot (approximately 1 1/2 cups). I live by the philosophy that there can never be too much chocolate. We poured the batter into a buttered and floured loaf pan and baked it for 55 minutes in a 350-degree oven.

While the banana bread was baking we started on the caramel sauce. Caramel sauce is a little tough to make, mostly because the timing has to be right for everything. We put 1 cup of sugar in a 2 qt. heavy-bottomed saucepan and then placed 6 tablespoons of butter and 1/2 cup of heavy cream near the stove.

Melted sugar about to boil and become delicious caramel

We put the pan of sugar over heat and whisked it until the sugar melted and eventually boiled. When the sugar boils, you put the butter in and stir it once it’s melted. Then you take it off the heat and pour in the heavy cream. The mixture will bubble up a lot, and you keep stirring it until it becomes smooth. Voila! Caramel!

Mike slicing the warm bread with loving kindness

Once it was done, we took the banana bread out of the oven, and then hungrily watched it cool. Once it had cooled off a bit (probably not long enough but we were hungry and excited) we cut 1-inch slices and heat up some (a lot) of butter in a pan. Probably like 2 tablespoons of butter. This r amount ecipe is all about butter, like chocolate, you can never have too much. This is where it gets delicious. We lovingly set the slices of banana bread in the pan of butter and fried them like pancakes until they got a little brown. Finally we served the bread with ice cream drizzled with a substantial of caramel sauce.

The finished product

Let the devouring ensue! Everyone in the room was very happy with this one, it was gone within minutes.

Puff Pastry Apple Tart

Music- Nick Drake- Pink Moon


This album is short, sweet and amazing. Nick Drake really should be the head figure of folk music not Dylan.  i really don't have much to say for this album except that every song is amazing.


Baking-Puff Pastry Apple Tarts

Its the season of Math, Science and all that is Engineering so i haven't been baking as much. Apologies to the Baking gods. Have pity on these poor old bones!
So this is like puff pastry with apricot glaze and apples sprinkled on top of it. Its not quite a tart...but that is what the book refers to it as so that's what im going to put as the title. anyhow the end result is yummy delicious. I used Cortland apples for this but im sure many other varieties of apples will work fine too. Granny Smiths would be fine im guessin'

Guest Chef Rachel Perlman rolling out laminated dough

So this isn't very complicated once you've made the puff pastry dough. The hard part is making the puff pastry dough (or laminated dough as the Culinary Institute of America refers to it as). So instead of going through all the trouble of rewriting instructions on how to make laminated dough im just going to refer to you (the reader) to my post on Cherry Half Pockets (two posts ago behind the ketchup). There I shall will show you the glory of layering butter with dough. There your life will forever change and you will see things anew! it'll also be delicious if you eat it. So please refer to Cherry Half Pockets to find out more about making laminated dough and tri folds and four folds and stuff.

Make about 10 oz of laminated dough

So after you'll just need:
1)Brown Sugar
2)Cinnamon
3)1 or 2 Diced and peeled apples
4) 4 Sliced and Peeled Apples 
5) Apricot Jam

So after you've done all the four folds and all the dough and stuff just roll it out into a thin circular shape.  Spread a thin layer of Apricot Jam over the dough and then spread the diced apples over. After arrange the sliced apples fanning from the outside inward and then sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and then bake at 400 for 20 minutes and your good!

After Apricot Glaze Sprinkle Diced Apples

Sliced Apple Time!

CINNAMON AND SUGAR TIME!

Baked Apple Puff Pastry Tart

A Slice.

Homemade Jalapeno Ketchup

Music- Billy Bragg- Back to Basics

A very bare boned album with just a singer and an electric guitar. Fast paced, poppy, very simple and kinda like folk punk. Songs are very short, no longer than 3-4 minutes and a lot are around the 2-3 minute length.  Took me a bit to get use to this guy but i think his pretty cool. Billy Bragg. what a cool name too huh? its actually why i started listening to him. His singing is also very thickly English i think. i could be wrong but im sure his from somewhere around that part of Earth.

i looooove you! i am the milkman! of human kindness! i will leave an extra pint!

Baking- Homemade Jalapeno Ketchup

So this is a pretty straight forward easy recipe. Now why did i make ketchup? well ketchup isn't exactly a baked good but its pretty delicious. The fact of the matter is that not many people give ketchup appreciation or attention. Its taken for granted and its quality is ignored. If you go to a supermarket there is a high quality and low quality everything. except ketchup! There is expensive sea salt, quality pepper, and even super fancy mustard! but nobody bothers with ketchup! people use so much more ketchup than mustard and there are so many more brands of mustard than ketchup. All of which have different flavors and tastes. Ketchup from different companies all kinda taste the same.

Its always those brand names like Heinz that you would accompany on your fancy burger with your fancy mustard and your fancy meat and fancy buns. there is no fancy ketchup! and ketchup is one of the most commonly used condiments in America. So im going to make fancy ketchup. well i guess its not that fancy but at least its homemade.

So this is pretty easy. get 4 pounds of tomatoes (like 5 big tomatoes). chop them up and throw them into the pot and simmer em' down for about 15 minutes. Then drain off the excess liquid in the ketchup and throw in 1 celery stick, half an onion, half a pepper, and 4 jalapenos all chopped up and whatnot. simmer this until the mixture goes down to like half its volume (about 1- 1 1/2 hours) and then add in:

1. Half a cup of sugar
2. Half a cup of apple cider vinegar
3. 1 1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon
4.  1 1/2 teaspoon of Dry Mustard
5. 1 teaspoon of Salt

and then boil for another hour or so. Puree in a blender or something. Then stick it in a container and chill it until you wanna eat it. This recipe creates a very very sweet ketchup which is a plus for some things and a negative for others. If you wanna make it taste more vinegary like regular ketchup then just add more vinegar. same for spiciness.

Just the Tomatoes.

Tomatoes boiled down and other veggies added

Boiled down even more. I think this is also with the spices and what not. this is like after an hour.

simmered down even more. about 2 hours?

This is the Ketchup.

See companies like Heinz have ketchup making competitions but those competitions require you to make the ketchup using Heinz ketchup. Then your not really making a ketchup your just kinda flavoring a ketchup that has already been made. And that sucks. people should make their own ketchup if they enter a competition for making ketchup.

So apparently Ketchup was invented by the Chinese and whats originally made with pickled fish and spices. Apparently ketchup doesn't have to be made from tomatoes! it can be made with blueberries, bananas, cherries and many other things! like pickled fish.

Peach Cobbler

Music-The Presidents of the USA-The Presidents of the USA

I thought this album would be fit for Peach Cobbler. Cause peaches come from a can and they were put there by a man!

Baking-Peach Cobbler

MILLIONS OF PEACHES! PEACHES FOR ME!

Now this is a simple yet delicious recipe half of which will be dedicated to make Bishops Peach Cobbler Ice Cream. Lets get down to cobbling. Okay so the first step would be to make the dough. Dough isn't that hard.

226 g of All Purpose Flour
2.3 g of Salt
75 g of Chilled Butter and Chilled Shortening both cut into small chunks
80 mL of Cold Water

So combine Flour and salt, then mix together chilled butter and shortening into the flour and salt until pea zie nuggets form in the mix. Then add water all at once and continue to mix until the dough comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for like 30 minutes. Now you gotta make sure the butter and shortening is cold or else it will melt while you are mixing! and that is bad news cause then your dough is ganna be soft and nasty instead of nice and crisp.

Now its time for the Peach part of the formula. This is easy just cut enough peaches to fill up a 13 x 9 in. pan. Yea i wasn't super specific with this one i just kinda eye balled it. with a ball and an eye. Anyway cut the peaches into slices and then in a bowl mix in 175 g of sugar and 54 g of cornstarch and it should turn into a nice semi viscous peach mix. yes i used the word viscous. then pour the peaches into the 9 by 13, roll our the dough to cover the pan and bake at like 350 until the crust lightly browns about 30 minutes? i wasn't really paying attention to the time rather i paid attention to the brownyness of the dough.

Peaches with Sugar and Cornstarch

ALL MIXED UP IN THE MOMENT!

Poured into the Pan

Clothed and Covered

BAKED OUT OF ITS MIND!

MILLIONS OF PEACHES! PEACHES FOR FREE!

Cherry Half Pockets

Music-Alice in Chains-Greatest Hits

These guys are great. All those heavy angry guitar riffs really inspire me to make my pastries more beautiful and elegant. I wonder who Alice was and why she was in chains.

Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?

Baking-Cherry Half Pockets with Apricot Glaze

So these delicious things are very delicious. The hardest part about making the pockets was the dough since the dough was laminated. I've never really made a laminated dough before so making the layers of butter was very interesting. Laminated is a funny word huh? when i think of a laminated dough i think of rolling out the dough really thin and putting it through a laminating machine.that way the dough stays nice and shiny forever. Anyway the type of laminated dough i used was Danish Dough. Similar to Croissant dough but with eggs in the dough. To make this beautiful dough I mixed these ingredients together

1)     181 g Bread Flour

2)     20.6 g Sugar

3)     2.8 Instant dry yeast

4)     2.8 g Salt

5)     17g Butter

6)     36.9 g Eggs

7)     84 ml Milk

 then when the dough was non-sticky enough I put it out to a work surface and kneaded it. Then covered and let it rest for about 2 hours.

Afterward Molly Smith AKA Brunette Baking Babe AKA Triple B came and helped me out on making this dough laminated. To do this I got one and a half sticks of cold butter, put them between two sheets of wax paper and pounded/rolled it out into a medium sized rectangle (approx 12 x 16 inches). I pounded it out on a cookie sheet that had been refrigerated so the butter wouldn’t melt on me. This sheet of butter is now going to be called the roll-in cause that’s what the Culinary Institute of America refers to it as. Anyway I rolled out the dough to a rectangle a bit larger than the roll-in and placed the roll in on top of the dough. I then folded the dough in half and then rolled it out again back to its original size, that way the roll-in is inbetween the dough. Them I proceeded to administer a four-fold to the dough, refrigerated for a bit, administered a threefold, refrigerated for a bit, and finally one last three fold. So the three fold I talked about before, a fourfold is kinda the same expect the dough is folded 3 times instead of twice to make four layers. Anyway after all these folds your dough is laminated! Refrigerate again for a bit to make sure butter does not melt 

Rolling out the dough for the Roll-in

Administering one of the folds!

Dough after one of the trifolds or the four fold

After I prepared the cherry filling. To make cherry filling you first combine  14 g of tapioca starch and 28 g of cornstarch with as much water from 180 ml as you need to make a “slurry”. Then I combined:

1.      1g of nutmeg

2.      1 g of cinnamon

3.      1 tsp of lemon juice

4.      142 g of sugar

5.      ¼ tsp of salt

6.      Remaining water from the original 180 ml

In a sauce pan and waited for it to boil stirring constantly. After bringing to a boil add the starch slurry and then bring that to a boil stirring constantly. Then I added like 2 lbs of cherries or something like that. Just a lot of cherries and make sure they are pitted and what not. After the cherries have been in there for a bit and they are nice and gooey add in 2 tsp of butter and let that melt and mix. Then wait for it too cool off.

Cherry filling!

After I took the dough out of the fridge and rolled it out into approximately a 12 x 16 in rectangle and cut it into 12 pieces. Brushed lightly with egg wash and dabble some cherry goodness in the middle of each piece. Fold one end of each piece over to cover the filling and press on the edges to seal. Here John Evangelista helped out with the cherry filling filling. Brush each folded piece with egg wash again and then bake for 17 minutes at 375.

UNBAKED

UNBAKED

Then when its bake prepare an apricot glaze by mixing 9 oz of apricot jam with 6 oz of water and 9 more oz of corn syrup. Bring that to a boil and brush it on the baked pockets while they are still hot!

Holy Cherry Checkers Batman those look delectable!

Pizza

Music-Alan Rose and the Restless Elements-American Hands

My former band leader and not former friends new album which he had been working on for at least 8 years. Those 8 years have really paid off seeing how this album is really really good.


Baking-Pizza


So if you guys recall my previous post i stated how putting the jam on Rugelachs was similar to putting tomato sauce on pizza? Well as it turns out from my first pizza making experience it is. making pizza is fun, easy and hard to mess up. But getting the dough to be a nice even circle is pretty hard. I think that was the most difficult part of making the pizza. Anyway onward and upward to pizza and beyond! 

So we started out by making the dough. We used the Joy of Cooking recipe to make the Pizza dough. This is pretty easy. all you gotta do is let one package of yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) sit in 1 1/3 cups of warm water for like 5 minutes. Then add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of salt and 3 1/2 cups of flour and mix until kneadable and then knead. After kneading for a while cover in plastic wrap and let it sit for about 1- 1 1/2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.

After came the  stretching and tossing and what not. This part is very very hard and kind of intuitive so im not ganna try to explain cause im not good at this at all. My friends were pretty good at it though. The annoying thing about pizza dough or dough in general is that if you mess up you can't put the dough back into a ball and restretch it. Instead you kinda have to repair the holes and stuff.which sucks. a lot.

Guest Chef Malinka using his magic hands

The two other not so circular pizzas

after stretching it out into nice flat circles or things that resemble circles we got a can of diced tomatoes, added some oregano and pepper and blended it into a sauce (we didn't have any tomato sauce on us at the time so we just used diced tomatoes) and spread it over the pizza. Then we sliced up some Mozzarella and Tomatoes and basil and put those on as well. We did really measure anything out here we just kinda did it by eye. Then 450 in the oven for like 15 minutes. I have provided pictures for more clarity.

Tomato sauce first!

Then Mozzarella!

Then sliced Tomatoes and Basil!

Then the Oven at 450!

HOLY OBESITY BATMAN IS THAT PIZZA?

Oh yea you guys should check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85LUuF6ZXaU&feature=related