Pie and Pastry Bible (101 page)

PEACH FILLING

1 pound (454 grams/3 cups) peaches (about 3 peaches), 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Peel, pit, and slice the peaches into ½-inch-thick slices. Place them in a medium bowl. Sprinkle them with the sugar and lemon juice and allow them to sit for at least 30 minutes at room temperature and up to 3 hours refrigerated.

Drain the peaches, reserving the syrup. There will be about 2 tablespoons of syrup (less than for peach pie, as less sugar is used since the peaches will not be cooked).

ASSEMBLE THE SHORTCAKE

If necessary, warm the biscuits and split them open, preferably with a three-tined fork. Spoon a little syrup over each cut half. Spoon about ½ cup of berries or peaches on top of each biscuit bottom and mound about ¼ cup of the topping over them, leaving a border of berries or peaches showing through. Set the biscuit tops on top of the topping, slightly off center. Serve the extra topping on the side.

LEMON YOGURT CREAM

For 1
cups: In a small bowl, whisk together 1
cups of yogurt with ¼ cup of sugar and
cup Lemon or Passion Fruit Curd.

CURRANT SCONES

T
hese scones are ample, warm, and comforting—crisp on the outside, soft, moist, and layered inside with purely butter/flour flavor and just the right touch of sweet stickiness from the currants. I’ve tried many other recipes and discarded them all. These are the best. They are prepared by layering butter flakes into the dough much in the style of puff pastry, which gives the dough a slightly flaky texture, but since they contain only about one third butter to flour (in contrast to puff pastry, which employs equal parts) and heavy cream instead of water, they offer a far more substantial, soul-satisfying texture. If you want each scone to be a perfect even triangle, there will be some waste. Personally, I prefer to use every scrap of the delicious dough and embrace the rustic misshapen ones along with the more even variety.

EQUIPMENT

Two cookie sheets or inverted half-size sheet pans, lined with parchment

Cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and refrigerate them for at least 30 minutes or freeze them for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter and, with your fingertips, press the cubes into large flakes. (Or use an electric mixer on low speed and mix until the butter is the size of small walnuts.) Mix in the cream just until the flour is moistened and the dough starts to come together in large clumps. Mix in the currants. Knead the dough in the bowl just until it holds together and turn it out onto a lightly floured board.

Lightly flour the top of the dough, or use a rolling pin with a floured pastry sleeve, and roll out the dough into a rectangle 1 inch thick and about 8 inches by 12 inches. Use a bench scraper (see page 659) to keep the edges even. Fold the dough in thirds, like a business letter. Lightly flour the board and rotate the dough so that the smooth side faces to the left. Roll it out again to an 8- by 12-inch rectangle and repeat the “turn” 3 times (for a total of 4 turns), refrigerating the dough, covered with plastic wrap, for about 15 minutes if it begins to soften and stick.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. at least 20 minutes before baking. Set an oven rack at the middle level before preheating.

Roll out the dough once more and trim off the folded edges so that it will rise evenly.
^*
Cut it lengthwise in half so you have 2 pieces, each about 4 inches by 12 inches. Cut each piece of dough on the diagonal to form triangles with about a
3-inch-wide base and place them about 1inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. (The dough rises but does not expand sideways.)

Bake the scones for 15 to 20 minutes or until the edges begin to brown and the tops are golden brown and firm enough so that they barely give when pressed lightly with a finger. Check the scones after 10 minutes of baking, and if they are not baking evenly, rotate the cookie sheets from top to bottom and front to back. Do not overbake, as the scones continue baking slightly after removal from the oven and are best when slightly moist and soft inside.

Place a linen towel on each of two large racks and place the baked scones on top. Fold the towels over loosely and allow the scones to cool until warm or room temperature. (Since linen breathes, the scones will not become soggy, but they will have enough protection to keep from becoming dry and hard on the surface.)

VARIATIONS

DRIED CRANBERRY SCONES
The same amount of dried cranberries can be substituted for the currants for more tang. LEMON POPPY SEED SCONES Omit the currants and add 3 tablespoons (1 ounce/28 grams) poppy seeds and 2 tablespoons (0.5 ounce/12 grams) finely grated lemon zest to the flour mixture.

STORE

Airtight, room temperature, up to 2 days; frozen, up to 3 months. To reheat frozen scones, heat in a preheated 300°F oven for 20 minutes. A cake tester inserted in the center and removed will feel warm and the outside will be crunchy.

UNDERSTANDING

Hecker’s flour has a protein content somewhere between that of Gold Medal unbleached all-purpose and King Arthur all-purpose, which is slightly higher. Any of the three flours will produce excellent scones, but Hecker’s is my preference because it results in the best compromise between tenderness and flakiness. A slightly stronger flour can be used for scones than for puff pastry because the sugar and baking powder tenderize the dough.

PASTRY

Fillo, strudel, puff pastry, croissant, Danish, and brioche all consist of the same basic ingredients in different proportions, handled in different manners. The three ingredients common to all are flour, liquid (water or milk), and fat (usually butter). In fillio and Strudel, the melted butter is added after the dough is mixed and rolled (or stretched), and sometimes these doughs also contain egg. Danish and brioche doughs always have egg. And croissant, Danish, and brioche doughs by definition are partially raised by yeast. The only way really to perceive the difference between all these doughs, aside from actually eating them, is by comparing the percentage of the basic ingredients in each (see the chart on page 363). For purposes of comparison, the egg and liquid are combined, although eggs behave in a somewhat different way from the liquids, producing a more cake- like texture, as in the brioche. The techniques for making puff pastry, croissant, and Danish doughs are actually very similar. So it is through comparing these percentages of ingredients that one begins to comprehend why these pastries seem to be almost worlds apart.

Puff pastry, croissant, and Danish doughs are all prepared by making a dough using a small amount of the total butter and wrapping it around the remaining butter, which is mixed with a little flour to keep it from getting too soft. There are several acceptable ways to wrap the butter. I prefer the method that involves rolling the dough into a square and then rolling the four corners of the dough into thin flaps and wrapping them over the top of the butter because it is easier than trying to roll out the entire piece of dough to a rectangle large enough to wrap around the butter. When overlapped, the four flaps become the same thickness as the dough beneath the butter. The dough-wrapped butter is then rolled and folded (these folds are referred to as turns) to create the many layers of pastry.

In puff pastry, the dough depends entirely on steam from the moisture in the butter to lift it (whereas croissant and Danish both have yeast to lift it as well). Puff pastry dough is usually given a minimum of 6 turns, resulting in 729 layers; croissant dough, 4 turns, resulting in 81 layers; and Danish dough, 3 turns, result- ing in 27 layers. This explains why puff pastry dough must be stronger, with more protein development, to be able to form such very thin layers without the butter breaking through, although if it is too strong, the pastry will be tough. This
strength can be achieved by using a high-protein flour and/or by of mixing the dough. In addition, the dough needs to be cold when baked so that the butter does not leak out. Because croissant and Danish doughs have yeast, they require warmth, or proofing, before baking, so they cannot be as layered as puff pastry. Because Danish dough contains egg and has one less turn, it is not as light nor quite as flaky as the croissant dough, but it is richer and more tender.

All three of these doughs require enough strength in the form of a relatively high-protein flour to retain the layering. As any of us who has tried to roll out a high-gluten dough knows, it can be very elastic and resistant to rolling. Shirley Corriher encouraged me to create very wet, soft doughs to achieve maximum strength while softening the elasticity. The extra moisture converts to steam dur- ing baking, helping it rise more. The technique works brilliantly.

To sum it up: Croissant dough is essentially puff pastry with the addition of yeast and fewer turns. Danish dough is essentially croissant dough with the addition of egg and one turn less. Brioche is essentially a croissant dough with more liquid that contains a much higher percentage of egg and almost double the sugar, all of which make it more cake-like. Fillio and strudel doughs are the same as puff pastry except that only half the butter is used and it is added after baking the dough, in a melted form. This results in crisper pastry.

PERCENTAGE OF FLOUR, BUTTER, AND LIQUID BY WEIGHT *
	PUFF PASTRY	CROISSANT	DANISH	BRIOCHE	FILLIO/STRUDlL †
* The figures do not add up to exactly 100 percent because of fractional amounts of certain ingredients.
† This is approximate, as some of the dough gets trimmed off before brushing with butter.
‡ Includes 4 teaspoons oil (0.6 ounce).
**Includes 1½ teaspoons lemon juice.
flour	39.5%	40.2%	39.8%	41.3%	49.3%
butter	39-5%	35.2%	33.8%	24.2%	24, 1%
water or milk	20.9%	24.5%	19.6%	7.1%	26.5%
egg	—	—	6.6%	27.3%	—
total water and egg)	(20.9)	(24.5)	(26.2)	(3.44)	(26.5)
COMPARISON OF ALL INGREDIENT AMOUNTS
flour	10 oz	10 oz	10.5 oz	10 oz	10 oz
butter	10 oz	9 oz	9 oz	5 oz	5 oz‡
water or milk	10.4 tbs**	¾ cup	10 tbs	3.12 tbs	10.4 tbs
egg	—	—	1	11.8	tbs—
(total water or milk and egg)	(10.4 tbs)	(¾ cup)	(13 tbs)	(15 tbs)	(10.4 tbs)
yeast	—	—1	11.8 tbs	—
salt		1 tsp	½ tbs	tsp	tsp
sugar	—	2 tbs	2 tbs	3¾	tbs—