Betsy: Challenge 5 - Pies!

True confession: I have never made a pie crust.

First, I do not come from a family that eats much pie. Some people eat pies all the time; my childhood was instead filled with cakes and brownies. So, not much impetus to try it. Second, I'm not a huge fan of pies myself. Third, I was always satisfied with the Pillsbury pre-made crusts.

But, I figured for this challenge, I'd better try a homemade crust.

For the challenge, I wanted to try something unique - not your average apple pie or cherry pie. I decided to check out the Prairie Farmer, which was a publication printed from 1841 to 1900. It contains a treasure trove of recipes used by farmer's wives in the Midwest, and since they're dated, it's really easy to find recipes useful to one's place and time - if, that is, one lives on the prairie.

Rae Katherine Eighmey has taken some Prairie Farmer recipes, tested them, and converted them for modern cooking in her book A Prairie Kitchen. This was my first stop, and I found a recipe from March of 1859 for a "cheap pie". It was easy to track down the original recipe on Google Books, which reads thus:

...yup, that would be cheap indeed

Pretty simple, really. So I had to pick a pie crust recipe, and I went with our old friend, Eliza Leslie, who had a really easy recipe for a butter crust:

I halved the crust recipe, as usual, and just followed the directions. It was a little tricky, as I was doing some marathon cooking for an event and my kitchen was a little warm. In the future I think I'd pay more attention to keeping things cool.


The Challenge: Pies!

The Recipe: "Cheap Pie" from The Prairie Farmer, and "Common Pie Crust" from Directions for Cookery

The Date/Year and Region: 1859 in Illinois/1840 United States

How Did You Make It?: Just like it says - the pie filling was full strength molasses, a very small bit of flour and some cinnamon. The crust was just as Eliza Leslie had it, but I halved the recipe. I baked it at 350 for about 25 minutes.

Time To Complete: I really had to wrestle with the dough. With baking, it probably took about an hour or so.

Total Cost: Cheap. Har har. I didn't keep track of the costs as I had everything on hand. The butter and the molasses would have been the big cost factors - it was probably about $5, max.


How Successful Was It?: I brought it to a reenactment for people to try, and the results were pretty positive. I happen to like molasses, so I thought it was great. The filling was a bit runny, and it was a lot of crust and not a lot of filling. I would definitely like to try the crust again, so I can try rolling it out more thinly - I think it got a little thick.

All in all, it was an interesting take on a pie and definitely not our modern idea of "pie". Given the date, and knowing what early springtime is like on the prairie, this must have been appealing to those whose stores of preserves, canned produce, and fresh produce were running a bit low at the end of winter. I can definitely see a Midwestern farmer's wife making this recipe for a midday meal with the family - it would please the kids, and fill up farmhands for very little cost.

How Accurate Is It?: As always, I baked in a modern electrical oven, but the rest is, I think, pretty accurate.

The pie on our picnic table on Saturday

Melissa: A half-hearted Challenge 4 and a quadruple-hearted Challenge 5!

Hey everyone!  Long time, no post, it feels!  I definitely slacked off for Challenge #4: "Foreign Foods" and made a very sad, very boring "chocolate soup" that I accidentally cooked an egg in.  I won't bore you with the stories of my pain and agony caused by that "chocolate soup", but I will leave you with this picture (if you look closely, you can see the little bits of egg yolk floating at the top! Yuck!)

So, in order to compensate for my gross failure at Challenge #4, I decided to participate in Challenge #5... four times.

Yes, four.  Not because I was trying to up Jenni Cole Miller and her three awesome pies, but because the occasion actually arose to bake four whole pies.

First, I decided to make a buttered apple pie from Amelia Simmons' 1790's cookbook, "American Cookery", because there is an orchard right by my house with the most delightful apples and nothing is better than a hot apple pie.  The recipe goes like this:

A buttered apple Pie.

Pare, quarter and core tart apples, lay in paste No. 3, cover with the same; bake half an hour, when drawn, gently raise the top crust, add sugar, butter, cinnamon, mace, wine or rose-water q: s:

Instead of using Simmons' crust recipe I just made up some of Hannah Glasse's Puff Paste, which is my go-to pie crust recipe because pie crust is just one of those things that needs to be constant and strong in your life.

I really liked this recipe because it called for adding all of the extras after the initial baking, which made a delightful buttery soupy pie that didn't have mushy apples.  I would definitely recommend it!  Instead of using white wine, we used my friend's homemade hard cider, which was amazing.  It was apple on apple deliciousness.

After putting the crust on, I posed for a picture.  I love my pies :)

After taking the top crust off and filling the pie.  This little number went back in the oven for about ten minutes so everything would melt together into epic deliciousness.

My friends and I then decided that we would take a trip to the local historic village and park to have a picnic all dressed out, which definitely required food.  I began with the intention to make a meat pie, since I had promised I'd make one for my beau for this challenge, but I didn't plan on the other two, they just sort of... happened.  My dear friend Amy is a vegetarian and I wanted to make her an original dish that was originally vegetarian instead of making something with tofu or eggplant instead of meat.  So, back to Hannah Glasse I went.  I found two of her recipes, one for a beef steak pie and one for an onion pye.  Perfect!  Two pies for the challenge, one of which was perfectly vegetarian.

I made the beef steak pie to the recipe except I used stew cuts of beef instead of hunks of steak (for ease of eating) and used beef broth instead of water.  The onion pye was made almost exactly to the recipe (even down to the point of grating my own nutmeg) with the omission of eggs, because I'm not a fan of those :)  All in all it took one medium onion, two Idaho potatoes, and four small apples to make that pie.

But wait!  What were we to eat for dessert?  I had my eye on this recipe for a long time, and was just waiting for an opportunity to make it... Frederick Nutt's Chocolate Tart!

Now I know that the challenge technically said pies, but our modern term for pie does not necessarily mean that there is a top and a bottom crust, so I just went with it.  I followed the recipe completely!  If I was to make it again I would use some sugar and cream of tartar in the meringue to make it more appetizing.  It looked like browned snow on the top of the tart, and since it's mostly for looks anyway, it's probably best to actually make it look good.

All of the pies were served at our historic picnic today, and a get-together with good friends and good food can never go wrong.  All of the pies got top marks!  I'm so proud of my creations.  PIE!!

The Challenge: #5 Pie!

The Recipe: Two from Hannah Glasse's "The Art of Cookery", one from Frederick Nutt's "The Imperial and Royal Cook", and one from Amelia Simmons' "American Cookery"

The Date/Year and Region: Late 18th-early 19th century America

How Did You Make It: Lots and lots of work!

Time to Complete: I would say that each pie took about 2 hours, start to finish.  I made the first pie all in one fell swoop, but for the last three I made the crust the night before and kept it in the fridge so that I didn't go crazy with making insane amounts of crusts and pie at the same time.

Total Cost:  Oh dear, there is no way of knowing.  The first pie might have cost around $10 for all of the ingredients?  For the last three I went to a giant international market called Jungle Jim's (if you are anywhere close to Southwest Ohio, and you are a foodie, seriously go there.  You will thank me later) where I picked up various ingredients for various projects and then stopped by the apple orchard again to get produce for the pies there... I would say each pie probably cost around $10, but who really knows?

How Successful Was It?: All of the pies ended up tasting great!  The apple pie was delightful, I definitely think I will make that recipe again.  The onion pie was extremely oniony!  The onion seeped into the apples and potatoes and really you couldn't taste anything else.  I loved the seasoning, though.  I think I might use that to season the beef steak pie when I make that again.  It also should have baked longer at a lower temperature because I think that was definitely one of those pies where everything should be a little mushy.  The beef steak pie was very simple but excellent, and my beau was so happy to have finally received his promised meat pie!  I think I might season it with something more than pepper and salt next time.  And the chocolate tart, despite the lumpy meringue, was absolutely delicious!  The filling was nice and custardy and chocolatey.  It was the perfect end to a perfect meal.

How Accurate Is It?: With all of my modifications to the original recipes, I think I kept in the spirit of the past.  The things I changed were minor or necessary changes due to what was available to me and my personal tastes.  I don't think I would have liked the dishes as much without my modifications.  I'd rate them pretty high on the accuracy scale, if I do say so myself!

So, there they are, my four dear pies.  All delicious and lovely in their own right!  I can't wait to see what everyone creates for our next challenge!  Happy eating and happy cooking, dear friends!

Betsy: Plum Puffs from Anne of Avonlea

The Challenge: On the Facebook page, I gave a teaser about what I was cooking for the first challenge. It's something from an era I've never interpreted (and, frankly, never want to interpret), and from a book that first inspired my love of history. The book is Anne of Avonlea, the era is the late 19th century, and the recipe is plum puffs!

The Anne series of books made me fall in love with history. I watched the miniseries again and again, and read the books as many times as I could take them out from the library, enamored of the quaint-yet-elegant country life of Anne, Diana and their friends. I wanted to go to a one-room schoolhouse, play on Barry's Pond (excuse me, the Lake of Shining Waters), and wear a dress with puffed sleeves. Anne, the awkward and "homely" heroine who gets herself into so many scrapes with so many good intentions, also appealed to little me, and still has through all these years. So, when we set out a literary challenge, I knew for sure that I was going to pick an Anne recipe.

The plum puffs came from Anne of Avonlea. In the book, Anne has become a teacher with many ideas about what a teacher should do - including never hitting a child. Unfortunately, she meets her Waterloo in Anthony Pye, and gives him a whipping. Horrified with herself, she goes home for a good cry, which is how Marilla finds her.

"I can't help it. I want everybody to love me and it hurts me so when anybody doesn't. And Anthony never will now. Oh, I just made an idiot of myself today, Marilla. I'll tell you the whole story."

Marilla listened to the whole story, and if she smiled at certain parts of it Anne never knew. When the tale was ended she said briskly, "Well, never mind. This day's done and there's a new one coming tomorrow, with no mistakes in it yet, as you used to say yourself. Just come downstairs and have your supper. You'll see if a good cup of tea and those plum puffs I made today won't hearten you up."

"Plum puffs won't minister to a mind diseased," said Anne disconsolately; but Marilla thought it a good sign that she had recovered sufficiently to adapt a quotation.

Oh Anne. How can you not love her?  Who hasn't been there?

The Recipe:  As chance would have it, I came across a recipe for "Puffs" in The Good Housekeeper by Sarah Josepha Hale from 1841. Here's what she says:

Roll out puff paste nearly a quarter of an inch thick and, with a small saucer, or tin cutter of that size, cut it into round pieces; place upon one side raspberry or strawberry jam, or any other sort of preserved fruit, or stewed apples; wet the edges, fold over the other side, and press it round with the finger and thumb.

Simple concept! Puff pastry with fruit filling. There's even a recipe for puff pastry in the book, and it looked remarkably similar to modern puff pastry recipes. To be sure, I double-checked in The White House Cookbook, and their recipe is very similar as well.

The Date/Year and Region: There are several different theories out there about the timeline of the Anne stories. Most place the Anne of Avonlea scenes somewhere in the 1880s/1890s. So I stuck with that as a general era. Given Marilla's old-school-housekeeper personality, I felt comfortable reaching farther back to the mid-19th century for a recipe that she might have learned as a young woman, or even as a child from her own mother. The Good Housekeeper dates to 1841. The White House Cookbook dates to 1887. Both cookbooks are American.

How Did You Make It: I won't bore you with the details of making the puff pastry, except to note that it wasn't as hard as I feared. Following explicit directions was important, and chilling the dough between turns was very helpful. Since Anne wakes up the next day to a blanket of snow on the ground, I felt confident that Marilla probably chilled the dough on the porch as well.

For the filling, I decided to stew some fresh plums. I got some really ripe, juicy plums, peeled them, stoned them, and put them in a pan with a bit of water and some sugar, intending to thicken it up. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I put some corn starch in and boiled it. And waited. And still it was runny. But, the plum pieces themselves, though nearly decimated from the process, were sweet and tart and juicy. So, I salvaged what I could.

I followed the recipe's directions: cut out circles, put a blob of filling in them, wetted the corners and folded them over. But, the filling was so runny, it was hard to get them to behave. So, they ended up a little more open that I would have liked - I was hoping for something that looked like a little fruit pie.

It doesn't matter though, because they were DELICIOUS. I baked them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes - that wasn't long enough, so I gave them another five minutes, at which point the bottoms were golden brown. The dough turned out flaky and light (a little salty, because I used salted butter without realizing, but oh well). The filling was everything a good fruit filling should be (except that it was runny). They got a little soft in between baking and serving (it was a warm, humid weekend) but they were still very good.

Time to Complete: FOREVER. At least that's what it seemed like. The dough took the longest because of the amount of chilling required between turns. In between each turn of the dough I worked on the filling, so it really took about three or four hours. Easily doable of an evening or on a weekend afternoon, but make sure you don't have to go anywhere suddenly, and plan on doing housework in between turns. You know that's what Marilla did.

Total Cost: Negligible. The pastry was flour and water to make a paste dough, plus a half a pound of butter. The plums were under $5. Mrs. Lynde would be proud of my frugality.

How Successful Was It?: They disappeared at the picnic to which I brought them, those who ate them gave rave reviews (even when asked "But seriously...") and those who did not get to try one were disappointed.

How Accurate Is It?: I live in the wasteland known as Central Minnesota. There are no green grocers or fruit markets, and plums are not easily grown here. So, I made do with what was available at my local supermarket, and have no idea if they are at all similar to 19th century plums. I also used my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook attachment to mix the dough, but did end up working it by hand at the end to get it uniform.

 Pictures! As stated on my own blog, you will always get terrible pictures from me. Still not sorry.

The finished product, with tea (naturally)

Bottom right, mid-devouring, on the picnic table. Courtesy of my dear friend Karen!

A note: Just before I started working on this, I was sent a link to another blogger who has done plum puffs from Anne of Avonlea. I was unaware of her efforts before I began this process. I still haven't even looked at her post, or her results, for fear of skewing my own research and results. I'm looking forward to comparing our notes, now that I'm done!