Rope & rosettes

In addition to my pie class, I'm also taking Cake Decorating I. This week we began practicing with buttercream icing, made with shortening (usually unsalted butter but this was just practice), water and icing sugar.

We started off with stars, zigzags and shells, followed by reverse shells, rosettes and rope. The reverse shells and rosettes (below, top) are killing me, I need to practice some more. I would love to cover a whole cake with stars:

Cheesecake in pie form

Who knew? Also, so much for sampling a tiny piece and giving the rest away. This Cherry Cream Cheese Pie involved the same dough as for the previous pie and the same topping, minus the oatmeal and pecans.

Just thinking about the filling makes my mouth water: cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, vanilla, eggs and cornstarch were mixed together until creamy. Cherry filling was spread into the bottom of the pie shell, covered by the creamy mixture, followed by the topping. Baking was approximately 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Simple to make, even easier to eat.

Pie dough 101 + a fruit-filled pie

This week's pie dough (pastry flour, shortening, water, salt and brown sugar) was worked just until it was roughly incorporated, refrigerated for about a half an hour, then fully worked and rolled out. Something I didn't know: the 3 key elements to pie dough are 1 part water, 2 parts fat (shortening) and 3 parts pastry flour.


The filling for this Strawberry Rhubarb Apple Streusel Pie included frozen rhubarb (thrown in the pot first, along with brown sugar and butter), followed by sliced apples, cinnamon, lemon juice & zest and frozen strawberries. These are sauteed with cornstarch and water until filling has thickened. The topping included oatmeal, pecans, white & brown sugar, bread flour and butter, broken up until a crumble is formed. This was very sweet and the pie crust was amazing - flaky and perfect (if I do say so myself). Baking time should be approximately one hour at 375 degrees, but we used a convection oven which sped that up. I'm not familiar with baking with a convection oven, but it seems unpredictable - some of our pies turned out well, while others were a bit burnt.

Phyllo is fattening

My baking school break is over and now it's The Art of Pies - all pie, all the time! Our first pie was Custard-Filled Phyllo with Orange Syrup. I've never worked with phyllo before and it was pretty simple, but not very low-fat.


Sheets of phyllo were brushed with butter and laid in a pie plate. The filling included: milk, butter, sugar, cream of wheat (all heated until just boiled), and eggs, orange juice and vanilla (whisked together and then added to the previous cooled-down mixture). More buttered phyllo was laid on top of mixture once it had been poured into the pie plate and the sides of the phyllo were scrunched up to form the ruffled look you see here.


After baking (approx. 40 minutes), an orange syrup consisting of sugar, water, cinnamon, cloves, orange and lemon peel and Grand Marnier (brought to a boil and cooled for 5 minutes) is poured over top of the finished pie to give it some flavour. Once the pie is fully cooled, it can be dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. I had a piece for breakfast today and it was very rich and flaky - not as flavourful, I don't think, as some of the other pies in our course outline will be (Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie and Cherry Cheese Streusel Pie!). After sampling a little piece, I usually give away everything I bake but not sure that will be the case for this class..

Mini b-day cupcakes

I tried out my new Cupcake Kit in honour of my sister's birthday today. These are vanilla with a lemon cream cheese icing and were my first attempt at mini cupcakes. The recipe was meant to create 12 medium-sized cupcakes, but I reduced baking time to 15 minutes from 20 and ended up with 36 minis instead. They tasted like a denser version of angel food cake and the icing was nice and lemony - a really sweet combination, so I might try this batter recipe with a lighter icing next time.