(S3E5) Pie Week

The Showstopper

Signature Bake: Wellington

Rule: At least 8 inches long

Rule: Completely covered in pastry

Rule: Traditionally made with Beef, but can be filled with anything.

Rile: Even bake and must rise in layers

Time Limit: 3 hours

Thinking about doing this bake makes me nervous. I have made 1 Wellington before and in reality I just made the rough puff pastry and my boyfriend (Michael) did the rest. It turned out amazing, but it was so intimidating.

There was a part of me that wanted to be super fancy and make a beef wellington again, but honestly, I don't really have the money to buy a piece of meat that expensive...

However, living in the pacific north west, Salmon is not as expensive and I absolutely love Salmon. Oh, and don't forget, I'm moving to an area (Southern Germany) where fresh Salmon is not just available at the city market fresh from the waters right next door.

So, I am going to soak up as much fresh seafood for the next month until I move.

Meaning, salmon wellington it is!

Ready. Set. Bake!

3 hours left -

I need to get the puff pastry started first.

I really debated on if I should make rough puff pastry or real puff pastry and in the end, I realized that I just did not feel confident enough for my real puff pastry to turn out correctly, so rough puff it is.

2 hours and 40 minutes left -

I know, you are probably thinking, why did it take you 20 minutes to get your flour, salt, and butter into a bowl.

Well, I just bought butter the other day. I was completely out, so I bought two boxes thinking 32 ounces of butter should make me through the week.

For my rough puff, I need at least 20 tablespoons of butter (about 10 ounce of butter), and when I pulled out one of my boxes it felt a little funny. Like, maybe there was a space in the box; so I thought that maybe the sticks of butter were just a little short. Which happens; sometimes you just miss a tablespoon of butter.

But, nope. Not what happened.

There were only 3 sticks of butter in my box and the reason I did not notice, was because 1 stick was tuned sideways, so it did not move all that much.

This was pretty shocking for me.

I was not mad, just shocked.

All I was thinking was, will I have enough butter?

Well, if you remember before, I actually have two boxes, but then I am thinking about how a box of butter costs almost $6.

Am I okay missing out on 1 stick of butter?

Then I thought, will the grocery store even take back my 3 sticks of butter?

Will they believe I only had 3 sticks of butter in the box?

Hum...

I normally won't go through the trouble, but I had to call to see if it was even possible.

So, I call the grocery store and ask what happens if I only had 3 sticks of butter in my box that promised me 4 and they said, "of course! Just bring in your receipt and we will switch it out for you". I said, "great! Thank you so much for your help!" So excited I got off the phone and then as I was feeling good about my butter decision I realized, I don't have the receipt. It is gone. Gone forever. And honestly, I don't want to call back and confirm if they will accept it back without a receipt, so I have reached my limit.

I will not return my butter.

Oh, also, if you don't know, I don't have a car and would have to bus or walk to the store and I am not saying I am lazy, but I definitely don't want to walk a mile to the grocery store, just to exchange my butter.

Long story short, I spent about 2 minutes mixing my flour and salt together; about 8 minutes cubing my butter (it was very hard and I needed to clean my knife); and 10 minutes dealing with this butter crises.

I bet the bakers on The Great British Baking Show don't have to deal with that...

(No judgement please!)

Still 3 hours and 40 minutes left -

I have to get the butter broken down into the flour and I know I can use a pastry knife, but honestly, it is so much easier to use my hands sometimes.

2 hours and 32 minutes left -

I don't actually know if it is faster though...

But we digress (not really).

I dump the crumbly dough onto the counter and create a little well in the middle where I will be able to add the water.

Every time I do this, I worry my well will break and water will go everywhere.

Side story:

One time I was making red wine donuts and I created a well and added my wine to the middle and the wine escaped. And it escaped quickly. I had wine rushing all over my counter. I was rushing to try to keep from touching anything else on my counter or spilling off the edge. It was a total disaster.

Now you can see why I am worried about my well.

However, that was almost 2 cups of wine, this is only 2/3 of a cup.

If my well breaks, it won't be so bad.

Also, that was red wine, this is water.

I think I need to fight past my fear and just suck it up.

2 hours and 29 minutes left -

I add the water to the middle of my well.

Slowly.

Just to make sure that if the well does break I can easily fix the problem.

And the well did start to break, but I was able to fix it quickly.

How? You may ask.

I just kneaded the dough together.

Yes, I definitely made that a lot scarier than I needed it to be...

But this dough is so darn sticky...

I tossed in a little bit of flour on top and bottom to make the dough less tacky.

Thankfully, it helped a lot.

Now, lets make a book!

I roll out my dough. It is really soft at the moment, so I am a little worried it is going to fall apart, but it makes rolling out the dough a lot easier and faster.

I fold the top half way down and fold the bottom half way up and then fold the two halves together; just like a book, so that it 3 layers.

I learned this way a while back and fell in love with it. I was feeling really pressed on time and just needed to know how to add more layers in less time and I saw someone doing the book fold instead of the 3 part fold and realized; "Wow! What a great idea!" and have been doing it since.

2 hours and 22 minutes left -

I wrap my dough into my Bees Wrap and toss it into the fridge to rest for a moment while I prep the rest of my bake.

In reality, I need to do my dishes and clean up my kitchen before I continue the bake because my kitchen is small and I need all the space I can to do these challenges.

So, instead of working on the bake itself, I work on my kitchen.

2 hours and 15 minute left -

Half the dishes done!

2 hours and 7 minuets left -

Dishes are done and counters are clean!

Let's get back to what is important, puff pastry.

Bugger, I should have stuck the dough in the freezer instead of the fridge to let it get cold faster...

This dough is pretty soft still, but the good thing is is that it is not hard to roll out.

2 hours and 2 minutes left -

Into the freezer it goes this time!

Now, to prep my filling.

I pull my salmon out of the fridge and un-warp it, but then realize - the skin is still on...

I forgot to get skinned salmon.

I've never skinned a salmon.

I tried skinning fish once and it did not go well.

Uh...

I can't put this fish into the puff pastry with the skin on, that would not be good. That would not be a lovely surprise.

Hum...

Well, might as well get my butt moving because I need to get these fish cleaned.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am actually having friends over to eat this, so I can't delay too much and I also only have -

1 hour and 54 minutes left -

Let's get this skin off!

Yeah, I agree, that was a pretty disgusting sentence...

Anyway...

I take a knife and start to slide it down the back of the salmon.

Nope, not easy.

I don't have any pictures of this because I was covered in salmon goo and I was really concentrating.

Side note: When my friends came over to eat this, I was talking to John, who used to be a cook, and he explained a really sharp knife is needed.

I don't know if my knife was just not sharp or if I just stink at skinning fish, but after a moment (really 21 minutes) I was successful at removing the skin from my fish.

1 hour and 33 minutes left -

I place my skinned fish off to the side and grab my puff pastry to roll out, fold, and re-warp to relax in the fridge again.

Now, that it has been in the freezer for so long it is so hard!

Also, it is starting to get too long.

Hum...

I decide to cut my dough in half and place it facing each other to make is longer than wider.

I roll it out, using all my muscles I have, and work my hardest to make sure my two halves I just put together stick together.

It is not perfect, but we are going to have to make this work.

I book fold my dough again, wrap it up and toss it back in the freezer.

1 hour and 22 minutes left -

Now, I have to get my spinach cooked down, my salmon seared, and my pine nuts roasted.

Let's get started!

I toss some oil into my large pan and cut up some garlic and toss that into my pan.

I LOVE garlic.

I like the way it smells and I love the way it tastes. Yum!

The one thing I don't want to do is burn my garlic and I do that often.

By the way, I am not a cook...

So, I put my pan on super low heat (meaning 2) and wash my spinach.

I toss the spinach into the pan and wait.

1 hour and 17 minutes left -

Okay, 2 is not enough heat.

I turn up my heat, add a lid, and wait just a few moment.

I know spinach can get weird if you over cook it, so I don't want to step away.

1 hour and 14 minutes left -

I pull the spinach off the stove, spoon it into a bowl and set aside.

I need to sear my salmon before I put it into the middle of wellington, so I add a little more oil to the bottom of my pan, salt and pepper both sides of my salmon and toss it into a medium heated pan.

By the way, have I already said I don't cook?

Michael is the cook because I just kind of stink at cooking.

I get super impatience, which is hilarious because I know baking takes a lot of patience as well, but I just love baking!

Thankfully, I don't overcook the fish and I flip the fish without burning it and take it off the stove pretty quickly.

The middle is not cooked, but it will be baked; which will for sure cook it all the way through.

1 hour and 4 minutes left -

I keep the fish in the pan while I roll out my puff pastry.

I don't know how big I will need it, so I just roll it out until it is about 1/8 inch thick all the way around; which definitely took some time.

My dough was pretty hard from hanging out in the freezer.

53 minutes left -

I add my salmon to the middle of the puff pastry.

I then stack my spinach on top; making sure there is a lot because I want to be able to taste the spinach.

But it you look at the back of my salmon, there is so much liquid.

Crap.

Liquid and puff pastry is not a good mixture.

I take paper-towels. Yes, paper-towels and work on soaking up some of the excess liquid.

Remember, this is a judgement free zone.

Who am I kidding, you can judge me.

I definitely laughed at myself as I soaked up liquid off my puff pastry.

Oh crap!

My pine nuts!

I clean out my pan real quick, add some olive oil and toss in the pine nuts. My heat it a little high because I am trying to toast them quickly, but I know this is dangerous.

And it becomes dangerous quick.

I can smell them...

Please don't burn.

Please don't burn.

Please don't burn...

47 minutes left -

I grab the pine nuts and start to spoon them on top of the spinach because I know if I get them off the pan, they will at least stop cooking.

Wow, it looks actually pretty good!

I grab my towel and soak up a little more spinach juice and wrap my salmon up.

It is like a little baby.

So cute!

Now to get it flipped over and into the oven.

Oh.

But the liquid has built up too much underneath the salmon.

I can feel the dough has gotten very wet.

I go to flip it over and I can't, I can feel it is going to rip...

I grab my pastry scraper and a spatula, slide it under the salmon, and FLIP!

Oh crap.

It did rip...

Well, thankfully I have extra dough!

I add some extra dough to the top of the wellington and make sure it is all tucked in.

You may be wondering why I flipped it over and not just leave the seam on-top, but I actually would always risk flipping it because I want my seam to have weight on it, so it won't split open. If it is on-top, I have the possibilities of it coming apart and that is not something we want.

By adding pasty to the top, I am risking the same thing to happen, but I had to close up this giant hole I have.

42 minutes left -

I have it all wrapped up and now all I want is for the dough to not split.

But, the only way to know if it will be okay is bake it. But first, I need to decorate my topping and add my egg wash.

I'm going to keep it simple and just add slices down the middle.

Hey, it kind of looks like fish bones!

Sure!

38 minutes left -

Now, for the waiting and the baking.

1 minutes left -

I need to pull the wellington out...

It looks alright...

Let's hope it is baked through.

Time!

The Tasting:

Well, this is interesting.

I was definitely surprised that the fish was not extremely dry because I baked it on 400 for 45 minutes. However, it was beautifully moist.

The spinach was a great addition and the pine nuts added such great crunchy texture and lovely flavor.

The one downside, the puff pastry.

It was not baked all the way through, especially on the ends. It is like a big chunk of raw dough. Also, the puff pastry was not actually puffy. It was not as flaky as it should have been. I wish I would have just taken the time to make the real puff pastry.

But, we all know that I didn’t have the time for that…

So, the tasting, not bad. And my friends seemed to like it a lot. In addition, the puff pastry is butter, flour, and salt - it won’t kill you if it is raw.

Thankfully...

Now for the next challenge.

These are just ridiculous.

Who thought dollies made more sense than pie molds?

I should let you know now, I don’t have pie dollies. I don’t have the ability to get pie dollies because I can only order them from England at the moment and honestly, I would be worried I would not receive them until after I move out of my apartment (3 weeks from today) and spending that much on dollies I may not get for a bake that I would like to do in one weekend seems kind of goofy.

I then spent lots of time looking around for things that are like pie dollies, but I only found rolling pins. Well, that is still not practical, because I need two rolling pins and I only have one. But do you know what I have two of?

Wine bottles.

So, that is what I am going to use!

Now, let’s get started!

Technical Bake:

Rule: Hand-raised pie.

Rule: Made with Chicken, Bacon, and Apricot

Rule: Made with a hot water crust - worked, while warm.

Rule: Use a dolly - WINE BOTTLES!!!

Instructions:

- Melt the butter and lard together.

- Add to flour and salt

- Oil the pie dollies

- Form the dough around the dollies - no instructions

- Chill the warm pastry and make the filling

- Remove the dough from the dollies

- Layer the chicken, bacon and, apricot

- Crimp the pie lids and create a small hole

- Add egg wash

- Bake

- Fill pies with gelatin and stock

- Sit overnight to let the gelatin set.

Time Limit: 2 hours and 15 minutes

Ingredients for Crust:

- 200 grams flour

- 40 grams strong flour

- 50 grams butter

- 130ml boiling water

- 1 tsp salt

- 60 grams lard

- 1 egg

Ingredients for Filling

- 300 grams chicken breast - chopped

- 300 grams smoked bacon - chopped

- 2 spring fresh thyme

- salt and pepper- to flavor

- 240 grams dried apricots - chopped

- 2 leaves galatine

- 1/4 pint hot water

- 1 chicken stock cube

Wow...that was a lot of rules...sorry…

Let’s get baking now!

Ready. Set. Bake!

I need to get the hot water crust started first of course.

I have never made hot water crust. I didn’t even know it was a thing.

I had to go find lard…

Did you know lard is not in the fridge section?

I didn’t.

I spent a lot of my time wandering around the butter section.

So, if you want to make these, remember, not in the fridge section it was actually near the chicken cubes.

4 hours and 15 minutes left -

Finally, we can start.

And I have already screwed up…

I followed my instinct and added the butter, flour, and salt into a large bowl.

I don’t even think it is instinct, more habit…

Well, all we can do is move on now.

4 hours left -

In a small pan, I add the lard and at least melt that.

3 hours and 50 minutes left -

I toss the lard and the hot water with the flour and butter mixer until everything comes together into a dough ball.

Honestly, it does not smell that great...

But we must move on!

3 hours and 35 minutes left -

Oil the pie dollies, or in my case, my wine bottles until extremely well oiled.

No, I am not adding a picture of my oiled wine bottles; but to give you an idea, the entire bottom of the wine bottles were drenched in oil. Let’s hope these work because I have no other option...

3 hours and 25 minutes -

I need to split up the dough and start covering the wine bottles, so I can move onto the filling.

2 hours and 50 minutes left -

Wow! That took way longer than I thought….

I also needed to make the pie tops and toss those in the fridge.

Thankfully, that didn’t take me long.

2 hours and 45 minutes left.

Now, I can toss the pie forms in the fridge and move onto the filling!

First, I prepare all my tasty filling because the one thing I do know about cooking is that you need to prepare all your parts before you move forward.

Let us start with the bacon!

I mean, who does not like bacon?

Chop, chop, chop!

2 hours and 30 minutes left -

All the bacon has been chopped!

So Much Bacon!

But it is time to move onto the chicken and season it. Quickly.

I mean quickly because we still have to get the pie forms off the wine bottles, fill the pies, and get them in the oven quickly.

Okay, let us get to it!

2 hours and 10 minutes left -

Thankfully, the chicken does not take me long to chop up and season.

Last but not least, I get my apricots chopped up.

I love apricots. I really love apricots.

1 hour and 55 minutes left -

Now, let us see how these pie shells have come along.

To be honest, I am really nervous.

If these things don’t come off the wine bottles, I don’t know what I will do.

However, all I can do now is to play around with the shells until I get them off the wine bottles, my “pie dollies”.

1 hour 45 minutes left -

Hum…

I can’t just pull the pie shell down off the wine bottles because they don’t even want to move. I even oiled these wine bottles extremely well…

I try shimming the pie shell down, but that also does not work…

I then stick my frosting spatula down between the shell and the wine bottle and it works slightly, but I can tell I am stretching the dough.

However, this is my best option so far.

1 hour and 30 minutes left -

YES!

I got the first one off with minimal issues.

I have one small hole, but I just use the warmth of my fingers to press the dough back together and close the hole.

Well, at least I hope it works that way...

Now that I know how to do 1, I hope I can do the second one rather quickly.

1 hour and 20 minutes left -

All is good!

I still created a few small holes, but thankfully I can use the heat from my fingers to clean up those holes as well.

I'm going to be honest, I am pretty proud of myself!

But we don’t have time to gloat because we got stuff to get done.

We need to get these pies filled and in the oven soon.

1 hour and 15 minutes left -

First, we add the bacon.

Then the seasoned chicken.

Then the apricots.

And repeat until the pies are full.

Hopefully two layers is enough…

1 hours left -

Now I just need to add the tops and get them into the oven.

Done!

53 minutes left -

And done!.

They are now in the oven.

I still need to make my gelatine mixture, but all I can do now is wait.

20 minutes left -

I really hope these things bake in time...

10 minutes left -

I start my gelatine mixture as the pies continue to bake and get them ready to be filled.

3 minutes left -

I pull my pies out of the oven, I hope they are baked through, and set them on a cooling rack.

I start to spoon my gelatine mixture into hole at the top of the pie; however, it is starting to seep out the bottom...my hole fixing did not work...

Well, time is up and we are done and there is nothing more we can do.

The Tasting - The Next Day:

I’m going to admit, these pies don’t smell amazing. They actually have this smell to them that I picture would be in an old English kitchen, but they do look really cool!

The flavor is actually really interesting. The chicken is really moist and the bacon adds this great fatty flavor and the apricots add some sweetness.

I was questioning the flavor of these pies a lot, but I actually enjoy the filling a lot.

However, I do not enjoy the crust as much. I think the lard has a strong flavor that it is a bit overwhelming. At least for me…

Maybe you’ll like it more. I mean, I think most people like cow fat, right?

I’m not sure what Paul and Mary would have thought of the filling flavor, but I know they would have commented on how the bottom of my pies are not completely baked and how the gelatin is not throughout the entire pie.

In the picture above, you might be able to see the gelatin a little in the bottom, but it did not make it to the top.

My patches I added to the middle of my dough must have not worked…

Bummer.

In the end, I would probably make these pies again, but I would probably use my regular pie dough and not the hot crust pie dough.

Unless there is an easier way to get them off the “pie dollies”...

Now, for the Sweet American Pie!

Showstopper: Sweet American Pie - Cranberry Apple Pie

Rule: Family sized American Pie

Rule: No lid

Time Limit: 3 hours and 30 minutes

So, before I start this challenge, I want to explain that I did not make what the other home bakers made. Coming from America, a “Sweet American Pie” is not a tart. It should not come out of its pie shell until you cut a slice out and it.

So, I did not make a tart, I made a real American Pie. If you feel like I should make what all the other bakers made, please let me know and I would be happy to re-due this challenge. However, below you will find my definitions of a pie and a tart:

Pie: A pie can be sweet of savory. It may or may not contain a lid. The side of the pie pan is slightly tilted and you do not remove the pie from the pie pan.

Tart: A tart can be sweet or savory. It generally does not contain a lid. The sides of the tart pan are straight up and down and has a removable bottom, so that one may remove the tart from the shell.

Let’s get started with MY version of an American Pie.

3 hours and 30 minutes left -

So, first things first - make the pie dough.

Thankfully, I can do this with my eyes closed.

The last two Thanksgivings, I have made pie for friends and coworkers. Meaning, in 1 night I would make about 10 - 15 pies.

Thankfully, I enjoy making pie.

3 hours and 15 minutes left -

So, I was not surprised when I had my pie dough in the fridge so quickly.

Little side note, no I am not sponsoring "Bees Wrap", but I will recommend this stuff over and over and over again because it is way better than using plastic wrap.

Now that we have the dough in the fridge, we can start working on slicing these applies and getting my cranberries on the stove.

By the way, I’m sure you have realized that I say “we” a lot in my posts and I do that for a reason. You may not be here while I bake these treats, but you are reading these posts, so it is almost like you are here with me!

So, we need to get our butts moving because we have a lot of applies to chop…

Chop chop!

2 hours and 45 minutes left -

I forgot to start my cranberries, but at least I have 3 applies already chopped up!

I toss the cranberries into a pan with some lemon, cinnamon, and sugar and let them simmer.

Back to the applies!

2 hours and 31 minutes left -

The berries are boiling and they have softened.

I put them off to the side while I finish chopping up my applies.

2 hours and 15 minutes left -

All my apples are chopped and ready to be tossed into the pie.

Well, I think tossed pie not the right word…

Arranged very neatly. You will see what I mean soon...

Now, to the dough.

1 hour and 50 hours left -

The dough is rolled out, placed in the pie pan, and decorated.

I do toss the cranberries in at this time because I can’t really arrange those in any particular way...

1 hour and 45 minutes left -

The mission = Make these apples look pretty.

Wish me good luck.

1 hour and 25 minutes left

Almost done...

1 hour and 10 minutes left -

Finished!

Not as pretty as I had hoped and the apples have lost a lot of their color; but, I just have to keep going.

I toss the pie in the oven and hope it will be done quickly.

27 minutes left -

Well, the pie is already done...Maybe I could have spent a few more minutes making it prettier...

Now, to let the time run out…

Awkward...

The Tasting:

So, I’m not proud of this pie at all…

I should have taken the time to skin the applies, but then they would have not been as pretty.

The sourness from the cranberries was good; but in all, the pie did not have a lot of flavor.

I would have been completely embarrassed giving this pie to Mary and Paul, I probably would have cried a lot.

Hopefully the first two bakes would have saved me from leaving the show…

What do you think?

Next Week:

So, I am sure you noticed I was away for some time.

Well, with the move, I become overwhelmed with work and packing and getting everything ready, I kind of just stopped baking as much.

I’m sorry.

However! Now I am in Germany!

And now I can get back to my scheduled baking.

For next week, we will be baking pudding.

Yes. Pudding.

And the showstopper, a Strudel.

Well...

I have a funny story about phyllo dough...this week my boyfriend, Michael, and I were making dinner and he needed phyllo dough. I did not want to make it. I have made it once and I was planning to only make it when I really needed it because we can just buy it at the store.

I know...I try not to buy store bought doughs, but we were just making dinner for the two of us. It was a weeknight and I was lazy. Yes, I was lazy.

However, what do we have to make this weekend now..phyllo dough...of course...

Well, enjoy your week because next week we are making Strudel together.

Yes, I said we...