6 Heaven on a Plate: Apple and Wensleydale with Cranberries Pie

 I don't think it's a secret that I've got both a raging sweet tooth and a massive cheese addiction. England was very, very good to both of these problems pleasures in my life, and a couple of years ago I found a way to combine them.
Our first house in England was a 1780s farmhouse complete with five Bramley apple trees in the garden (yard). Once fall hit, so did the apples, and I couldn't make enough pies or give enough apples away. The problem with Bramleys is that they're painfully tart- so nearly inedible raw. This also means they are excellent for cooking and baking, so I took full advantage of that.
One night when I was making yet another apple pie, I decided something that fell into another food group would be a good idea, so I snacked on some of my favorite cheese- Wensleydale with cranberries- and crackers. I began thinking (something about getting protein in one's system for the first time in probably a week...) and remembered the Southern addition of cheddar that I'd always thought ruined an otherwise delicious apple pie.
Well, those apples were usually sweet, to counter the sharp cheddar. I had face-alteringly tart apples, with a more sweet, creamy cheese...
and an idea hatched. I made my first Apple and Wensleydale-with-cranberries Pie and took it over to a friend's house, where she was packing up to move away. I apologized in advance about 60 times, just in case the pie was awful... but I had two slices before leaving the rest with them- and got rave reviews!

I've made it a few more times since, and each time it's better than I remembered. After mentioning it enough times to Betsy that I've begun to feel a bit guilty, I thought it was time to put it on the blog.
Warning: I bake for taste. Not for pictures, or even perfectly crimped crusts.

I use Gesine Bullock-Prado's basic pie crust with only butter- no shortening. I'm not opposed to shortening (the lowest-possible trans-fat kind), but even with my high cholesterol I believe natural fats are better and easier for my body to process than fake fats.  Ahem. I pretty much think Gesine Bullock-Prado hung the puffed-crust moon and perfectly sugar-spun stars, so I refer to her for nearly all baking (or sugar) queries.
I use my apple corer/slicer to cut up my apples; it's such a handy gadget I don't know why piemakers wouldn't have one. I don't peel the apples, though. My mom was a firm believer in the nutritious peels, and since I don't mind them it'd be wasteful and silly to peel them.  I then toss the apples with flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon- I'm bad about not measuring, but I tried to this time:
(approximately)
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons muscavado (or brown, if muscavado isn't available) sugar- NOT packed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.
With the cheese flavor I tend to leave out the other traditional apple pie spices, but cinnamon goes so well with the cranberries.  The brown sugar is negotiable, but my sweet tooth appreciates it.  The flour helps the apple juices from mushing everything up, so it's vital.
I sliced up 5 medium sized apples. I used Honeycrisp, and I'm not crazy about them for this (or for eating). Gala and Fuji would both be too sweet with the cheese and I refuse to touch the mealy varieties (Red Delicious, Granny Smith, etc.) and those were my only choices. I'm going to keep searching for a better apple for this pie.
**Update: So far Braeburn seems to be the best apple for this pie. I'm still on the hunt for a nice, firm tart apple like Bramley, but Braeburn's flavor fits the pie much better than any other US varieties I've sampled!

Now, the cheese... Obviously I can't just drive up to Wensleydale Creamery anymore. (hang on. I need a moment.)  But thankfully, I found some (fake- it's from England, just not Wensleydale itself) Wensleydale with cranberries cheese at Whole Foods. I think the cheese monger's eyes about bugged out when I picked up the 1/4 wheel instead of a little wedge, but he'll get used to me eventually.
I used about half of the 1/4 wheel, so slightly over 1/2 pound of cheese. Yep.
**Update: If you're near a Harris Teeter, (locations here) they carry real Wensleydale Creamery Wensleydale-with-cranberries! (Also the apricot and blueberry varieties… but unfortunately not the plain Wensleydale.)

 Roll out the pie crust, put it in the pie plate (I use Pyrex glass so I can check on the bottom crust during baking), press it into the corners gently.
I slice the cheese thickly, otherwise it tends to melt down in the oven and change the consistency of the pie. Thick slices (about 1 cm) keep the portion similar to the apples. I then layer it with the apples- thicker layers of apples between cheese: cheese, apples, cheese, apples.  Sometimes you also have to eat a piece of the cheese. That's okay, too.

I like to do something with my top crust. If I'm feeling lazy I just lattice it, otherwise I use my cookie cutters. Since this is an English-based pie, I used my Jubilee crown cookie cutters. This leaves the appropriate holes in the top as well.
I did an egg-white wash, then sprinkled with cinnamon demerara sugar. Then my trusty Pie Crust Shield went on for the first half of baking.

In the oven at 350º for 20 minutes, then up to 375º for another 30ish. I haven't quite figured out this oven yet, and while my oven thermometer says it's accurate it seems cool to me (stuff takes longer to cook). Pies are so fickle anyway, though, that I usually just stick my head in around 20 minutes, then at 30 minutes, then every 5 until the majority of the top crust is golden. Then I check the bottom (clear pie plate!) to be sure the bottom crust isn't soggy, although some moist-looking bits are fine as long as it's not predominately moist.  If the top is getting dangerously toasted and the bottom isn't baked, tuck some tin foil over the whole top, crunching at the sides.  If you're doing a more traditional full top crust or latticed, the Pie Shield should probably stay on longer.
Told you I'm rubbish at recipes.

Then I eat it. This pie is perfect, because I can pretend it's a meal: cheese, fruit, bread/crust... YUM!

Keep an eye out at your cheese counter (I hear Costco has it as well around the holidays) and pick up some Wensleydale with cranberries cheese- it's DELICIOUS! Well, unless you're Paul and a spoilsport, but that just means more for me!

Have a great weekend!
I'm off for another slice...

6 Lemon Scones

Yesterday I told you about making cranberry-pomegranate sauce to go with my fried brie- but after I snarfed up enjoyed the brie in a ladylike fashion, I had a good amount of the sauce leftover. Clearly I needed to make something else worthy of it!
Lemon and cranberry is one of my favorite flavor combinations, and lemon scones popped into mind. (See? My always-have-lemons policy pays off!) I've never made scones before, so I pulled out several of my British cookbooks and paged through to the scone recipes. I found fruit scones, cream scones, brown scones... but none that suggested exactly how to balance the recipe with the addition of lemon juice.
(I modify and change around recipes frequently, but when I'm tackling a new product I like to have a few recipes to compare and to see what's indispensable to the dough, and adding lemon juice can alter a lot in a recipe. It not only increases the moisture content, but turns any milk or cream to buttermilk or sour cream.)
I didn't want cream scones, but that set me on the path to buttermilk scones, so I hit Google. I found this recipe for lemon scones on Farmgirl Fare, and it was exactly the recipe I was seeking! Once again, I'll tell you my modifications, but out of respect to Farmgirl I'm gonna ask you to click over for the full recipe.

I didn't have Meyer lemons but I did have some nice big ones I picked up at Whole Foods. One thing I'll suggest if you're wanting to keep lemons on hand but not immediately use them- pick the firmest ones you find with very bright peels- those will last longer than soft ones. Keep them in the crisper of your fridge, but don't touch courgettes (zucchini), broccoli, or other leafy greens to them- they tend to soften the vegetables faster. I'm not entirely sure why, but I assume it is the citric acid. I just make sure my lemons are only next to other fruit or carrots (but remember, carrots are best stored fresh out of the ground with the dirt on them, wrapped in a brown paper bag in a dark, cool place- only put them in the fridge if they've been washed).  If your lemons are starting to soften before you've used them, just make some fresh lemonade! That's always a good plan to me!

Anyway, back to the recipe.

I zested way more than 2 tsp- probably closer to 1/3 cup, but I love lemon flavor.

The dry mixture on the left, no changes other than the increased amount of zest. The wet mixture on the right, and here we go: I juiced two lemons and didn't measure it- but it looked to be just over 1/2 cup. I used skim milk, because that's what I drink (I have high cholesterol). I also used 3 egg whites instead of 2 whole eggs, once again because of my high cholesterol. I rarely use egg yolks, and have developed a fairly good substitution for whites-to-whole in recipes- 1.5:1 for large eggs (there are accepted weights you can measure out if you're more particular about following recipes, though). If I'm making cookies that I want to stay soft I do 2:1; the extra white makes all the difference in soft 3-day old cookies!  Anyway- the plain yogurt I have on hand is Greek and I wasn't sure if that'd be too thick, so I used a Stonyfield french vanilla yogurt.  Cut the butter into the dry mixture like you're making pastry dough, then fold in the wet mixture as described by Farmgirl.

Top row: patting out the dough; the cut scones
Bottom row: after the egg wash, my impatient peek in the oven

I knew I wanted to cut circle scones rather than wedge-shaped ones, so I patted out my dough to be 1" thick as described, but then went to my cookie cutter drawer. I couldn't find my biscuit (American version) cutter easily and I didn't want to sort through things with my floury hands, but I did find a large pumpkin cutter so I used it instead. That's why my scones have little tails :)  Once again my egg-wash only had egg whites and skim milk.

Scones! YUM!

This was my leftover dough after I'd cut out enough pumpkins to fill my baking sheet. I balled it up and set it in the egg wash, then rolled it around and popped in on a little tray in the toaster oven, also at 400ºF. I ate it first, and the crispy edge all over it was absolutely amazing. I'm tempted to do this to all of them next time!

The regular scones were very delicious on their own- I have no complaints! I got twelve total out of the recipe, and just polished off the last three today. (Yes, I'm a piggy. It's why I started baking my own goods.)

And as for being a good match for the cranberry-pomegranate sauce? PERFECT! A dab of clotted cream would have added to the flavor, but I didn't want to whip that up as well since I knew I wouldn't want the amount that the cream I have would make, and you have to use the whole carton in 5 days.  I'm saving that for Eton mess, winter edition!

I've got just a bit of the cranberry-pomegranate sauce left now, and am debating just using it on regular toast or making an angel food cake... I generally err on the side of angel food cake, though!
Any other ideas for me? What's your favorite flavor combination? (Other than lemon-cranberry, I can't resist chocolate-hazelnut!)

Note: I got the results on Sloan's lumps' histopaths yesterday- all three were benign!! Now we just have to make it through her staple removal and we'll all have a celebration at an off-leash nature park! 

7 Fried Brie and Cranberry-Pomegranate Sauce

*After a few questions, I'm adding a note here: The above image is of the fried brie starter at the Wellington, but I took the actual picture myself on May 18th when we were there to eat.  I am not patient enough to make my home-plates that fancy. I just want to dig in when I make something that good!

For a while now I've been wanting to recreate one of my favorite starters from The Wellington, fried brie with cranberry chutney.  I finally purchased some brie at Whole Foods last week and got brave enough to make it on Saturday.  As I was gathering my ingredients, I went to the pantry to get my cranberry chutney, sure I'd brought a jar from England. I found Strawberry preserve, raspberry preserve, apricot chutney, beetroot chutney... but no cranberry chutney. ALAS!
So I googled, and ended up using Martha Stewart's Cranberry-Pomegranate Relish recipe. I have a general rule of always having cranberries and lemons on hand, as they are two of my favorite flavors for almost anything- cookies, muffins, cakes, etc. and can often jazz up a simple dish. I also happened to have some huge, delicious pomegranates from Whole Foods that I'd been snacking on in greek yogurt.
Martha's recipe calls for a shallot; I only had spring onions on hand (green onions to Americans- and here's yet another interesting post from Lynneguist regarding the names and uses on both sides of the pond!) but it seemed to work, for me at least. I chopped one up very fine (green and white parts- I use both!) and sautéed it in sunflower oil.  I then further modified the recipe by using my mini food chopper to chop up the majority of the cranberries so the sauce wouldn't have as large chunks in it.
         
I'll let you refer to Martha's site for the actual recipe (credit where credit is due!), but the left image is just after the simmer stage started and the right is the end, when I added the pomegranate.

Anyway... on to the brie!

Basic breading for frying: flour, egg whites (I don't use yolks), and breadcrumbs.  I put the brie in the freezer whilst making the sauce, so for about twenty minutes. This made it much easier to cut and handle, as well as keeping it from oozing in the hot oil. I cut the wedge into four pieces, and bread-coated away before putting them in 375º F sunflower oil until the edges were crispy golden-brown. We don't have a deep fryer right now (our U.S. one died a few months before moving to England so it wasn't in our U.S. appliance stash), so I just put about 3/4" of sunflower oil in the bottom of my stovetop wok.

After draining the fried brie for a minute on some newspaper, I dove right in- and it was DELICIOUS!

And of course, even better with the sauce!

The cranberry-pomegranate sauce is fantastic, and would work on cold or hot dishes, savoury or sweet! It only took about twenty minutes to make, and I feel really confident to have added it to my cooking repertoire- I'm much more of a baker, so any cooking dish I can conquer is a great success to me.
Having made- deliciously- one of my favorite menu items makes the nights when we joke "Let's go out to eat. How about the Welly?" a little bit easier. Now if only I could find ethical, fresh haddock here for fish pie!

The only problem (ha!) was what to do with the leftover cranberry-pomegranate sauce... and if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you already know what I did- but I'll post on that tomorrow!

Any favorite restaurant dish you've mastered at home? 

3 I Made This Today

When we were little, my sister and I got really into stamps.

Rubber stamps.

We stamped EVERYTHING.

Cards, notebooks, our bedroom door...

We even went to stamp shows.

Yes, we were dorks.

I got tired of them, though, and "gave" my sister my stamps.

I have no idea if she still has them.

I went to a friend's house today and used her English countryside stamps to make this card. 

She's much better at it than I- but I thought it was fun.

I've ordered some stamps of my own.

Yep.