Tag: pastry dough

Buttercrust Pastry Dough – Good Friday or Anytime

I knew better than to expect you guys to wait until next
week for this buttercrust pastry dough, after teasing you with its flaky
seductiveness during the apple hand pies video. Yes, the audience has spoken,
and basically said, “post this before Easter or else.”

As I mention in the clip, you really want to use a food
processor for this. You can certainly use a wire pastry blender and do it by
hand, but it’ll take a while, and mixing in the ice water is so much easier
with whirling blades. I’m not sure I’ve ever achieved that same gorgeous
“breadcrumb” texture blending by hand.

If you decide to use this pastry for a savory recipe, I’d
suggest cutting the sugar down a bit, but don’t be tempted to leave it out. I
used the leftover dough from the apple turnovers video, which had all the
sugar, for some duck pot pies, and it was really good, but maybe just a tiny
bit sweet.

If you’re going to use this recipe for some Easter pies or
brunch desserts, I hope you like the dough as much as I did. Just make sure
your butter cubes are frozen, and your ice water is, well, ice-cold water.
These are the keys. Do that, and you’ll have a pastry dough that tastes, feels,
and sounds fantastic. I hope you give it a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for about 1 pound pie dough (enough for 1 large pie or 4 turnovers):

2 cups flour (measure carefully, do not pack!)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (4 oz)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

6 tbsp ice water

Apple Hand Pies – Crimping is Easy

I’ve been playing around with a new pastry dough, and
figured I’d use it as an excuse for a little demo on turnovers, or “hand pies”
as the hipsters are calling them.

I’ll unveil the new “buttercrust” dough next
week, but this particular video is not about the pastry, or the filling, it’s
about the fairly basic method for folding and crimping one of these up.

As you’ll see, it’s not exactly a complicated procedure. In
fact, I can’t imagine your aunt is going to be too thrilled to know that you’ll
be able to now match her crimp for crimp. Once you have the outside down, what
goes inside should be the least of your worries.

I went for a very soft, apple-saucy, jam-like filling, which
turned out very well, but literally any of your favorite pie fillings, both
sweet and savory, will work. If you do make an apple version, and want to
really blow some minds, top your filling with a thin slice of sharp cheddar.
It’s special. I hope you give this easy technique a try soon. Enjoy!

For 4 Apple Hand Pies:

about 1 pound pie dough, divided into 4

egg wash (1 egg beaten with 2 tsp milk)

granulated sugar as needed

For the apple filling:

2 tbsp butter, browned

2 or 3 green apples

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, or to taste
1 or 2 tsp of water if needed

Incoming search terms:

chef ramsay apple pie recipe

Tarte Tatin – See What the Others Aren’t Willing to Show You

When I looked at some other tarte tatin recipes on
YouTube, I noticed that very few showed the “flip on to the plate” step.
They would just skip from the out of the oven shot to the final beauty shot. The
reason of course, is that very few tarte tatins come out of the hot pan
perfectly, and if they showed that, then you may not think they are as awesome as their profile says they are.

So, it’s with much pride that I show you the whole ugly
scene that is the tarte tatin dismount. The good news is, it’s very simple to
slap everything back on the crust before it cools, and none will be the wiser.
This is even easier if you’re doing a version with very soft and tender apples
and lots of caramel, which is my preference, as you’ll see.

If you do a Google image search for a classic, old recipe
like this, you usually see a lot of photos that look alike, but that’s not
necessarily so with tarte tatin. You’ll see an amazingly diverse array, which
is fascinating since they were all made with the same few basic ingredients.
Most of this is a result of cooking time in the pan before baking.

Some feature firm, barely cooked apples, while others cook
the fruit all the way down to a buttery, caramelized jam. The beauty of a
recipe that uses just pastry dough, butter, apples and sugar to make the magic,
is that no matter how yours comes out you’ll enjoy it. Of course, you’ll want
to hedge your bets with some vanilla bean ice cream to be safe. I hope you give
this classic French treat a try soon. Enjoy!

3 large apples, quartered

3 tbsp butter

3/4 cup sugar

pie dough for a single crust