Pie, Y'all!

Fittingly for the season, our recipe this week was the Nectarine and Blueberry Pie. I like how versatile this recipe seems. Nectarines and blueberries are great for summer but it could be adapted easily to fall or winter fruits.

I had a few issues making the pie dough. A: I didn't have ice for the water, which I know is weird, but true. B. The shortening was mushy even though I put it in the freezer for about an hour before I used it. And C: I don't think the dough needed a whole cup of water. It was so sticky that I added probably close to another 1/2 C of flour and put the whole bowl into the freezer for a couple minutes before I even shaped the dough into disks to rest.

Aside from making the dough, constructing the pie was nice and easy. As I mentioned last week, I think my oven cooks on the cool side. This baking confirmed that 100%. After the recommended 40ish minutes I still had uncooked eggwash on the top of my very blond pie. The total cooking time was nearly 1:30 but it finally bubbled and got good color. Fortunately, I had to go to work this morning while it was cooling so there wasn't temptation to cut into the pie before time. This crust is delicious and flaky, but I do feel like it's a little heavy. Maybe I should just roll the top crust a little thinner if I'm making it again. I did make the full dough recipe so I'll have at least another pie's worth to play around with.

Check out the hosts for this week's recipe: Hilary and Liz.

For the rest of the TWD bakers check out the blogroll.

Semolina Loaf - TWD/BWJ

Ironic that I made this loaf a week early and it took me so long to get the post written up! Oh well. My initial impression of this bread was not great. If I bake, it's usually on my days off...and that means I have more things to do than schedule my day around bread dough rising. That being said, I tried to stick to the schedule, but every rise went over the recommended time. By the evening, though I had shaped the loaf, it was time to go to a birthday party and I just ended up putting the bread in the fridge overnight. In the light of day, my bread looked...sad and flat.

I carried on and baked the bread for the recommended time. I'm beginning to suspect my oven is a little on the cool side, as it had NO color. So I turned the broiler on for a couple minutes. Mucho better. 

While my loaf wasn't good for sandwiches or anything (was it even supposed to be?), it made great crostini! I made some fresh bruschetta and rubbed the slices with garlic and put it in the oven to crisp up. I think the subtle texture difference from the semolina was a nice change.

For the recipe, check out this week's hosts: Anna of Keep it Luce and Renee of The Way to My Family's Heart.

TWD: BWJ Oasis Naan

I enjoyed the simplicity of this naan recipe after some of the other more complicated ones lately. Some of mine ended up stretching out like the recipe said for the Persian naan, but it wasn't a big deal.
I just did simple garlic and kosher salt since I didn't have scallions on hand. My only problem seemed to be that they didn't get much color on top, even though I left them for longer than 8 minutes.
Verdict: tasty, but I might want to play around with the toppings more next time.

TWD: BWJ Lemon Loaves

One thing I can say first off about this week's selection is that it comes together very quickly. As in I went to get lemons at 8:20 this morning and was enjoying the results by 9:45. I made two mini loaves out of a half-recipe and it worked perfectly. Baking time was right around 33 minutes for that. The texture is great - kind of
like a lighter pound cake but still with a nice tight crumb. If I made it again, I'd definitely go for some sort of glaze per the top.