pie versus cake

Pie Vs. Cupcake: Pie Sisters comes to Georgetown

shutyerpiehole — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:02:17 +0000

When Sprinkles opened in DC last year, it seemed like Georgetown had reached dessert saturation point. Or at least, cupcake saturation point.

Personally, my cupcake fatigue set in last summer. Maybe I’d partook of too many free cupcakes (thank you, Sprinkles and Georgetown Cupcake*). Maybe I’d overstocked them in my freezer—I’ve still got some Baked & Wired ones from Ms. Pie’s wedding last August. But now I just don’t get that jonesin’ for them anymore. I can actually walk past a cupcake place without getting the shakes. Not that I’m defecting to Team Pie. Yet.

But apart from Baked & Wired, there’s a lack of places in Georgetown to grab a great pie. Until last week, that is. Pie Sisters just opened at the edge of Georgetown, by the Key Bridge before you get to the Exorcist steps. Their story is similar to the owners of Georgetown Cupcake: sisters who gave up their careers to pursue their dream, family tradition of baking, that kind of stuff.

The cuppies ($4, including tax) is Pie Sisters’ answer to the cupcake. They’re individually sized and hard to resist, even though you probably get more bang for your buck ordering by the slice. The nice thing about the menu is the pies come in both sweet and savory flavors. I love that I could just have an entire meal there made up of cuppies. Even though I’m mildly embarrassed to order anything called a “cuppie,” because it sounds like something you pad your bra with.

This key lime and coconut cream cuppie were surprisingly intact after being schlepped all over Georgetown. And they tasted as good as they look. The crust is really thick, with a nice crunch. It’s not your typical flaky lard/shortening/butter crust. That’s actually a good thing because it’s not a bit soggy. If anything, it could’ve used just a touch more salt to play off of the sweet fillings.

Lots of key lime pies are maddeningly sweet. This one was pleasantly tart. I prefer puckeringly tart, but that’s challenging to achieve since excess acid can prevent your filling from setting (as I’ve learned in previous baking fiascos). The coconut cream was also good, thick with toasted coconut in the filling.

Pies may not be any healthier a fixation than cupcakes, but it’s nice to know there’s another option in Georgetown for getting your sugar fix.

*Georgetown Cupcake gives away 100 free/day per location. Sprinkles gives away 50/day. See their Twitter feeds for the secret flavor or phrase of the day.

Remember Almond Roca?

shutyerpiehole — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:02:35 +0000

Photo poached from jessicaclairesworld.blogspot.com

It’s a chocolate-and-almond-covered toffee that takes some serious chomping to bite into–so it kinda sounds like your teeth are breaking (but you won’t care, since it’s delicious). Back when I was growing up in the 80s, it came in these unmistakable Pepto-pink tins. They actually still make the stuff in similar packaging. My mom re-used the tins everywhere in our house when I was a kid. It was always a bummer to open a tin only to find a collection of loose buttons or rubber bands instead of gold-wrapped toffee nuggets.

This dark chocolate roasted-pistachio toffee is basically the Trader Joe’s version of Almond Roca. At $4 for 7.5 oz, part of me hoped it would suck so I wouldn’t have to buy it again. It didn’t suck. On the contrary, it’s addictive. Luckily, I’m afraid that eating this toffee regularly will result in more chipped teeth.* That, and the price, will likely deter me from keeping this stocked in the pantry.

*I already have a chipped tooth that’s been unsuccessfully “fixed” twice. The first time, biting down on a baguette took the filling out. The second, a Twizzler was the culprit. I didn’t want to stop eating baguettes or Twizzlers, so the tooth remains jagged.

Pimping out a panettone is a surprisingly bad idea

shutyerpiehole — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:52:01 +0000

Over the holidays, you could get a 26.5 oz panettone from Trader Joe’s for a mere $5 (brioche-y, buttery cake with raisins and other dried fruit). For a couple bucks more, you could get this chocolate-coated, pastry-cream-injected version in the freezer section for $6.99. Sounds good, right? Only in theory.

First of all, the chocolate coating is way too thick to get through it easily. Magic Shell would’ve been more suitable—at least you don’t need a hammer and chisel to break into it. It’s so much chocolate that you find yourself getting sick of chocolate, which usually only happens in Switzerland.

The cream-filled panettone inside was tasty, but I’m just not sure that panettone needs these bells and whistles. Why mess with perfection? Stick with the $5 version: toast a slice in the oven with a bit of butter, and you’re good to go.

Yonanas, a gadget that invites lots of penis jokes

shutyerpiehole — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:36:01 +0000

When we first got a huge box from my mother-in-law around the holidays, I approached it with trepidation. She likes buying us kitchenware. And we’re already so short on storage space that things pop out and attack us when we open our cabinets.

Turns out it was the Yonanas machine, a phallic-looking gadget that turns frozen bananas into something akin to soft serve. Yonanas isn’t a juicer, but it’s designed specifically for creating banana magic. (Shockingly, Yonanas did not sponsor this blog post, and Michelle Obama is not the national spokeswoman.)

On Pie V. Cake we’ve extolled the virtues of Annie’s Banannies before in this review. You may have come across something similar at Chicken Out, with their Going Bananas product. Here’s the clincher: it’s just a frozen banana, but it tastes creamy like dairy.

The other cool part is the show. Watching the machine go to work is half the fun. At first, it spits out a few shards of frozen banana. That had us worried. But by the time the second banana’s in the machine, it’s at the soft-serve-texture stage.

The cool part of having your own machine is you can add other fruit into the mix. Here we tried frozen blueberries. We’ve also done pineapple. One thing to note is that you always need plenty of bananas for your base, because you don’t get the creamy texture from the other fruits. Another tip: give your bananas plenty of time to freeze. Put them in at least a day ahead. When you want to impress dinner guests, it kind of ruins things if they have to stick around a few hours waiting for flaccid bananas to harden.

“American-inspired” cookies. What are those Brits playing at?

shutyerpiehole — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:50:45 +0000

“I hate it that the British assume American cookies are s***,” declared Ms Pie, as we cackled over the ridiculousness of these cookies from UK chain Marks & Spencer.

Maybe the Marks & Spencer food scientists have never been to an American grocery store. What American cookies have currants in them? Or sunflower and pumpkin seeds? It’s like they tried to cross-breed a chocolate chip cookie, oatmeal raisin cookie, and granola bar. WTF?

We’d recently had a ho-hum experience with some other Marks & Spencer cookies, so we were ready to be underwhelmed again. Rant aside on the cultural authenticity, these cookies are actually pretty good. Well, let me qualify that. First, I had to strongarm Ms. Pie into even trying them. She conceded the crispy cookie base wasn’t disgusting. Then she took another bite and literally spat it out, having hit a currant (they’re not for everyone–explaining why mince pies aren’t a global phenomenon).

As for Mr. X-sXe and me, we actually enjoyed these. They eat like a buttery oat cookie, with an errant seed or dried fruit here and there. Still, we worry for America’s culinary reputation abroad. What other foods are being billed as American-inspired? Tuna-sweetcorn pizza? Hamburger-flavored crisps? One shudders at the possibilities.

Emporio Rulli’s $53, 2.5 lb chocolate panettone

shutyerpiehole — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:06:44 +0000

Emporio Rulli’s panettone makes Giada di Laurentiis foam at the mouth, so you figure it’s got to be good (Italian + trained pastry chef = knows delicious when she tastes it). I’ve never tried Rulli’s version because the shipping ($31) costs more than the actual panettone ($18.50). Also, I can get an awesome one from Trader Joe’s for $4.99—somehow I doubt the Rulli one tastes 10x better.

But but but—I’ve been really curious to try this chocolate version Rulli makes for Gilt Taste (a site that carries a lot of fancy foodstuffs you’d be happy to gift, but feel guilty buying for yourself). I’ve never seen a chocolate panettone in the stores. And maybe I’m just a sucker for good storytelling, but how can you not want to try it after reading this description? Anyway, the $53 price tag has always held me back from hitting the “buy” button. However, Gilt recently offered a 50% off voucher for everything on Gilt Taste. So I finally caved and ordered the 2.5 chocolate-butter behemoth on Cyber Monday—the 5-cent shipping special was the clincher.

If you haven’t tried panettone, you’ve probably at least seen it on grocery store shelves this time of year. It usually comes in a square box or foil/cellophane wrapping. From the images, it resembles a cousin of fruitbread. Don’t start hating yet, though. Panettone is closer to a buttery bread, like brioche, with small pieces of preserved fruit. I’m not a fruitbread eater (and personally don’t know any under the age of 50 who is), but I could eat light, fluffy panettone year-round. Preferred serving style: toasted with a bit of butter.

Anyway, the Rulli panettone came in the mail beautifully packaged (that’s why these things make good gifts—no additional wrapping needed). It almost made me sad to ruin the wonderful presentation by opening it.

The panettone is “iced” with almond paste, white sprinkles atop. Chocolate and orange peel bits stud the fluffy, bready innards.

Given the way I’d hyped this up in my head, it couldn’t nearly taste as good as I’d hoped. Its main failing is that it’s just not chocolate-y enough. That could easily be solved with bigger chocolate chips. Also, just because you bake something with a buttload of butter doesn’t guarantee moistness (vegetable oil does a much better job). Panettones are actually somewhat dry, as was this one. Orange-chocolate fans will like this, but again, I’d brainwashed myself into thinking that it’d be a much more sublime experience.

In sum: when I think about how many Trader Joe’s panettones I can get for the same price, I can’t justify getting Rulli’s again, even at half price.

Starbucks whoopie pies: low expectations, surpassed

shutyerpiehole — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:20:10 +0000

Starbucks is currently selling these red velvet whoopie pies by the box. They come out to around $1 each for a box of 4 (or $1.50 each in the pastry case).

I’ve seen people complaining that some of their petite treats suck, so maybe getting an entire box wasn’t the smartest move. (Starbucks gift card = caution to the wind.)

Luckily, these aren’t bad, barring the angry red drizzle on top. Like the lame-ass whoopie pies you find in a lot of places, I was expecting a marshmallow fluff center. This one actually tastes like cream cheese. Plus the pie (or more accurately, cake) part is really moist. I guess the Starbucks food scientists know what they’re doing.

If I hadn’t seen this ingredient list, I would’ve enjoyed these a lot more. Propylene glycol? That’s one of those ingredients you see in everything from cleaning solutions to cosmetics. What’s it doing in my whoopie pie? Probably helping to keep it moist, shelf stable, etc. That isn’t the only dodgy ingredient. Oh well. Just eat it without flipping the box over, to maximize your enjoyment.

Sizing up mini treats from Marks & Spencer

shutyerpiehole — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:31:43 +0000

Ms. Pie and I do agree on one thing: the cookies she brought back from UK chain Marks & Spencer are totally unremarkable.

This may sound like a 180-degree reversal of my previous position on British desserts. However, I’d like to clarify that the Anglo-treats I most covet are the refrigerated kind (chocolate mousses, trifles, sticky toffee puddings, and the like). Not the ones you find in the cookie aisle.

BTW, M&S is a UK department store chain as famous for its cotton undies as its range of ready-made sandwiches (although poorly conceived combinations like “cream cheese with strawberry and grapes” give me pause. I hope that flavor got phased out). Their groceries are pretty pricey, more so than your average Tesco, Safeway, or Sainsbury’s. So you’d think their cookies would be decent. You’d think.

Here’s what we tried:

Jaffa cakes: These are named for Jaffa oranges. They’re a spongecake with a layer of orange (or another fruity) jelly, coated in chocolate on one side. I used to eat these by the boxfuls in college. I guess my palate has evolved, because now there’s half a bag that’s been sitting in my pantry not getting any less stale.

“I refuse to eat them, because I do not believe that orange marmalade and chocolate belong together. In this case, two great tastes make me want to barf,” commented my pro-pie counterpart.

Er, if you’re still curious to try them, you might be able to find them at your local grocery store under the Le Petit Ecolier brand.

Oat biscuits: I’m guessing these are M&S’ version of McVitie’s Hobnobs, a fibrous oat-based cookie from the company that made Prince William’s groom’s cake. The texture would make you think were made by Metamucil if they were in American grocery stores. These were ok-tasting with a glass of soy milk. But they need more butter, lard, bacon grease—something to make them taste less healthy. Maybe M&S should take a cue from McVitie’s by offering a chocolate-coated version.

Wafer curls: Due to my lactose intolerance, I usually steer clear of milk chocolate. So I left this one entirely up to Ms. Pie: “I love flute cookies, where there’s a thin layer of chocolate within a buttery and flaky rolled cookie. It’s crunchy and slightly salty and then full of delicious chocolate—like a chocolate pie in cookie form. But then Marks & Spencer had to try to improve on perfection by dipping the whole thing in chocolate, thus smothering the delicate nature of the dessert. Don’t try to do over-the-top, Britain. Leave that to the Americans, who know how to engage in excess without killing flavor.”

Making a pie from scratch: a virgin’s tale

shutyerpiehole — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:32:46 +0000

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I came across this fascinating pie crust recipe in The Washington Post. The secret ingredient to a perfect crust, according to the pastry-chef author, is a high-fat butter (82-83% “European style” butter; most butters are around 80%), enough salt, and vodka.

Why vodka? Because the high alcohol content (typically 40%/80 proof) helps the dough get the moisture it needs—yet the alcohol evaporates off leaving no flavor, just tender crust. This intel was corroborated by this Smitten Kitchen post. I was sold on the vodka crust idea. And on making an apple pie for the first time the night before Thanksgiving.

No Lucky Charms were baked into this pie.

Foolish, foolish me. Below, a debrief of what I learned, how I did it, and whether I would do it again.

FYI, I only made 1 pie and ingredient-wise, followed the Cooks Illustrated crust recipe from Smitten Kitchen to a T. I did, however, follow the Post recipe for the filling, pie decorations, and time/temp guidelines on baking the bottom crust.

Epiphany #1: The butter you need might be in the “gourmet” cheese case, not the dairy section where you usually find butter and milk.

There’s a liquor-lottery store across from my office, which had plenty of cheap vodka options. Easy enough. Onto securing the high-fat butter. The Post recipe recommended the Plugra brand, a Euro-style butter that’s made in the U.S.

After having no luck scouring/calling a number of Whole Foods, Giants, and Harris Teeters, I made a last-ditch attempt by going to Whole Foods again, where an employee enlightened me: European-style butters are in the gourmet cheese case where they sell the olives, not with the “domestic” butters over by the milk. Ohhhhhhh. (Other Whole Foods employees I’d talked to over the phone didn’t realize this, either.)

I cut the butter into finer chunks than this, but got exhausted before it became the "grains of sand" texture most recipes call for. The crust still came out fine.

Well, it was Thanksgiving Eve, so of course they were sold out of the unsalted Plugra. Overhearing my conversation with the helpful Whole Foods guy, a customer at the cheese case told me to get the President butter instead. “Trust me, it’s the same,” she said. I protested: “Let me just check and make sure it’s the—” She cut me off. “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” As I obediently put the President into my cart, I was hoping that she’d follow that up with “I’m a pastry chef,” but apparently she just makes a lot of pies. According to her, the secret is vinegar and lard. Seems like everyone’s got their own formula.

Epiphany #2: A blender isn’t a substitute for a food processor.

So I trotted home with my overpriced Eurobutter, intent on making a pie Agent Dale Cooper (and in-laws) would approve of. The first step was cutting the butter into tiny pieces. Maybe my butter wasn’t cold enough, but it wouldn’t cleanly cut into pea-sized bits. I did the best I could, then stuck the pieces back in the fridge to cool down again. (You need very cold butter for a flaky crust.)

The next step is incorporating the butter into the dry ingredients for your dough. I don’t own a food processor, but I figured the blender has a “pulse” button on it—same thing right?

Sometimes we have to learn our lessons the hard way. My Jack LaLanne blender did little else but turn the butter back into an amorphous wad, which was stubbornly unwilling to mix with the flour. I end up taking the whole mess out, then incorporating the butter into the flour mixture with 2 butter knives. If you don’t have a pastry cutter, you know why this activity counts as cardio.

Thanks, Alton, for the Ziploc idea.

Epiphany #3: Alton Brown knows things.

Food Network was showing nothing but Thanksgiving specials the week prior. I happened to catch the episode where Alton Brown makes a pie. One tip stuck with me: when you refrigerate the dough disks, put them in large Ziploc bags. Once they’re done resting in the fridge, cut the Ziploc open so it doubles in size and provides a decently sized surface to roll out your dough on. This mitigates the post-pie cleanup. What Alton didn’t say is that you’ll need someone to hold down the Ziploc so it doesn’t move while you roll out the dough.

Epiphany #4: Glass doesn’t conduct heat as well as metal.

I used a deep-dish pie pan made of Pyrex. I’m pretty sure that’s why my baking times were a lot longer than the Post recipe specified. If you’re watching your crust bake, don’t panic when you see pools of butter. Somehow those fatty pools get incorporated into the crust once it’s done baking. You want to get the crusts light brown.

Who cares if it looks perfect--no one's gonna see this part, anyway.

Epiphany #5: Your bottom crust can be as ugly as this.

The edges don’t have to be perfectly fluted or anything, because all that is gonna get covered up once you put the filling in and attach the top crust. However, if the crust cracked while baking that might not be good, since your filling is going to seep in. So be sure to weigh it down as it bakes. Note: I patched that hole at 12 o’clock with some top crust dough.

5 hours later (that includes all prep, refrigeration, baking, and cooling time), I had a passable, if slightly wonky looking pie. My relatives thought it tasted pretty good, though you can never tell if they’re just saying that out of politeness. Mr. X-sXe, who usually levels with me when it comes to my cooking, said the crust tasted like a croissant. I took that as a compliment.

The final spread of Thanksgiving pies. Clockwise from top: my homemade pie, Whole Foods pumpkin pie, and a peach-blueberry pie from the Amish market.

Pros of baking your own pie

It’ll likely taste better than store-bought.
You can customize it with cookie-cutter shapes on top.
Everyone who eats it will know how much ~~frustration~~ love is baked right in.

Cons

If this is your first time out, say goodbye to 5 hours of your life (of course, a lot of that is downtime where you’re a slave to the timer).
It’ll probably look somewhat lopsided.
You’re not saving any money if you go with the Eurobutter. (Last I checked, Plugra was $4.99 at Giant for 8 oz. You’ll need about 1.5 of those for a typical top-and-bottom crust pie, unless you combine it with lard or shortening.
If you’re me, your kitchen will look like an explosion at the flour factory.

So the big question: would I do it again? Maybe when this experience becomes a distant memory. In the meantime, I’ll leave the pie-making to Ms. Pie.

Last day for Food & Friends buy a pie > feed a DC neighbor

shutyerpiehole — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:11:25 +0000

Today’s the last day to order your Thanksgiving pie through Food & Friends. (PS: If you’re on Team Cake, they also have chocolate-covered cheesecake.)

Why it’s a great idea:

1) Every pie you buy will provide a full day’s worth of meals for a kid or adult in DC, MD, or VA with a life-altering illness.

2) You need to buy Thanksgiving desserts anyway, and Whole Paycheck/Safeway/Giant doesn’t need any more of your money.

3) Their pies come from a family-owned bakery. They have no preservatives or any other ingredients you wouldn’t feed a pregnant woman.

You can order online, then pick up your pies at a bunch of convenient CVS locations on Tuesday, November 22. Food & Friends needs to sell another 1,500-2,000 pies by midnight tonight. Do it!