Tag Archives: goat cheese

Don’t Crowd the Mushrooms!

This week we ventured into savory pies! I was very excited for this week; I was ready to cook big hunks of meat for a big hearty pie. Unfortunately, this was the week I decided to sprain my ankle. So, I settled for a quiche, something that could be made in one day, relatively quickly. With my savory pie, I still wanted to push myself a bit even though I had physically constraints. So, I decided to try out a cream cheese crust and decided to transform for my favorite omelette contents into a quiche.

The cream cheese crust was something I stumbled across while looking on the internet for alternative fats in pastry dough. I used a mish-mosh of a couple different crust recipes and mostly I was surprised at how little flour (only 1 cup!) it used in comparison to the butter and cream cheese. Albeit this was the first single crust pie I have made, so things are already halved from what I was used to , but still there was a lot of fat in comparison to flour. Also the water was mostly optional in recipes I looked at, I definitely needed it; they must live in some ridiculously humid places. Once everything was sorted out, it mixed fine and rolled out nicely.

Next, on to all the things going on inside of the quiche. I chopped up my mushrooms and my onions (Moment of pride: I evaded watery eyes through some miracle) and set about cooking them. I had to make them in two batches because they couldn’t all fit in one pan, and because I was terribly afraid of crowding the mushrooms. Both Julia Child’s and my mother’s voice keep saying the mantra “don’t crowd the mushrooms” over and over again in my head. The first batch went well, but I guess the second one was slightly larger and they definitely got a little too much steam from their own juices.

But we must move on. Assembling the pie was super easy. The mushrooms, onions, and goat cheese all went in the bottom and then I just poured in the egg mixture, filling in the crust quite nicely.

Then into the oven it went.

I think, aesthetically, this is the best pie I have made yet (this is my third pie, so there is a low bar). Everything is evenly golden and delicious looking. The only thing I might have changed was to perhaps add some chives into the egg mixture, so that I might have a pop of green. Unfortunately the forces at be made it so that I couldn’t actually taste the quiche I made. Hopefully it was good? I’ll have to make it again for myself sometime so I can see if I actually succeeded.

Apple Goat Cheese Pie with Maple Caramel

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So I seem to have deviated from my original plan to make a tart, but I hope the choices I made in the presentation of this pie come across as interesting! I just though the idea of maple syrup caramel and goat cheese sounded too delicious to be missed out on. The pie was challenging to make especially because it called for special pastry that used cream as the liquid in the pastry rather than water (which required 3 hours in the fridge rather than just 1 before rolling it out…), the caramel was challenging in both preparation and maintenance before it could be put in the crust (caramel that was too hot would melt the pastry, but caramel that was too hard wouldn’t pour…), and finally tackling the presentation aspect itself required quick precision to cut the pastry before it got too warm. I decided that rather than using the standard single, unified piece of circular pastry for the top of the pie I would cut the pastry up and make a sort of pastry mosaic for the top crust. This turned out to be both an aesthetic and functional decision in that the mosaic of concentric layered circles of pastry was both pretty and provided little gaps to serve as steam vents in this very bubbly pie. Before serving it I’m going to throw some granulated sugar on top and warm it. Then I’ll add some confectioners sugar.

Making Caramel! Just cooked maple syrup and sugar!!!

Fig Goat Cheese Tart

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I have been super into figs recently, and I love cheese, so I decided this would be a perfect pie for me to try. I decided for a little umph I’d put some nuts into the crust since the topping called for nuts.. Unfortunately, I combined the recipe for the nutty pie crust and the one for the vodka trick, which called for significantly more shortening. By the time I added the liquid, it was much too wet to be able to roll out, so I decided to make a push-in tart instead. I’m not totally sure what went wrong with the pastry, but I hope it still tastes good.

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except with the dried figs, I reconstituted them by pouring boiling water over them and letting them in a bowl for fifteen minutes. We also didn’t have enough almond slices for the topping, so I ended up putting some pecans in there as well. I think the topping is sort of interesting because it’s not quite a crumb but it’s made with all crumb-like ingredients with the exception of the slices for little pieces. I also find this pie interesting because it obviously has a lot of sweet components (such as the topping) but also has the basil, so it’s clearly not supposed to be completely dessert-y. I’ll be interested in seeing how all the flavors come together.

Doing the tart made me slightly confused on the decorative piece. How was I going to do decorations with a tart? I decided to try to lay out the figs in a way that would be decorative.

But by the time the cheese batter was poured on top and the crumb added, it was hard to see the attempt at some special lay-out…

We’ll see how it tastes tomorrow!

http://alwayswithbutter.blogspot.com/2011/11/fig-goat-cheese-pie-with-basil.html

Red pepper and goat cheese tart

That’s goat cheese mixed with a egg and layered at the bottom of the crust after it’ been placed in the tart pan. Then a layer of fresh basil leaves on top of the chèvre.

Then many layers of red pepper rings (about 3 peppers’ worth) with some additional crumbled goat cheese interspersed for variety. Drizzle with honey, sprinkle with salt and black pepper, and bake.

Happy Boxing Day!

Pear, honey & goat cheese galette

Life of Pie | THEA 10

Documenting a January of pie-making at Williams College