{"id":1148,"date":"2016-01-25T21:57:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T02:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2016-01-25T21:57:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T02:57:45","slug":"the-ultimate-fruit-basket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/sweet-pies\/the-ultimate-fruit-basket\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Fruit Basket"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew right away that I wanted to go all-out for presentation week. My mind was overflowing with ideas (not many of them very feasible), but I chose to go with making the ultimate fruit basket. It took longer than I expected, but here’s a summary of what I did:<\/p>\n

The Night Before<\/b><\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, I decided to try to make pineapple-shaped pineapple hand pies and the basket. The filling was incredibly easy to make following\u00a0this recipe<\/a>. I rolled out the pastry, which I had made earlier that day, and cut out pineapple shapes. I sealed the hand pie together, decorated it, and put it in the oven. In the meantime, I tried to make the basket. I made pretzel dough, cut it into strips, and wove a basket on an upside-down metal mixing bowl.<\/p>\n

The results? They weren’t so hot. I forgot to put butter on the mixing bowl and the baking sheet so both the hand pies and basket were stuck to their containers. Sigh.<\/p>\n

The Day Of<\/b><\/p>\n

Basket<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u00a0came to the kitchen very early to make the pretzel dough. I have tried various recipes, but so far the best one is the one I made up:<\/p>\n

Pretzel Dough<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ingredients:<\/p>\n

2 cups of milk, 2 packets of active dry yeast, 7 tablespoons brown sugar, 4 tablespoons butter, 5 1\/2 cups flour, 2 cups water, 1\/2 cup baking soda<\/p>\n

Directions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Warm the milk in a microwave-safe container. Stir in the yeast. Let it sit for a few minutes.<\/li>\n
  2. Melt butter in a microwave-safe container.<\/li>\n
  3. Add milk, brown sugar, melted butter, and flour in a large bowl. Mix with your hands (sorry, it’s going to get messy).<\/li>\n
  4. Once you get a firm ball, place the dough in a greased container and wrap with greased foil or plastic wrap. Let rise for an hour.<\/li>\n
  5. Start making the pretzels!<\/li>\n
  6. Bake until the top is golden brown (temperature doesn’t matter, but the baking time will change).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

    While the pretzel dough was rising, I started making the filling for the hand pies. Instead of making different fruit fillings like I had originally planned to, I stuck with apples. I stole a couple from the dining hall and began chopping them up. I looked at multiple recipes for apple pie filling, but I chose to make my own. I didn’t measure anything exactly, but from what I can remember this is what I did:<\/p>\n

    Apple Pie Filling<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. In a rather deep pan, melt a stick of butter (about 1\/2 cup). Keep stove on.<\/li>\n
    2. Add 1\/3 cup of flour. The flour and butter will make a paste-like substance.<\/li>\n
    3. Add 1 cup of white granulated sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar. Mix well.<\/li>\n
    4. Add 4\u00a0teaspoons\u00a0of cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of allspice, \u00a02 teaspoons of nutmeg, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Mix well.<\/li>\n
    5. Add 2 1\/2 cups of water. Mix and bring mixture to a boil, constantly stirring.<\/li>\n
    6. Once it has a thick\/sticky consistency, add the apples. Mix well and bring to a boil again for about 1-2 minutes.<\/li>\n
    7. It’s ready!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      By the time I was finished with the filling, I started to weave the pretzel basket. This time, I buttered AND floured the mixing bowl. Once I finished weaving it, I put it in the oven. Since the mixing bowl was elevated, I was aware that it would take longer to bake. I wanted the basket to be soft, but a bit hard so that it would keep its shape. So I took the time to continue with the hand pies.<\/p>\n

      I rolled out the pastry. I had made different colors: yellow, orange, and red. Once they were rolled out, I cut out apple shapes, stuffed one half, brushed egg yolk and milk mixture on the edges, and sealed the hand pies. I brushed the egg yolk and milk mixture on the top as well. I made as many as I could and placed them in the oven.<\/p>\n

      As I had suspected, the basket took a while to bake. However, the butter and flour helped because it instantly came off of the mixing\u00a0bowl! I had made the handle separately, so I simply used tooth picks to attach it to the basket.\u00a0\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

      I am SO proud of how my fruit basket came out! The pretzel basket was delicious and the hand pies WERE SO ADDICTING. I took the leftover hand pies to my entry and they were devoured. Everything took chunks off of the basket, but eventually we decided to use the remaining basket as a bowl for an ice cream sundae!<\/p>\n

      \"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

      \n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I knew right away that I wanted to go all-out for presentation week. My mind was overflowing with ideas (not… Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59142,85814,59104],"tags":[41937,59140,85821,85822,59172],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hand-held-pies-pasties","category-neftaly-lara","category-sweet-pies","tag-apple","tag-basic-flaky-pastry","tag-basket","tag-pretzel","tag-yummy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1152,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/lifeofpie13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}