Mini Pear Pies

I'm huge fan of pies -- even more so than cakes, actually. Shove some fruit in a flaky crust, and I'll gobble it up before you can say "a la mode?" Blueberry pies make me positively swoon, but since it's not blueberry season, tonight's recipe features Comice pears.

The only trouble with pies is that they're hard to serve and eat. Since I knew I had to transport this treat to school, I thought I'd try to make... mini pies! 


I didn't want to buy a bunch of mini tart pans, so I picked up a muffin pan over the weekend and figured I'd try that. I had to search around a bit to find an appropriate recipe, but I managed to find one on Cooking Creation that looked promising. I have a pie crust recipe that I absolutely love in the Flour cookbook, so I made the Pâte Brisée on Sunday night and assembled the minis tonight. 


And now, cheers to smell-o-blogging!


For interested parties, here's the recipe, adapted from Cooking Creation: 


Mini Pear Pies


4 Comice pears, peeled and thinly sliced 
1/4 c white sugar 
2 tbsp brown sugar 
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt 
1 tsp lemon juice 
Pâte Brisée (from Flour cookbook) 


Cut parchment paper circles to fit in the bottom of each muffin well. 


In a large bowl, combine the pears, white sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and lemon juice. 


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 


 Divide dough in half and roll out to just under 1/4 inch thickness. Using a large drinking glass or round cookie cutter (I used a mug, because that's all I had), cut circles out of the pie crust dough. Place half of the circles inside a greased muffin pan, stretching so the edges extend above the pan. Fill each well with the pear mixture. 


Top with the other half of the dough circles and seal the edges. Cut an X in the top of each pie.


Bake for 17 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.  

Flour Bakery Pâte Brisée 
Makes about 18 ounces dough, enough for 8 pop-tarts or one 9-inch double-crust or lattice-top pie 


1 3/4 cups (245 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour 
1 tablespoon sugar 
1 teaspoon kosher salt 
1 cup (2 sticks / 228 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces 
2 egg yolks 
3 tablespoons cold milk 


(I mixed this dough by hand, and it turned out fine, but the original instructions direct you to use a mixer, naturally. Again, poor students make it work.)


Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer), mix together the flour, sugar, and salt for 10 to 15 seconds, or until combined. 


Scatter the butter over the top. Mix on low speed for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, or just until the flour is no longer bright white and holds together when you clump it and lumps of butter the size of pecans are visible throughout. 


In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and milk until blended. Add to the flour mixture all at once. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, or until the dough just barely comes together. It will look really shaggy and more like a mess than a dough. 


Dump the dough out onto an unfloured work surface, then gather it together into a tight mound. Using your palm and starting on one side of the mound, smear the dough bit by bit, starting at the top of the mound and then sliding your palm down the side and along the work surface (at Flour we call this “going down the mountain”), until most of the butter chunks are smeared into the dough and the dough comes together. Do this once or twice on each part of the dough, moving through the mound until the whole mess has been smeared into a cohesive dough with streaks of butter. 


 Gather up the dough, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and press down to flatten into a disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

"No Flour" Chocolate-Chocolate Cookies

Another midterm down, one to go. My economics exam turned out to be quite the slog -- too many questions, not enough time... Much like a certain rap song, only fewer women and more derivatives.

Eh. C'est la vie.

I found a recipe for flour-less chocolate cookies via Pinterest, and I've been waiting anxiously for my second midterm to be over so I could make them. The recipe advertised them as "chewy" and "gooey", which seemed like the perfect way to celebrate after several days of studying. 

Well, maybe I did something wrong, but these cookies didn't have much chewiness or gooeyness, save for one small section in the center of each one. The outer edges, by contrast, were crumbly and ever-so-slightly crispy -- kind of like meringue. I don't like to complain about cookies, and truth be told, these were not half bad. But I do feel a little cheated on the chewiness and gooeyness.

Eh. C'est la vie. Encore.

Here's tonight's recipe, adapted very slightly from Recipe Girl, because I wanted to reduce the quantity of cookies and swap in a higher cacao chocolate.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chunks -- I chopped up at 72% cacao organic chocolate bar from Trader Joe's 

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (or silpat mats).

2. In a large bowl, whisk together powdered sugar with cocoa powder and salt. Whisk in egg whites and vanilla extract, and beat just until the batter is moistened. You're looking for a brownie-like, thick and fudgy batter consistency. If it seems too thick, add another egg white. Gently stir in chocolate chips.

3. Spoon batter onto the prepared baking sheets in 12 evenly spaced mounds per cookie sheet. Bake about 14 minutes, until the tops are glossy and lightly cracked. Slide the parchment paper (with the cookies) onto wire racks. Let cookies cool completely, and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Well, that's all for now. One more midterm to go on Thursday. Wish me luck!

Lemon bars with a minty twist

I took my first midterm this morning, and while I'm pretty sure I messed up a deferred revenue question, that hasn't stopped me from deferring studies for my next two midterms. Don't worry, those tests aren't until next week. Plus, I spent the afternoon working on a problem set that is due Friday, so I'm allowed a break, right?

In my last post, I mentioned that I set a goal of baking once a week. They say you should try to establish forcing mechanisms when you set new goals, and my forcing function is my learning team -- a group of four dudes that I have do all my group projects with. Four dudes and one girl? Welcome to B-school, kids. Anyway, I promised them I would bake something for our team meetings every week, hence the goal.

Back to the ovens!

I've done cookies two weeks in a row, so I wanted to mix things up a bit. Also, I made quinoa tabbouleh a few weeks ago, and I've had this little container of fresh mint drying up in my fridge since then. I hate wasting such expensive fresh herbs, so I wanted a recipe that could benefit from a dose of fresh mint.

What did I settle on? Lemon bars, of course! I found this recipe on Epicurious, but I had to make some adjustments because 1) I don't have a 9 x 13 pan, just a 9 x 9, 2) I don't like cleaning my food processor, and following this recipe as stated would have required cleaning the food processor twice for one recipe (um... pass!), and 3) I wanted to add mint!


To the first point, I have a terrible secret that bakers are never supposed to admit... Sometimes I fudge ingredient amounts. In this case, I was shooting for 2/3 of the given recipe, but how do you get 2/3 of 4 eggs? Or 2/3 of 1/2 a cup? I mean, obviously, there are ways to do that, but I don't think those methods are practical, so sometimes I just guesstimate. Life is about compromises. (Wow, so many life lessons on this blog already!)


Here's how I rolled:

For the shortbread:
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup, less  about 1teaspoon packed light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

For the lemon filling:
3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

20-25 mint leaves

2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line a 9 x 9-in baking pan with parchment paper. Cut butter into 1/2-inch pieces. Add dry ingredients to a mixing bowl and cut in the butter. I used a fork, because, well... I'm old fashioned. And I don't have a pastry cutter. And, as discussed, I don't like cleaning my food processor. 


Sprinkle mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and with press evenly onto bottom with your fingers and palm. Bake shortbread in middle of oven until golden, about 20 minutes. While shortbread is baking, prepare topping.

In a bowl whisk together eggs and granulated sugar until combined well and stir in lemon juice and flour. Mince mint leaves by stacking them on top of each other, rolling the stack up like a cigarette, and cutting across the roll. 

Whisk mint into the lemon mixture. Pour lemon mixture over hot shortbread. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F. and bake confection in middle of oven until set, about 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan and cut into 24 bars. Bar cookies keep, covered and chilled, 3 days. Sift confectioners' sugar over bars before serving.

So how did they turn out? Check it out!

To be perfectly honest, I think I could have doubled or increased the mint by 50%, but there is definitely a hint of mint even now. Plus, my kitchen smells of toasty shortbread, tangy citrus, and fresh mint. Win on all fronts!

Actually, this is the second time I've baked this week -- the first time was to make an adapted version of these no sugar, no egg, no flour, no butter granola-bar-type things. The recipe called them "breakfast cookies," but the term "cookie" seems like a stretch. They're very "healthy" tasting, but since I'm the child of hippies, I don't mind things that smack vaguely of Kashi, circa 1995. Does anyone else remember the early days of Kashi? I do. One fateful bowl turned my 10-year-old self off the stuff for a decade. 




Now that I'm older, I don't actually mind whole grains, but I'm happy to report that these "cookies" that look kind of like dog biscuits or lumps of hard oatmeal are actually completely consumable. I have been eating them in the mornings as brain-food.

On getting an MBA... or a Masters in Baking A-lot

Welcome to my sugary new blog! 


My name is Sara, and I just started my first year of business school at UCLA. In two years I will (hopefully) graduate with two MBAs: a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Baking A-lot. The second one is a made-up degree, so please excuse the incorrect grammar and the fact that "a-lot" is neither a word nor an appropriate use of a hyphen. (I used to work in communications, so while this glaring error does send a shiver down my spine, I am also ever so pleased with my clever new acronym, so you're going to have to roll with me.)


Here's my plan: my goal is to bake something (anything!) and blog about it at least once a week. I may throw in some anecdotes from life/school, but only if they're funny (to me). And I'll try to include pictures. I don't have a great camera like a lot of the awesome food bloggers out there, but I do have a trusty little "point and shoot" that served me well through four years of college and four years of working. That's just a long way of saying that I'm on a student budget and can't buy a new camera. I also have a rather terrible phone camera, which may or may not be making cameo appearances here at The Opportunity Cost of Baking.


So, what's with the title, right? I call this blog The Opportunity Cost of Baking for two reasons. Firstly, I want you to be aware that I will, with 99.7% confidence, be making nerdy economics/statistics/academics jokes. It's just part of who I am. Secondly, at some point over the course of the next two years, you may ask yourself, "Does Sara ever study? It seems like all she does is bake and eat cookies." You will be correct in this observation. Life (and economics) is all about trade-offs, and for me, the opportunity cost of incessant baking will be foregone studies. It's a classic economic example, really -- right up there with widget factories and the Nash equilibrium.