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| Speedwork: Indiana buttermilk pie |
For the second week, I was inspired to make an Indiana buttermilk pie with the leftover buttermilk from week one's biscuits. This is quite similar to the Hoosier sugar pie concept which has always fascinated me. (I mean, that's pure indulgence in a pie, right? No fruit or nuts to provide a glimmer of nutritional redemption; basically some sugar + cream + half-and-half with some spices in a pie crust. Super naughty. Wowza.) I was initially going to break up the pie crust and the pie into two separate weeknights, but then life happened and I didn't. So Thursday night became a speedwork drill. Could I make a crust from scratch, with adequate resting (no shrinkage!), and complete the custard pie in one evening? The answer is yes. 4 hours start to end. The pie crust was a new recipe (eek change!) with some shortening added in, and was softer to handle than I'm used to. However, the end result was a crust that was, per my notes, "shatteringly crisp," albeit a touch less flaky than my other crust recipe. That did mean no soggy bottoms. Slightly less flavorful, though. So that was a draw. I don't like overly sweet things, and the filling was definitely overly sweet. Good with a cup of strong black tea or black coffee.
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GBBS-inspired Battenberg cake.
A little sloppy - mind the gaps. |
Next on the weekend docket was a technical challenge inspired by the GBBS: a Battenberg cake! I thought of it as a training cake for the more complicated hidden surprise and checkerboard cakes. Of course I wasn't going to stick with the traditional flavors - gotta fiddle with the flavor profile! Decided on matcha and orange. And, while we're at it, might as well make my own marzipan/almond paste for the covering. And, by golly, I'll just have to do the Mary Berry technique and bake the two layers in one pan. The end result was relatively decent. I wish the layers had been just a bit more even so that the slices on the ends were more square. In my marzipan haste, I overlooked jamming the outside of the cake so the marzipan didn't adhere when sliced. I haven't quite sorted out how to seal the ends to make it pretty given the propensity of the marzipan to cracking; or maybe the trick is to trim the ends to expose the insides and not worry about it. I think I might go with the latter. Definitely needs another round or two of practice, but not bad for a first attempt.
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