Zingerman's Pies

I took a trip up to Ann Arbor yesterday for "Pies a Plenty," a Zingerman's BAKE! class. I was excited to learn from some real live pros, and I wasn't disappointed.

What better way to start a morning than by extolling the virtues of butter and lard? Zingerman's avoids shortening because natural animal fats taste better and do not contain trans fats. So we got to work making a butter crust. The ingredient list looked familiar, but the way we formed the dough was a little different. After mixing the flour and salt, we cut in 3/4 of the butter with a pastry blender. Then we dug in with our hands to fully coat every flour particle with fat until the butter disappeared. It took 3 or 4 minutes to make the mixture the right consistency - about that of cornmeal - but apparently there isn't danger of overworking the dough until the water is added. (The water can react with the gluten in the flour to make a tough crust.) We added the rest of the butter but left it in small chunks and gently mixed in 5 tablespoons of chilled water with a fork. Next came an entirely new technique: schmearing. We dumped the contents of the bowl onto the work space and pushed the mixture outward with the palms of our hands creating sheets of moistened dough. With a bench knife, we scraped the sheets into a pile and formed a mound. This mound then became two disks that we wrapped in plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator before rolling.

Rolling involved new techniques in part because we used tapered French rolling pins. The rules: roll toward or away from yourself; turn the dough 1/8 of a turn after each roll to make sure the dough doesn't stick to the counter; center the pin until the dough is the size of the bottom of the pan, then move the pin to one side and roll the edges out. I got pretty close to an even circle here!

The small cracks at the edges were easily concealed when I rolled the excess under and crimped. Success!

Next, we made a crust with half butter, half lard. Zingerman's is pretty picky about its ingredients and orders special lard that is non-hydrogenated like some lard available in the grocery store. The process was the same, but the dough was wetter and more flexible because of the lard. Success again!

With the butter shell we made a lemon chess pie, and the lard dough was used for a double-crust apple pie. The fillings were a snap to make because all the ingredients were pre-measured, delivered to us, and all the dirty dishes were carted away - it was a beautiful thing! We didn't even have to put on an oven mitt. I could get used to having multiple assistants in the kitchen. Here's a super candid photo of me with my mountainous apple pie.

Taste test - positive. Better pies in my future - I think so. With this training under my belt, I just might be ready for Pie Crust 101 with Mom. :)

Lavash Crackers

Today's task: lavash crackers. I decided to try these because (a) my time was limited (2 hours and 35 minutes from start to finish) and (b) I had a bread topping mix on hand. The Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA) informed me that lavash is a style of flat bread enjoyed in Armenia and elsewhere in the Middle East.

First, I mixed the dry ingredients with a touch of honey, vegetable oil, and water. The BBA said to use a stand mixer to bring the dough together and then knead it by hand for 10 minutes. I was hoping I'd be able to use the mixer for the kneading, too, but the dough didn't cling to the dough hook properly. So I turned the dough out onto the counter and learned that 10 minutes feels like a long time when you're kneading firm dough by hand.

Next, I went through the indicators that the dough was ready:
1. The windowpane test: passed with a C+. I had to finagle a bit to see the "translucent membrane."
2. Temperature of 77-81 degrees Fahrenheit: 81 degrees - check!
3. Firmer than French bread dough but not quite as firm as bagel dough: ...uh...I haven't made either of those.
4. Satiny not tacky and stretchy when pulled: okay!

The fermentation stage was supposed to take 90 minutes, but I increased the time because the dough had not doubled in size. Perhaps it took longer because the temperature in the kitchen was a bit cool.

According to the BBA, the key to crisp lavash is rolling out the dough paper thin. The dough was easy to work with, and I rolled it out to the recommended dimensions. It just fit inside my biggest cookie sheet. For the topping, I alternated lines of ground kosher salt and paprika with a mix of flax, toasted sesame, black caraway, midget sunflower, anise, and poppy seeds. (No drug tests for me anytime soon.) To finish it off, I used a pizza cutter to make diagonal rectangles across the dough and baked the batch for about 20 minutes.

The taste test went well, but the crackers were a little thicker than I expected. The dough was a bit thinner on one side and browned more there. Perhaps I should have spread the dough over two cookie sheets. My only real complaint was that the seeds didn't stick to the crackers very well. Misting the dough with water before applying the topping may have helped - I just wet it with my fingers as I didn't have a spray bottle for that.

This recipe can also be used to make pitas. Maybe next time...