Butterscotch Pie

I have been a fan of butterscotch pudding, the cooked kind not that dreadful instant stuff, for as long as I can remember. Making your own from scratch is stupid easy and certainly worth the few minutes time it takes to cook the filling.

A couple of things to remember when making puddin' pies with meringue topping.  First and foremost make sure the eggs are at room temperature before you separate and try to whip the eggs.  They froth better if you have them warm as opposed to cold from the fridge.  Another thing to help them whip their best is invest a few bucks in a copper bowl.  The copper acts with the egg white to gain more volume.  Lastly, a bakers sugar also called caster sugar will dissolve easier in the egg white making a better final product.

Butterscotch Pie
9 inch baked pie shell - cooled to room temperature
Filling
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c flour
1 12 oz can condensed milk (not sweetened)*
1/8 t salt
3 egg yolks beaten
1 t vanilla
2T butter
Meringue
3 egg whites
1/4 t flour
6 T sugar


Bake 9" pie shell according to your recipe instructions for blind baking.  Cool


Mix sugar, flour, condensed milk, salt and egg yolks in a heavy sauce pan.  Whisk until dissolved.  Heat and whisk constantly over medium heat until it thickens and starts to bubble.  Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla and butter.  Add to your baked pie shell.


For the meringue add egg whites and cream of tartar to bowl.  Beat until soft peaks form.  Increase speed and beat in sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until stiff peaks form.  (About 4 minutes total).  Spread over the hot filling pushing to edges to seal.  Bake in 350F oven until browned.  Cool completely before serving.  Refrigerate left overs.

*sometimes sold as evaporated milk.

Orange Chocolate Palmiers

Today is "Bloggers Picnic V (V for vendetta)". It is done potluck style. Anyone who is a fan of blogs, writes a blog, reads a blog, comments or torments on a blog is welcome to attend. Invite details on Metblogs.

My contribution to the days noshing and festivities will include these tasty but stupid easy cookies. I'm not quite sure where I heard that orange and chocolate are a good flavor combination but they do pair well. These cookies are something I just thought up one day and ran with it.

Orange Chocolate Palmiers

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry - thawed


• 2 T raw or tourbinado sugar, divided


• zest of one medium orange


• 1 oz bitter sweet chocolate

Lay down a sheet of plastic wrap larger than the puff pastry sheet. Sprinkle 1 T of the raw sugar on the plastic wrap approximately the size of the pastry sheet. Unfold pastry on top of the sugar. The unfolded pastry should have the creases visible and running horizontal on the wrap.

Sprinkle the remaining 1 T raw sugar over the pastry sheet. Zest the orange with a microplane over the puff pastry. Using microplane grate the chocolate over the pastry. Lightly tap the sugar, zest and chocolate onto the puff pastry.

With one long edge of the puff pastry carefully fold the edge to the nearest crease. Fold again to the half way point on the pastry. Repeat with the other edge of the dough. Fold the dough again in half. Wrap dough in the plastic wrap and chill 15-minutes. Very important that you chill the dough or it will not cut well nor puff correctly in the oven.

Preheat the oven to 400. Line baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper. Remove the dough from fridge and immediately unwrap. Cut the dough in half. Take the half and cut in the middle (will yield 2, one quarter rolls). Cut the one quarter roll into 3 pieces (about 1/4 think). Lay each cookie on the sheet about 2 inches apart. Repeat until all of dough is cut and lined up on baking sheet.

Bake 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes before moving to wire rack.

Note the original crease lines as they are important guides for the folding when it is time to start rolling the palmiers.

Microplanes are the greatest gift to the kitchen, makes it so easy to finely grate things like chocolate and get even distribution at the same time. After the final fold is done you have a log that needs to be rolled in the plastic wrap so it will hold its shape will chilling.
A sharp serrated knife is the best tool for cutting through the chilled dough. It doesn't cut and drag through the dough causing it to lose its shape like a regular knife will.
Silpat sheets...the single greatest invention for anyone who lies to bake. Cookies like this that have a lot of raw sugar would bake and burn onto a regular cookie sheet, here they just bake away and glide right off the sheet. Clean up is easy...damp cloth and it is done.