Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

It’s spring in Montana, so that means there are some yummy treats being made with our rhubarb.  This is our plant’s third season planted here, and I love seeing it come back bigger and better every year.

The leaves and stalks are huge, they took up half of our dining room table.  I froze a lot of berries last summer from our garden and some produce farms in WA that we visited, so with the strawberries I stored away in the freezer I’ve been making Strawberry-Rhubarb Custard Pie lately.  So good, I love the sweet and tart combination.

Just snapped some quick shots with the ol’ iPhone cameras, and this was the last piece of pie so it was kinda falling apart and I didn’t get to take one of it glistening when it was hot out of the oven.

Pie is not usually the first dessert I make at home for me and my hubby, even though I come from a long line of pie-making and pie-eating dutch women!  There usually has to be a good reason for me to make it, like Thanksgiving, or an abundance of rhubarb.  🙂  The fun thing about pies though, is the more you make them the better you get at it, and it’s good to be familiar with how to make a good dough and master pie crust.

You can find the recipe over at my cousin’s blog, Born in the Wrong Century.  🙂

Makin’ Lots of Dough These Days

I’ve got into a zone of making a lot of dough, and wanting to keep making more.  I’m not talking about the kind of dough that comes in the green paper form, although that’s nice to make too.  Talking about the nourishing kind, that’s good for the heart and soul, and makes your house more of a home.

I’m working out of one of my top favorite bread baking books, The Bread Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  This is one lovely book for your bread baking and mastering, I highly recommend it if you already make a lot of breads, or want to learn more and get into it.  I’ve done pizza dough out of this book, along with some quick breads, the Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf, Basic Hearth Bread, Brioche, and the Mantovana Olive Oil Bread (a great hearty multi-grain with some whole wheat and olive oil, and a local specialty of Mantua, Italy).  When I worked at a local restaurant in Whitefish, I made all the bread for dinner service and did small loaves of Basic Hearth Bread and the Mantovana Olive Oil Bread.  Everyone loved it!  Who wouldn’t love a little basket with two different kinds of warm homemade bread to fill up on before getting your dinner! 😉  I also made the Brioche loaves there for a while for the Sunday Brunch.

I have several pages marked in this book of breads I want to learn more about and have yet to make.  I want to read up on, and hone my skills on Sourdough and sourdough starters (which has a whole chapter all to itself), along with the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bread, English Muffins, Monkey Bread (a cinnamon-y breakfast/dessert kind), Cinnamon Raisin Loaf, Butter Popovers, Beer Bread, Rosemary Focaccia, Ciabatta, and Pugliese.  Just to name a few.  I’m not going crazy and wanting to do too much, am I??

Today I baked three loaves of the Hearth Bread, I just got all giddy when taking it out and having the house smell of fresh baked bread!  I made the dough yesterday and refrigerated the finished dough overnight, and baked the loaves today.  It’ll be great to have a couple of these loaves in the freezer.  I also have a starter for some Heart of Wheat Bread setting on the counter and fermenting right now.

For these kind of Hearth Breads, I usually make my breads in a two day process.
Option 1:

Day 1:  Make the sponge/starter and let rest at room temperature 1-4 hours, then cover bowl tightly and refrigerate overnight, up to 24 hours.

Day 2:  Take starter out, complete the dough making process, portion into equal sized loaves, shape, let rise, and bake.  OR: Make up to a finished dough, refrigerate overnight, and shape and bake on the third day.

Option 2:

Day 1:  Do the process all the way to a finished dough, then cover tightly in a large bowl or container, refrigerate overnight.

Day 2:  Take out of fridge, let rest 1 hour, shape, let rise, bake.

Or, you can do it in one day of course, starting in the morning and baking the bread by evening time.

I probably just made all that sound overwhelming and like too much work.  But really once you get the process down, your active working time is not that much, maybe 1 1/2 hours for the whole process.

So, back to these beautiful loaves!

Also just did these ‘Heart of Wheat’ loaves, did the whole process for these in one day.

Fresh baked bread? Yes, please!

Three loaves of Basic Hearth Bread. One loaf for now, two for the freezer!

Done baking, set directly on stone with oven door open slightly 5-10 min. = nice crust

Misted with water for a nice crust, set baking sheet on hot stone

Make some fun slash marks on top, mist with water bottle right before baking

Shaped rounds doing their first rise, then second..

Divide into 1 lb 3 oz portions

Kneading 3.5 lbs of dough

Sprinkle flour mixture on top of starter, then cover to ferment for 1-4 hrs.

Mix starter with whisk for two minutes

Making the starter

Spending a day every once in a while baking bread, or even just incorporating the little sections of the process into your day, is so rewarding.  If you’re inspired to get making some lovely loaves, check out Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Bread Bible (or any bread/cookbooks you have on hand!).  She also has a blog, Real Baking with Rose.

I hope you have found some inspiration here for getting busy in the kitchen, and Happy Bread Baking!  🙂