Keeping Warm and Cute: Blueberry Pie with Spelt Crust

I had the biggest urge to bake a pie. Seriously, it was intense.  But last time I tried making a pie (which I somehow forgot to blog about, my apologies), it did not come out very pie-like.  It looked more like a cobbler, but was still delicious.

Arrowhead Mills Spelt Flour

The crust recipe comes courtesy of the About.com page about Scandinavian baking, which was so simple, I figured, why not give it a shot?

Lauren whisking the flour with the butter

I did not feel like making two pie crusts, so I halved the recipe.  My friend, Lauren, brought a stick of butter, of which we used 2/3 of cup of to make the dough, which looked like this:

My little ball of dough: pie is magic

While the ball of dough was refrigerating, we decided to make the filling, which consisted of frozen strawberries, frozen blackberries, frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries, agave nectar, and arrowroot.  In hindsight, I should have used MORE arrowroot for more gelatinization.

I used the Blackberry Cobbler filling recipe from Babycakes NYC

After half an hour, it was time to roll out the dough!  I am legitimately amazed that show much dough arose from just a cup of spelt flour, but food can be made of magic like that (not really, it's more the proteins in the spelt that cause that, but hey, magic sounds better).

Rolling out the dough!

We spooned the pie filling in the pie and poked three holes so that vapor and whatnot have somewhere to go and my pie didn't explode int he oven.  We had a ton of leftover dough, so Lauren and I decided to be creative.

Two friends worshiping Death?  I dunno what we were going for.

So after thirty to forty minute, our pie was ready!  And leaky.  Due to the lack of gelatinization.  But that just made the whole Death-worship thing that much more legit.

THIS PIE HAS COME FOR YOUR SOULS

You know how the filling was funny?  I think we forgot to have the pie set a bit, so serving it was a huge mess.  But, whatever, it was delicious and satisfied my pie desires.

Mmmm, pie.

The fashion was definitely inspired by the colors of the pie filling and the fact that it was deathly cold outside. So how do you keep warm?

Sweater (Free People), Skirt (H&M), yoga pants (Lululemon), collared shirt (Cooperative), and hat (knit by Indigo Hare)

Layers.  Like ogres and onions.  Since that day I had a presentation to give, I wanted to dress well.  But it was also in the single digits Fahrenheit, so I had to be smart about how I looked.  The fact that I had to bike a mile round trip between classes did not help either.  I put the sweater over the collared shirt, which kept my core nice and warm.  The yoga pants are so much thicker than regular leggings and have more structure, rendering them appropriate even if I did not have a skirt on.  And of course, I wore my warmest jacket with a circle-scarf wrapped three times around my neck to keep my face warm.

On Thursday, we continue the saga of I Can't Follow Recipes with an awesome recipe for vegan enchiladas and a super-edgy coordinated outfit to go!

Keep it yummy,
Jo

Babycake's Marbled Spice Donuts

Last week, my friend Rachel (who graduated today, congratulations to her) came over because we needed to hang out before she went to Japan.  What we usually wind up doing is baking.  So we decided to make these soft and flavorful donuts courtesy of Babycakes Covers the Classics.  I highly recommend this book because the recipes are conscious and much more detailed than in the first book.  But it was a lot of fun and here is the finished product:

I made them into the shape of a smiley face.  Deal with it.

Modified Babycakes NYC Brownies

I have been in love with Babycakes since I bought the bake-book in summer 2011.  One of my favorite recipes is the brownie recipe, featured in Shape magazine.  The brownies come out moist but not gooey and fudgy, the way, in my opinion, brownies should be.  While ingredient shopping, however, I couldn't find garbanzo-fava bean flour, arrowroot, or potato starch.  So, replacing them with oat flour and tapioca starch was an interesting change.

Picture of all the ingredients for the brownies
Not featured: vanilla extract and canola oil

Well I decided to make the dry and wet mixes in two different bowls because I was not aware of the fact that we had larger bowls in my house.  Also, many of them were high-jacked for my mom's massive Christmas preparation.

Wet ingredients to the left, dry to the right.

But then, voila!  I found a bigger bowl and combined the two.  I added a bit more flour than recommended because it was super watery.  In my house, my mom makes either loaves or round cakes so finding something appropriate for a brownie tin was a miracle.  (Seriously, the woman won't even buy a cupcake pan because "I'll never use it." Please, I make brownies at least once every time I'm home!)

Batter still fresh before baking

Oh, I also made another modification: adding in some crushed almonds.  I think nuts go with most things and since I am in the mood for almonds, they are going in everything!  The next important step is to taste the batter clean the bowl so that you have space in your kitchen for lunch.  The trap to fall into with gluten-free, vegan baking is that the batter, for the most part, won't give you salmonella.  I remember baking a cake with Andrea once and she was eating it with a spoon.

Mmm...cake batter.

So after about half an hour (because old oven is old), my brownies were ready!  They tasted great but they were flat.  My mother thinks it's because I didn't use enough baking powder, but I honestly think it was because of the lack of either potato starch or arrowroot.  Actually, I think it's mostly potato starch.  Angel food cake made from it rises quite nicely so I don't know what went wrong.  I've made the brownies from the recipe before and well, they are bigger and fluffier.  Better luck next time!

Slightly failed brownies =[

Well, even though they failed a bit, I still have something yummy to eat for Christmas desert.  And then after the holidays, I am on a hunt to Whole Foods to see if they have all the ingredients I will ever need for future baking.

Happy holidays everyone :D