Stuff They Say Is Easy, But It Ain't

[Gail Hughes]

I wonder if other e-Gulleteers have dishes in their repertoire that they had been led to believe were simple to prepare, but aren't.  Dishes that everyone around you purportedly toss off one-handed, while drunk, and you are alone in the universe in your inability to make the #### thing right.

Example:  Piecrust.  I just read an interview with Maida Heatter.  She laughs at the expression "easy as pie", contends that for her, good piecrust is one of the most difficult things to make ... that a souffle is easier.  This made me feel lots better, since after years of trying, I'm still a long way from a decent piecrust, never mind perfect.  No sooner do I think I've corralled all the technique tips there are to be had than I come across another.  (I.e., sprinkle pancake mix on your board instead of flour, the crust will taste better.)   I don't make truly awful piecrust anymore, but I still hold my breath until the first bite.  Will that ever come to an end?  

Another:  Chili.   I have held for a lifetime this image of the perfect chili, and it still eludes me.  From the number of crappy chili recipes that actually see print, I gotta wonder if there's something wrong with my head, that I can't pull it off.  There's so much to consider:  Meat vs. bean ratio (not to mention what kind(s) of beans), degree of thickness, and most of all, the perfect flavor balance ... and the more I think about it, the more I think the onions should be invisible.  Onion chunks in chili are nasty.   Still, I'm getting closer all the time.  The last batch was so close that I was depressed for days. Maybe in the next decade ...

Any similar experiences out there?

[Fat Guy]

Everything is more difficult if you're a perfectionist. Most people I know who say they make good pie crusts simlply have low standards for pie crusts. They make what is acceptable to them and assume it's good.

Me, I'm almost never satisfied with anything I cook. I mean, maybe once or twice a year I cook something and pronounce it truly exceptional. The rest of the time I take a couple of bites and lose interest. Then, later, I eat junk food instead.

That being said, the whole category of baking and pastry is very difficult to master from books. Making a textbook pie crust is decidedly not difficult, but it is difficult to learn how to do it unless you have access to someone who knows how to do it and can show you how. Even professional pastry chefs take classes in this sort of stuff, whereas non-pastry chefs pretty much never take any formal classes beyong culinary school (and not all of them even do that). It can take pages upon pages of text to describe what can be demonstrated quickly with the hands. And even with an ultra-lengthy textual description ala Jeffrey Steingarten's pie crust method there is a lot of ambiguity and room for misinterpretation. When people are interested in taking cooking classes, I always suggest they take baking and pastry classes because those are the most beneficial.

As for chili, I can tell you the problem there: You're using beans. :)

[Katherine]

I've found that many of the simplest recipes are dependent on little things, like the brand of flour you use, the temperature in your kitchen, and subtle technique variations, none of which the author may have put in the recipe.

[chefette]

very true Katherine.  what about the reverse of Gail's initial question:  techniques and dishes made to seem complicated--or presumed to be difficult--that, in actuality--aren't so difficult after all?

[helenas]

like puff pastry?

[Steve Klc]

On the supposedly difficult but actually pretty easy side:

1. making puff dough

   (certainly much easier than brioche or croissant to make);

2. tempering chocolate

   (so many food writers and food scientists who don't   know what they are doing have tried to explain);

3. souffles and liquid center chocolate cakes

   (no more difficult than brownies)

4. melting chocolate in the microwave

   (see #2 above)

5. pairing wines with desserts

6. making a real italian meringue buttercream

7. cooking a caramel dry and then deglazing

8. covering a cake with rolled fondant

9. foams and emulsions

on the supposedly easy but actually alot harder than one might think side:

1. creme brulee

   (not the bruleeing--just baking it properly.  oh, the bad creme brulees I've had);

2. ice cream and sorbet

   (very scientific, very difficult to do well, to do well consistently and to store for any length of time.  again, food writers have led us astray with the phrase 'freeze according to manufacturer's instructions');

3. toasting nuts in the oven

  ('not done, not done, not done--burnt');

4. grinding your own nut flour

   (good nut flours come from the squished, de-fatted nut cake after the oils have been pressed out.  impossible to do yourself);

5. getting a good dessert from a chef

   (or at least a dessert that is the equal of the cuisine that preceded it in terms of ingredient expense, thought, creativity and effort);

6. getting a decent espresso at a restaurant

7. using gelatin

   (80% of pastry chefs and bakers today don't understand the science behind using gelatin);

8. making a French meringue;

9. doing pastry in a professional restaurant kitchen

   (way too hot.  yes, most pastry work "spaces"--I hesitate to say "pastry kitchens"--are not air conditioned);

10.  ganache

     (some would have you believe a good ganache is just cream and chocolate--others that a good ganache is 'whipped')

[Katherine]

I like to reduce a recipe to its essential nature. Often, the more ingredients in a preparation, the more diluted the effect. Some of the best preparations are the simplest.

If you leaf through cookbooks regularly, you may notice this phenomenon:

Chapter 1. A discussion of the subject, its origin, ingredients, and techniques. Brief.

Chapter 2. A few authentic, or slightly modified authentic recipes for this food. Brief.

Chapter 3. Many modernized recipes, with long lists of trendy and difficult to get ingredients, seemingly randomly composed by a database program. Mostly pointless and unfocused. This shows most clearly the author's tastes, but little else. Very long chapter.

[Gail Hughes]

Quote: from Steve Klc on 10:35 pm on Dec. 2, 2001

10.  ganache

     (some would have you believe a good ganache is just cream and chocolate--others that a good ganache is 'whipped')

Which is it?  Both?  Neither?  What is the secret to a good ganache?

Gail

[Steve Klc]

Neither Gail--we got into ganache a little bit on a chocolate thread in Cooking, but could always get into it a little more over there!  Ganache is a very fragile suspension of water and fat molecules that is extremely temperature sensitive--and whipping it creates an airy, granular mess.

[NewYorkTexan]

I think most baked goods and desserts fall in this category.

The window between a dessert or baked item you are proud of and making something the dog will not even touch is small.  There is a degree of precision and accuracy for these items that you do not find in general cooking.  

If you start with really good ingredients, any decent cook can make an acceptable dish.  It may not be the perfect dish we strive for, but certainly very good.  With desserts and baked goods, so many nuances come into play, such as moisture, exact type of flour or chocolate, sugar content of the fruit, etc.   A slightest miscalculation and ones efforts will result in failure.

I personally find baking a good loaf of bread more rewarding than preparing a multi-course dinner party.  

[Lesley C]

Tarte Tatin

[Bux]

Aside from the fact that there's a pastry chef posting to the thread, it's interesting how often pastry comes up here. Pastry always seems like a black art akin to alchemy. You always hear of the "art of pastry," but there's a lot more science involved in dessert than in the main course. When hobbyists and homemakers are beset with failure in pies and cakes, they usually feel they need to develop a knack for what they are doing. I suspect it's often a scientific understanding of the process that's important. Once you have that and your pastry fails, you know you have to make a pact with the devil.

[mamster]

I'm suspicious of any claim in a cookbook that something is easy.  Of course some things are easier than others, but few things in cooking are easy the first time you try them, and too many cookbooks speak with the voice of the expert who can't remember what it was like to be a novice.

I've long had trouble with soup.  Everyone says soup is easy;  probably most of these people make one or two soups and have been doing so for years and refining their technique each time.  As I see it (and I realize it's silly to talk about all soups as if they were the same), with soup there are an unusual number of things that can go wrong, and one of them often does.  These days I mostly make Thai soups, since anything with that much lime juice, chiles, and fish sauce has to be at least pretty good.

And don't get me started on beef stew.

[Jason Perlow]

#Moderation Mode

Moved here

[Katherine]

Please do post about beef stew. There are so many right ways to make it...

How do you like it?

[helenas]

Artichokes? Although i don't know to what category they belong: deceptively easy or the other way around?

Honestly, i never tried to prepare them from scratch.

Although i like them very much, i always use olive oil marinated ones, sold in Wegmans Mediterranean deli section. Surprisingly enough, they turn pretty tasty both in gratins and braised chicken.

[Fat Guy]

Quote: from Katherine on 3:07 pm on Dec. 4, 2001

Please do post about beef stew. There are so many right ways to make it...

How do you like it?

With lamb. :)

[project]

Pie crust?

Well, I learned from my father.

He learned from his mother.

When she was cooking at her home, in West Valley,

NY, a little south of Buffalo, she made about one

pie a day.  Mostly she made apple pies, but there

were some occasional cherry, etc.

Yes, when my father taught my mother to make pies,

the crust was the hard part.

Long after I learned from my father, I read lots of

descriptions in books, American techniques, French

techniques, etc., and the books mostly didn't do

what my father did.

I think my father's pie crust is good for pie crust,

but it's not puff pastry or some such.

It's not a 'tart' or 'flan'.  Instead, it's "as

American as apple pie".  It's not what you might

serve at a state dinner or in one of the world's

best restaurants.  It is appropriate for someone

that is to make one pie a day, by hand, at home, to

feed their family.  It is pragmatic.  Still, done

well, it's tough to beat no matter what elaborate

gymnastics are performed.

For the flour, my father just used all-purpose.  For

the fat, he used just shortening (Crisco).  I did

some trials once, for a cherry pie, with lard, and

found that it can yield a better texture in the

final result.

My father used a wooden pastry board, not a marble

working surface, and he didn't wrap the dough and

let it rest, use butter, etc.

Yup, the idea is to get the crust tender and flaky.

Okay, for both of these, the big key is DON'T WORK

THE DOUGH VERY MUCH.  So, you are deliberately

leaving small chunks of fat.  These little chunks

are what become essentially the individual flakes.

To help with all of this, it helps to keep the dough

cool.  It's a little better to have a cool kitchen,

but you don't have wait for a blizzard, throw open

all the doors and windows, and make the crust

standing in snow up to your knees.  Actually, I grew

up in Memphis; we had lots of terrific apple pies

there, and the kitchen was never air conditioned.

Start with the Crisco from the refrigerator.  When

you add the water, add ice water (without the ice).

And, generally minimize how much your hands contact

the dough.  And, work quickly, and roll out the

dough only once.  If you make too many mistakes in

the rolling part and have to gather the dough and

roll it out a second time, then the results will be

much less good.  The crust will be tougher and less

flaky.

Now, to mix the fat and flour, don't do very much.

One option is to use a little hand-held 'pastry

blender':  This thing has a U-shaped piece of metal

with a wooden handle across the top of the U.  The

bottom of the U consists of about 5 parallel crude

blades.  So, with this thing, you can mash the flour

and fat and get them mixed together.  But, my father

and grandmother thought that such a tool was

over-kill, offered too little control, and risked

over-mixing the fat and flour.  So, they liked using

a dinner fork in one hand and a dinner knife in the

other.  So, maybe the fork is in the right hand --

it is held upside down from the usual way of holding

a fork.  Then the knife and fork just touch at their

sides and form an X in the bowl.  Some of the

mixture is against the tines of the fork, and you

pull the knife to the left and, thus, cut some of

the mixture.  No, the knife blade doesn't go between

the tines of the fork -- that's too intricate.  This

is AMERICAN pie crust, and we are pragmatic!  That

is just one blade cutting, no more.  Instead of a

knife and fork, it is also good just to use two

dinner knives.

Your goal is to get the fat into little pieces about

the size of a pea with flour all around.  Each such

pea will become one nice flake.  And, yes, there

will be some fat and flour not so neatly deployed --

that's okay.  But, when the largest piece of fat is

about the size of a pea, STOP cutting!  So, when you

are cutting, you don't just cut randomly or blindly.

Instead, at each cut, your target is the largest

piece of fat not yet cut.  That is, once you cut a

piece of fat, the cut surfaces get coated with flour

and then no longer want to stick together, and

partly that's what you want.  JUST DON'T CUT MUCH.

And, keep the mixture spread out in the bottom of

the bowl; you are not trying to form it into a ball

yet, and having the mixture spread out lets you

better see and control what is happening.  Or, once

some of the mixture is in a large clump, then you

can't see what is in the middle of the clump or get

to it to do things to it.

Then you add the ice water.  How much water depends

on the moisture content of your flour, and that

depends on the source of your flour, your kitchen,

the weather, etc.  But no matter:  You want only

just enough water to get the dough to hold together

just enough.

To add the water, just dribble it over the flour-fat

mixture.  Then use the knife and fork pair again

very gently to spread the wetter spots to the drier

ones.  Don't pull the mixture together into a ball

yet because once you have a ball, you can't

distribute anymore water into the mixture.  So,

until you are sure you have enough water, keep the

mixture loose in the bottom of the bowl.

When you have in enough water, with the moisture

distributed uniformly enough, use your fork to make

a rough ball; put some flour on your pastry board,

on your hands, and on top of the rough ball, reach

into the bowl, pull the dough together into a ball,

pressing enough to get it to stick together.

It's good to use your hands to squeeze the dough, no

harder than fairly gently, to encourage it to stick

together, but really MINIMIZE this handling.

Put the ball onto the pastry board on the flour.

Put some flour on top of the ball.

Maybe take out a few seconds to wash and dry your

hands.

Typically you will divide the dough into two pieces,

one for the top crust and one for the bottom.  To

divide the dough, just use your table knife to cut

it.  Then, for each of the two pieces, stick half of

the cut wet cut surface to its mirror image on the

other half of that cut wet surface so that all the

surface of the piece is dry with a coating of flour

again.  If one piece is a little bigger, then use it

for the bottom crust.

To roll out a piece, take a rolling pin, say, wooden

with a smooth cylinder and where the cylinder rolls

on an axle, and roll the dough into a rough circle.

In this rolling, you may have to (1) add flour to

the pastry board to keep the dough from sticking to

the pastry board, (2) add flour to the top of the

dough to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin,

(3) use a metal spatula with a straight edge to

remove dough stuck to the pastry board, (4) use your

table knife to remove dough stuck to your rolling

pin, (5) use a few drops of water and maybe a

dusting of flour as glue to rejoin torn places in

your dough.  That is, you have to use some common

sense.

And, before the dough circle gets very big and the

dough gets very thin, you should plan to put some

flour on top of the dough and turn it over.  During

the rolling operation, you may turn it over twice,

likely not more than three times.  This turning over

is the main way you have to get enough flour between

the dough and the pastry board.

Also, as the dough becomes thinner, the edges want

to crack and split.  My solution is to (1) generally

minimize how much rolling and pressing is done on

the edges and (2) occasionally use my hands to push

the edges back toward the center of the circle, thus

reducing the diameter of the circle and making the

edges a little thicker.

For rolling out the dough, (1) look at what you are

doing and see what the dough needs and what it

likely will do, (2) plan ahead a little on the work,

(3) work quickly, (4) practice.

That's my advice for the hard issues.

My father's apple pies were not done with fancy

techniques, but the pies were shockingly good.

He just put the bottom crust into the pie pan --

usually glass.  Then on top of the bottom crust in

the pie pan, he arranged the apple slices, sugar,

usually with some flour, and dots of butter.  So, he

didn't pre-bake the crust, pre-cook the filling, or

water-proof the crust.  He did pile the apples

fairly high in the center.  Then, as the pie baked,

the pile fell and the top crust fell and became

wrinkled -- looked plenty good enough and tasted

fantastic.

For an apple pie or other juicy fruit pie, it is

important to get a good seal around the edge between

the top and bottom crust and to crimp the edge and

have it stand as a dam against the juices.

But, with a good crust, the crimped edge will be

nicely flaky and plenty nice to eat.

My experience is that using lard gives a flakier

crust but that handling is more difficult because

heat from hands can more easily cause the lard to

soften and the crust to fall apart.

It's not puff pastry or 'thousand leaves', etc., but

it is 'pie crust', and it's plenty good.

And, yes, a souffle is easier.  Of course, if you

want to get the souffle texture just right, smooth,

firm, not like scrambled eggs, then a souffle gets

hard, at least until someone gives you the secrets

there!  The many souffle recipes in my cooking

library don't even mention 'texture'.

Uh, for any leftover dough, roll it out, top it with

sinfully generous amounts of sugar, butter, and

cinnamon, bake it, and eat it before others come

running!

Of course, this food is fine if your days are spent

working on a farm, especially in cold weather.

Growing up, my father could eat apple pie as part of

breakfast and then again as part of dinner, one or

both times with sharp chedder cheese.  Between the

two, it's good to milk some cows, shovel some snow,

load some hay, repair some fences, chop some fire

wood, break for lunch with some apple cider, etc.

[Gail Hughes]

from project on 1:10 pm on Jan. 5, 2002

Pie crust? ...(snip) ...That's my advice for the hard issues.

Many, many thanks for this lengthy note, C-Esc!  I'm thrilled to know that I'm pretty much on the right track as your Dad knew it.  I didn't know about turning the rolled-out crust over during the rolling, though.

Gail

[oraklet]

searching for advice on pie crust, i found this beautyful thread, with project's absolutely wonderful post. thank you ever so much, project!

edited for the usual spelling mistakes.

Edited November 22, 2002 by oraklet (log)

[jaybee]

Lesley C

Tarte Tatin

For me, the hardest part is/was getting the caramel right. When someone gave me the tip to set the caramel first in ice water when it reaches the right color, the problem was solved. Until then, my results were inconsistent. And Granny Smith's always (unless you can get the right French apple). And Normandy butter...and baste with the juices while cooking on stove top (thanks Julia Child).

Thank you Project for that pie crust procedure and recipe. It is sorely needed by me.

[GordonCooks]

Pie crust?<p>Well, I learned from my father.<p>He learned from his mother.<p>When she was cooking at her home, in West Valley,

NY, a little south of Buffalo, she made about one

pie a day.  Mostly she made apple pies, but there

were some occasional cherry, etc.<p>Yes, when my father taught my mother to make pies,

the crust was the hard part.<p>Long after I learned from my father, I read lots of

descriptions in books, American techniques, French

techniques, etc., and the books mostly didn't do

what my father did.<p>I think my father's pie crust is good for pie crust,

but it's not puff pastry or some such.<p>It's not a 'tart' or 'flan'.  Instead, it's "as

American as apple pie".  It's not what you might

serve at a state dinner or in one of the world's

best restaurants.  It is appropriate for someone

that is to make one pie a day, by hand, at home, to

feed their family.  It is pragmatic.  Still, done

well, it's tough to beat no matter what elaborate

gymnastics are performed.<p>For the flour, my father just used all-purpose.  For

the fat, he used just shortening (Crisco).  I did

some trials once, for a cherry pie, with lard, and

found that it can yield a better texture in the

final result.<p>My father used a wooden pastry board, not a marble

working surface, and he didn't wrap the dough and

let it rest, use butter, etc.<p>Yup, the idea is to get the crust tender and flaky.<p>Okay, for both of these, the big key is DON'T WORK

THE DOUGH VERY MUCH.  So, you are deliberately

leaving small chunks of fat.  These little chunks

are what become essentially the individual flakes.<p>To help with all of this, it helps to keep the dough

cool.  It's a little better to have a cool kitchen,

but you don't have wait for a blizzard, throw open

all the doors and windows, and make the crust

standing in snow up to your knees.  Actually, I grew

up in Memphis; we had lots of terrific apple pies

there, and the kitchen was never air conditioned.<p>Start with the Crisco from the refrigerator.  When

you add the water, add ice water (without the ice).

And, generally minimize how much your hands contact

the dough.  And, work quickly, and roll out the

dough only once.  If you make too many mistakes in

the rolling part and have to gather the dough and

roll it out a second time, then the results will be

much less good.  The crust will be tougher and less

flaky.<p>Now, to mix the fat and flour, don't do very much.

One option is to use a little hand-held 'pastry

blender':  This thing has a U-shaped piece of metal

with a wooden handle across the top of the U.  The

bottom of the U consists of about 5 parallel crude

blades.  So, with this thing, you can mash the flour

and fat and get them mixed together.  But, my father

and grandmother thought that such a tool was

over-kill, offered too little control, and risked

over-mixing the fat and flour.  So, they liked using

a dinner fork in one hand and a dinner knife in the

other.  So, maybe the fork is in the right hand --

it is held upside down from the usual way of holding

a fork.  Then the knife and fork just touch at their

sides and form an X in the bowl.  Some of the

mixture is against the tines of the fork, and you

pull the knife to the left and, thus, cut some of

the mixture.  No, the knife blade doesn't go between

the tines of the fork -- that's too intricate.  This

is AMERICAN pie crust, and we are pragmatic!  That

is just one blade cutting, no more.  Instead of a

knife and fork, it is also good just to use two

dinner knives.<p>Your goal is to get the fat into little pieces about

the size of a pea with flour all around.  Each such

pea will become one nice flake.  And, yes, there

will be some fat and flour not so neatly deployed --

that's okay.  But, when the largest piece of fat is

about the size of a pea, STOP cutting!  So, when you

are cutting, you don't just cut randomly or blindly.

Instead, at each cut, your target is the largest

piece of fat not yet cut.  That is, once you cut a

piece of fat, the cut surfaces get coated with flour

and then no longer want to stick together, and

partly that's what you want.  JUST DON'T CUT MUCH.<p>And, keep the mixture spread out in the bottom of

the bowl; you are not trying to form it into a ball

yet, and having the mixture spread out lets you

better see and control what is happening.  Or, once

some of the mixture is in a large clump, then you

can't see what is in the middle of the clump or get

to it to do things to it.<p>Then you add the ice water.  How much water depends

on the moisture content of your flour, and that

depends on the source of your flour, your kitchen,

the weather, etc.  But no matter:  You want only

just enough water to get the dough to hold together

just enough.<p>To add the water, just dribble it over the flour-fat

mixture.  Then use the knife and fork pair again

very gently to spread the wetter spots to the drier

ones.  Don't pull the mixture together into a ball

yet because once you have a ball, you can't

distribute anymore water into the mixture.  So,

until you are sure you have enough water, keep the

mixture loose in the bottom of the bowl.<p>When you have in enough water, with the moisture

distributed uniformly enough, use your fork to make

a rough ball; put some flour on your pastry board,

on your hands, and on top of the rough ball, reach

into the bowl, pull the dough together into a ball,

pressing enough to get it to stick together.<p>It's good to use your hands to squeeze the dough, no

harder than fairly gently, to encourage it to stick

together, but really MINIMIZE this handling.<p>Put the ball onto the pastry board on the flour.<p>Put some flour on top of the ball.<p>Maybe take out a few seconds to wash and dry your

hands.<p>Typically you will divide the dough into two pieces,

one for the top crust and one for the bottom.  To

divide the dough, just use your table knife to cut

it.  Then, for each of the two pieces, stick half of

the cut wet cut surface to its mirror image on the

other half of that cut wet surface so that all the

surface of the piece is dry with a coating of flour

again.  If one piece is a little bigger, then use it

for the bottom crust.<p>To roll out a piece, take a rolling pin, say, wooden

with a smooth cylinder and where the cylinder rolls

on an axle, and roll the dough into a rough circle.<p>In this rolling, you may have to (1) add flour to

the pastry board to keep the dough from sticking to

the pastry board, (2) add flour to the top of the

dough to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin,

(3) use a metal spatula with a straight edge to

remove dough stuck to the pastry board, (4) use your

table knife to remove dough stuck to your rolling

pin, (5) use a few drops of water and maybe a

dusting of flour as glue to rejoin torn places in

your dough.  That is, you have to use some common

sense.<p>And, before the dough circle gets very big and the

dough gets very thin, you should plan to put some

flour on top of the dough and turn it over.  During

the rolling operation, you may turn it over twice,

likely not more than three times.  This turning over

is the main way you have to get enough flour between

the dough and the pastry board.<p>Also, as the dough becomes thinner, the edges want

to crack and split.  My solution is to (1) generally

minimize how much rolling and pressing is done on

the edges and (2) occasionally use my hands to push

the edges back toward the center of the circle, thus

reducing the diameter of the circle and making the

edges a little thicker.<p>For rolling out the dough, (1) look at what you are

doing and see what the dough needs and what it

likely will do, (2) plan ahead a little on the work,

(3) work quickly, (4) practice.<p>That's my advice for the hard issues.<p>My father's apple pies were not done with fancy

techniques, but the pies were shockingly good.<p>He just put the bottom crust into the pie pan --

usually glass.  Then on top of the bottom crust in

the pie pan, he arranged the apple slices, sugar,

usually with some flour, and dots of butter.  So, he

didn't pre-bake the crust, pre-cook the filling, or

water-proof the crust.  He did pile the apples

fairly high in the center.  Then, as the pie baked,

the pile fell and the top crust fell and became

wrinkled -- looked plenty good enough and tasted

fantastic.<p>For an apple pie or other juicy fruit pie, it is

important to get a good seal around the edge between

the top and bottom crust and to crimp the edge and

have it stand as a dam against the juices.<p>But, with a good crust, the crimped edge will be

nicely flaky and plenty nice to eat.<p>My experience is that using lard gives a flakier

crust but that handling is more difficult because

heat from hands can more easily cause the lard to

soften and the crust to fall apart.<p>It's not puff pastry or 'thousand leaves', etc., but

it is 'pie crust', and it's plenty good.<p>And, yes, a souffle is easier.  Of course, if you

want to get the souffle texture just right, smooth,

firm, not like scrambled eggs, then a souffle gets

hard, at least until someone gives you the secrets

there!  The many souffle recipes in my cooking

library don't even mention 'texture'.<p>Uh, for any leftover dough, roll it out, top it with

sinfully generous amounts of sugar, butter, and

cinnamon, bake it, and eat it before others come

running!<p>Of course, this food is fine if your days are spent

working on a farm, especially in cold weather.

Growing up, my father could eat apple pie as part of

breakfast and then again as part of dinner, one or

both times with sharp chedder cheese.  Between the

two, it's good to milk some cows, shovel some snow,

load some hay, repair some fences, chop some fire

wood, break for lunch with some apple cider, etc.<p>

Scroll, scroll, scroll your post gently down the screen

Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream

[cakewalk]

3. toasting nuts in the oven

  ('not done, not done, not done--burnt');

Oh the joy of recognition!

[maggiethecat]

On the supposedly difficult but actually pretty easy side:

1. making puff dough

   (certainly much easier than brioche or croissant to make);

Steve: How true! We spent numberless years being intimidated by puff pastry, only to try again recently. It is NOT HARD, and the results pay back enormously for the effort spent.

And oh! the glorious feeling of having puff pastry in the freezer. (Chicken pot pie tonight!)

[Marlene]

Ceasar salad dressing - by hand like they do in restaurants

pie crust

bread without a machine

making candy either to runny or rock hard even with a candy thermometer

oddly enough, I have toasting nuts in an oven down to a science. LOL