Strawberry Pretzel Salad: Two Ways

Today I bring you two recipes, the last ones of the summer. They’re reiterations of a dish I ate in church basements and birthday parties. At a beach in New Jersey once and at a middle school graduation. The strawberry pretzel salad.  My mother made it the night my sister said she was pregnant; it’s always been her favorite. It’s a dish that’s as economical as it is regional, as chimeric as it is delicious. A hodgepodge of flavors, strawberry Jell-O and crushed pretzels, a layer of sweetened cream cheese and set in a casserole dish. Salad in the loosest sense of the word. And here it is as a galette and as a handpie. For a different take on the dessert I ate by the bowlful, the taste of chlorine still on my lips from the three lazy months I could sit by the pool with no responsibility to keep me up at night.

Strawberry Pretzel Salad: as Handpies and Galettes

If you are unfamiliar with this dish, here is a pretty good version of it. The below two recipes are two sides of the same coin and can be made for any time of year. Frozen strawberries, while a good substitute, seem to yield a slightly thinner filling. 

For the Crust: Use this recipe for either of the below recipes

Ingredients:

• 4 TB unsalted butter, very cold
• 3 TB shortening, very cold
• 1 ½ cup AP flour
• ¼ cup white sugar
• ½ TB pure vanilla extract
• 2 to 4 TB ice water

Directions:

1. In a food processor, pulse together butter, shortening, flour, almond meal, and white sugar until fats are pea-sized
2. Add vanilla extract and pulse once or twice
3. With motor running, pour water into feeding tube in a gradual stream until a dough forms. You may need additional couple teaspoon or two of ice water until dough clumps and begins to pull away from edges of the bowl
4. Turn out onto a floured work surface and divide into two discs
5. Wrap both discs in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest

Ingredients for the Handpie/Galette filling: Use this recipe for either of the below recipes

• 3 cups strawberries, roughly chopped and hulled
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1/8 cup dark beer (I used Yuengling)
• 2 TB water
• Pinch of salt
• 1 TB orange juice
• A slurry of cornstarch (1 TB cornstarch whisked in 1 TB water) – do not make until cherries are reduced by half

Directions for the Handpie/Galette filling:

1. In a medium sauce pan, combine strawberries, sugar, beer, salt, water, and juice, stir with a spoon to ensure liquid is covering everything
2. On medium heat, allow for strawberries to release their juices and for sugar to dissolve
3. Continue heating until juices simmer and reduce by half (during this time, whisk together your slurry)
4. Reduce heat to low and vigorously whisk in the slurry
5. Mixture will begin to thicken and continue thickening as it coo

Assembly of Handpies:

1. Preheat your oven to 400*F
2. Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper
3. Take one disc of dough out of the fridge and roll out onto a heavily-floured work surface into a rough rectangle that is about 8” by 10” (this will vary slightly, so don’t stress it too much)
4. Using a sharp knife, cut your dough into rectangles. For a guide, I used a 3”x4” index card, but you can measure with a ruler if you so choose
5. With each rectangle, carefully place onto your prepared baking sheets. You should have 9 rectangles total (if using the very scientific Index Card Method)
6. Now, re-flour your board and roll out your second disc of dough
7. Measure and cut your rectangles out again, but do not immediately place on your sheets
8. At this point, you will have to do three things in succession: make an egg wash to brush edges of the dough, spoon in some of your strawberry filling onto each rectangle (I’d say about 2 TB per pie, but this is based on preference mostly), and place second top dough layer on top
9. Do this for each pie
10. Crimp the edges of each pie with a fork, pressing slightly to seal
11. Brush tops of pies with remaining egg wash and sprinkle with a little sugar
12. Using a paring knife, cut a couple small nicks in the top crust to vent dough
13. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown on the edges and tops
14. Allow to cool completely before adding your topping
15. Make a glaze of 4 oz softened cream cheese, 1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar, and 3 TB milk – whisk until pourable but viscous. Pour over your handpies. Top each pie with crushed pretzel chunks
16. Enjoy within 2 days for best taste and qualit

Assembly of Galette:

1. Preheat your oven to 400*F
2. Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
3. Take disc of dough out of fridge and roll onto a heavily-floured work surface into a large circle about ¼ inch in thickness
4. Spoon half of your strawberry into center and spread around the surface of your dough, leaving about a two-inch margin
5. Make an egg wash and brush along your margin, crimp edges inward
6. Repeat with second disc of dough
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes until edges are golden brown
8. Allow to cool completely before topping with your glaze (4 oz softened cream cheese, 1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar, and 3 TB milk) and crushed pretzels
9. Cut and serve immediately. Leftovers can be saved for up to two days. 

Wild Berry Shortcake: In Partnership with Nordic Ware

My sister was supposed to swim today. She’s 6 months pregnant and hot all the time. To stretch, lay out, relax, she said it would be heaven to her. Instead, it rained, so she fell asleep on the couch, curled up in an old blanket a great-aunt made. The room is dark and the light through the lace curtains is grey. Summer is fickle and sometimes you can only lie down for an hour and wait out the storm.

This morning we talked about two uncles we had. One died in a war, the other died from smoking a pack a day. I don’t miss either anymore, really, but we live in the shadows of their totems: tan lines from mowing Tanglewood Baptist Church’s cemetery, a gold ring one wore on his pinky finger, the distrust of feminine men and women who don’t put wear makeup. We live in these totems and don’t talk of them much. My dad keeps a used shell from his brother’s 21-gun salute. My mother had a bumper sticker on her Nissan for the longest time: “All gave some, some gave all” for her brother, too.

They were uncles with nothing to do with one another, but we visited both in one day. One July in Indiana, a few days in the Midwest so we could visit our family there. We played basketball with John and picked blackberries with Mike. I remember the clouds were as curt and monosyllabic as their names. The sun was hot, no shade out in farm country. We rode our bikes to Dairy Queen and John sang “Sex and Candy” under his breath the whole way there.  I remember it because later, on the way to my uncle’s to pick berries, I said her brother said a curse word.

It stormed when we got to Mike’s. Summer is fickle and so we made dessert. He kept an old ice cream bucket in his fridge that was full of bruised berries, smashed and crammed to close the lid. We stayed there for two hours, my mother made a yellow cake. We ate it with ice cream and those bruised and bleeding berries. I remember it all so vividly, a world I was only acquainted with. One July when the summer was still fickle, too.

Wild Berry Shortcake

Inspired by my summers in Indiana and Nordic Ware's Shortcake Basket Pan. Makes 6 shortcakes or 2 8-inch square cakes.

Ingredients for Shortcakes

• 1 ¼ cup AP flour
• ½ cup corn flour or a fine-ground cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup half ‘n half
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 5 egg

Directions for Shortcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Prepare your NordicWare shortcake pan with vegetable shortening and flour, as recommended by the care instructions
3. Sift together flours, baking powder, and salt four times until very airy and light. Set aside
4. Whisk together half ‘n half, vanilla, and lemon until well-mixed. Set aside.
5. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
6. Add eggs, one at a time. Make sure you turn off mixer once in a while to scrape the edges and bottom with a rubber spatula. Mixture will look curdled, but it is just fine
7. With your rubber spatula (not with the stand mixer), lightly fold in flour mixture, a half-cup or so at a time
8. When all flour is incorporated, your mixture will be pretty thick. Thin it out with your milk mixture and beat for fifteen seconds with the stand mixer on medium-high to aerate slightly
9. Split batter between your 6 prepared shortcake cups
10. Bake for 24-28 minutes or until tops of cakes are golden and slightly puffed (while this is baking, make your whipped cream)
11. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan and assembling your desser

Ingredients for Cream

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream, cold
• ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup crème fraiche (or  Greek yogurt)

Directions for Cream

1. While cakes are baking and cooling, work on your cream
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, now fitted with the whisk attachment, whip your cream until soft peaks form
3. Add your vanilla and continue beating on medium
4. Slowly add your confectioner’s sugar and your pinch of salt
5. Turn mixer off
6. Gently fold in your crème fraiche or yogurt. The whipped cream will deflate slightly, but the added dairy will thicken the mixture to a nice, heavy consistency
7. Set aside until ready to assemble cake

Assembly: When cakes are cooled, top each with a couple tablespoons of your cream mixture and a few wild berries (as I did in this recipe) or blackberries (really, though, any berry will work). Sift a little more confectioner’s sugar for good measure and enjoy! 

A special thanks to Nordic Ware for sponsoring this post. Nordic Ware has been producing quality kitchenware products in their 70 years and are now one of America's most beloved and iconic brands. For more information or products, check out their website!

The Hoosier in Me

There is a toothache in my soul and I've lassoed string around it, tied the rest to a doorknob.  I'm afraid the door of my past will slam shut soon.  I'm tugged, pulled to the flatlands of my childhood.  To the cornfields we'd drive through and the outlet malls we'd stop at on the way to visit relatives.  For a funeral, for a birthday.  I can still smell the plastic of the Happy Meal toy.  I can still see the flowers that were stepped on the last time we visited my grandmother's grave.

I come from the Heartland and if you feel it closely, my pulse still beats there.  Somewhere on the Ohio-Indiana border, where they put spaghetti in their chili and can hold a grudge for 20 years.  Houses that sit on cinder blocks and gas stations where you can buy jerky from tupperware.  My pulse still beats somewhere between 1991 and 1995, the last remnants of my childhood.  When the porch swing creaked, when the hot tub leaked, when my sister hit her head and my uncle swore he could see her brains falling out.

Small-town hyperbole.  Myths that become repeated and we become disreputable.  We fulfill our own prophecies and then don't speak for 20 years.  i thought about all of the snowstorms, all of the feet that crunched the ice beneath them.  All of the cups of coffee that sat going stale, acidic and boiling in the pot.  How no one bothered to pick up the phone and how my pulse would still beat, however faint and arrhythmic, to pull at the umbilicus of the Heartland.

Food has a culture in the Midwest. the economy of it all.  Where I come from, meat is sometimes bought at the Dollar Store and when everyone drink black coffee, there's always extra half 'n half. You get creative, you cut corners.  You can eat from the land and farm stands that line the roads, signs written in cardboard, others on wood.  Sometimes your mother feeds you a peach slice when you walk into the room, saying it's the best peach she's ever eaten. And sometimes you have cereal for dinner when the electricity goes out and you hide under a mattress.  Other times you try to recreate the desserts from spiral-bound cookbooks with scratches in the margins, from your childhood, before you forgot where you came from.

And it is a world that's bookended in coasts and often forgotten.  A frontier that's explored, tilled, left to its own devices.  Between plateau and plain, there is the Midwest.  Between the mountains and the ocean, there is the Midwest.  Between promise and pilgrimage, there is the Midwest.  The Great Lakes extend and the fingertips bleed into the backdrop of my bloodline.  And I am Midwestern in all ways but location.  I taste the salt of the earth when I bite my tongue.

Mini Hoosier Pie

A basic sugar and cream pie, eponymous of my home state's nickname.  The pie makes either 6 mini-tartlets or one 10-inch pie, using Ina Garten's pie crust (recipe cut in half). 

View fullsize

Ingredients:

• One 10-inch pie crust (see link above, made in advance)
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 3 tablespoon flour
• 2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400*F
2. Roll out pie dough on a heavily-floured surface and fit into one 10-inch pie plate or ~6 small tartlet pans.  Poke holes with a fork and weigh with pie weights
3. Bake for 15 minutes or until slightly crisp.  Allow to cool while you prepare filling.
4. In a medium bowl, measure all remaining ingredients and whisk vigorously until well combined
5. Sift ingredients into a measuring cup (for easier pouring) to create a smooth batter
6. Pour filling into prepared pie crusts and bake again for 30 minutes or until thickened and browned. (note: watch the small tartlets.  If browning or burning at such a high temperature, fit loosely with aluminum foil
7. Allow to cool, garnish with confectioner's sugar before serving

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize