We now return to your regularly scheduled programming. Yeah...a few days late...
I'm wondering something. Is there a dish that everyone has that evades them, taunts them as they fail at it again and again? I feel like this should be the case because it's true with me. Last week I mentioned how much I love filled-dough dishes. We're talking wontons, dumplings, ravioli, and...pasties. Cornish pasties to be precise. Perhaps it's because I CAN'T GET THEM HERE! They've been around in England for years and years, so why can't I friggin' get a good Cornish pasty in the US? You know the last time I had a Cornish pasty? Thanksgiving two and a half years ago! When I was IN England. Yeah, it makes me a little cranky. It makes me even crankier, though, that I can't get the hang of making them MYSELF!!!
Folks, I have tried. So. Many. Times. So many recipes. And I can't get my little pocket pies even close to the deliciousness that I know and love. It's not the filling, it's the dough. If you don't know, the dough of a real Cornish pasty is soft and flaky, a lot like puff pastry, which I've debated using...I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I used this recipe for the dough because, well, it was new and all the others I've tried haven't had the desired outcomes.
Okay, so here's my setup. Those of you who bake can probably see where this is going pretty early on. I am a very inexperienced baker, however, so I was blissfully ignorant of how this was going to turn out till much later. I'll let you know when we get there.
Egg and shortening in and mix until the mixture is crumbly. Yeah, that sounds familiar. Carrying on...
Now wrap the dough into disks and refrigerate. Also pretty familiar. By the way, how do you like my little specter there in the corner. One of Badger's other names is my Little Hound of Baskervilles, for obvious reasons.
And now roll it out. Crap. That's the moment. This is a pie dough. At least the other recipes I've tried were more like biscuit dough. Dang it...oh well, too late to abandon ship now.
I used the plastic to help me pull the edges up without tearing the dough and bust out my high school sculpting skills to use extra bits to patch holes.
This clearly did not help one of my pies, however. I have never been so pissed off at foodstuffs in my life, by the way, as I was at this dough on Friday. You should have heard the things I was saying to this thrice-cursed dough. It still bothers me...
Folks, I have tried. So. Many. Times. So many recipes. And I can't get my little pocket pies even close to the deliciousness that I know and love. It's not the filling, it's the dough. If you don't know, the dough of a real Cornish pasty is soft and flaky, a lot like puff pastry, which I've debated using...I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I used this recipe for the dough because, well, it was new and all the others I've tried haven't had the desired outcomes.
Okay, so here's my setup. Those of you who bake can probably see where this is going pretty early on. I am a very inexperienced baker, however, so I was blissfully ignorant of how this was going to turn out till much later. I'll let you know when we get there.
Egg and shortening in and mix until the mixture is crumbly. Yeah, that sounds familiar. Carrying on...
Now wrap the dough into disks and refrigerate. Also pretty familiar. By the way, how do you like my little specter there in the corner. One of Badger's other names is my Little Hound of Baskervilles, for obvious reasons.
And now roll it out. Crap. That's the moment. This is a pie dough. At least the other recipes I've tried were more like biscuit dough. Dang it...oh well, too late to abandon ship now.
I used the plastic to help me pull the edges up without tearing the dough and bust out my high school sculpting skills to use extra bits to patch holes.
This clearly did not help one of my pies, however. I have never been so pissed off at foodstuffs in my life, by the way, as I was at this dough on Friday. You should have heard the things I was saying to this thrice-cursed dough. It still bothers me...
Sigh, the soft, flaky goodness evaded me again! One day, pasty dough, one day...
Perhaps I'll just phone it in next time and use puff pastry. What you're white-whale-dish?
Perhaps I'll just phone it in next time and use puff pastry. What you're white-whale-dish?
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