Sticky Buns for Easter

Sticky Buns

I love sticky buns.  They’re in my DNA.  Both my parents grew up in Philadelphia, a hotbed of sticky bun appreciation.  So my preferences were imprinted early and involve a sticky topping embedded with pecans riding atop a buttery, soft, close crumbed dough enriched with a spiral of cinnamon sugar goodness.

These may seem like a lot of work but they’re not, especially if you make the dough and prepare the pan with the topping the day before you serve them.  Just take it in steps and don’t worry.

Berry Pies: Some Filling Tips

Uncooked Berry Pie

Berries are fragile, which is why we love them so much off the bush or in a bowl.  But there are a couple of things to keep in mind once you decide to cook them, like in a pie.  First.  Often they are less sweet than you imagine, even when they are perfectly ripe.  Don’t confuse the full berry flavor with sweetness.  Second. Blueberries tend to need some acid to brighten the flavor and even blackberries can use some for balance.

Third. I believe in adding some starch to thicken fruit pies.  I don’t want berry juice to run all over the plate.  I want to get it into my mouth.  That is the role of starch as a thickener.  When I comes to berries I like the visual clarity I get from cornstarch or instant clear gel (another kind of modified starch).  However I also love the pastry like flavor that wheat flour lends to fillings.  So I do a combo.

Some folks drain off the juices that collect once the berries are sweetened and cook that juice with a bit of thickener, then add it back to the berries then continue on with the pie.  I don’t.  I like the simpler approach of putting the filling raw into the pie and letting both crust and filling cook together.  There might be a tiny bit more of a fiddly learning curve to get the filling just right for you, but I think the end result is better.

If you want to read more about my emotional pie connection take a look a my Pie Page on this site. You can also find out about my Pie-a-Day App and my in-depth on line Craftsy.com class for making the best crust and putting the whole pie together. The Craftsy.com class is on sale now.  Here’s a link for you.

Evan’s Haroset

 

HarosetI prefer the texture I get when I grind the ingredients together more then when I use a food processor, so I use the grinder attachment to my stand mixer to make the haroset, using the largest hole screen.  However, if you only have a food processor by all means use it.  You may have to make the paste in batches. Add the orange pieces and wine or pomegranate juice as needed for moisture.

You’ll notice that I’ve written the recipe with a range of quantity.  Use an additional orange and additional wine or pomegranate juice if you want a moister mixture, less if you want a stiff paste.  Also, feel free to add spices to taste.  You might want more cinnamon or lots of ground coriander.  I love it spicy, but you may not.

Some similar recipes with these ingredients have you cook the mixture, presumably to cook out the wine.  I’ve never done that so if you’ve been to Angeli and had the passover haroset you’ve had a tiny bit of wine.  I prefer the fresher taste of an uncooked dry fruit mixture.  If you want to avoid the wine issue use pomegranate juice instead.

You can make this haroset several days, even a week ahead.  Don’t worry about making too much.  It’s a wonderful bar cookie filling after the holiday is over.