u/doomsdaydisco

For this week’s challenge, I made the Blueberry Slab Pie from Claire Saffitz’s Dessert Person, but I decided to make it in this design since I was bringing it to a party for the 4th. There are only 39 stars because there wasn’t room for all 50, so some states had to be sacrificed. I am fine with this. 😂

Anyway, rolling out the dough for the base of the pie was a major pain in the ass for me. It took me three tries to get it right because the dough ripped upon being placed on the sheet (from being too thin in some spots or being too warm) or didn’t go far enough up the pan in some areas.

But the final result was great and the crust was very flaky and golden brown with no soggy bottom! I did not bake it inside a second preheated half sheet pan — I just baked it on a foil-lined bottom rack.

I baked the stars separately and placed them on the already baked pie. So the stars technically count as a topping! I used the star of a Linzer Christmas cookie cutter set to make the stars.

I was going to make lemon chantilly to top the pie and made the lemon syrup for it, but I didn’t have any leftover lemons to zest, so I just made vanilla-bean infused whipped cream instead.

There are only 39 stars because there wasn’t room for all 50, so some states had to be sacrificed. I am fine with this. 😂

Anyway, rolling out the dough for the base of the pie was a major pain in the ass for me. It took me three tries to get it right because the dough ripped upon being placed on the sheet (from being too thin in some spots or being too warm) or didn’t go far enough up the pan in some areas.

But the final result was great and the crust was very flaky and golden brown with no soggy bottom! I did not bake it inside a second preheated half sheet pan — I just baked it on a foil-lined bottom rack.

I baked the stars separately and placed them on the already baked pie. I used the star of a Linzer Christmas cookie cutter set to make the stars.

The pie was devoured and received rave reviews at the party I attended. 😊

For the summer solstice challenge, I was originally planning on making the roasted strawberry pie from Erin Jeanne McDowell’s The Book on Pie. However, when I saw that roasting the strawberries would require the oven being on for 3-4 hours, I noped out.

I opted for cherries instead and ended up making her Black Forest Pie from the same book. This features her Chocolate All Buttah pie dough with black cocoa. Then there’s a dark chocolate black bottom base on top of that, a chocolate pudding layer, a cherry compote layer, and finally, lots of whipped cream on top. It’s very decadent, but not very sweet at all! It was an all day project, but seeing it on these plates makes me want to make it again for Halloween.

And look! She’s sturdy and can be picked up without falling apart!

For this challenge, I made Russian Honey Cake, or Medovik. I had had this cake only once in my life — it was at a cheese restaurant in Denver, and it was never offered any of the other times I went there since it is a labor-intensive bake. I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but I read all of the comments from the folks who baked it first, which led me to taking a few things into consideration before starting this project:

1/ I used a tortilla press to get the rounds started and make them easier to roll out.

2/ I used a 9” cake ring to cut the rounds instead of placing a cake pan on top and cutting off the scraps with scissors, and then I used the cake ring and some plastic wrap to assemble the cake and avoid a big mess.

The downside to doing the second step is that there wasn’t enough of the sour cream mixture to coat the sides and put more on top, because none of it spilled out, so I had to make more and leave it in the refrigerator for a few more hours.

I wanted to decorate this with a bee stencil, but I thought the stencil would stick to the sour cream mixture on top and mess it up, and by that point, I just wanted to eat it, so the whole thing ended up being covered in crumbs. I regret using my rolling pin to make the crumbs instead of my food processor, as some of the crumbs ended up being too big. But look at these layers!

This cake will make it smell like you are baking the most wonderful honey graham crackers, and it tastes like them, too!

The biggest pain in the ass when making this recipe was actually portioning out the dough. I ended up having to use flour to assemble the dough balls and prevent them from sticking to everything, and I would not recommend rolling the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper, because then it just sticks to it once you roll it that thin.

In any case, I would make this again, but probably not in the summer. 😅

For the 48 hour challenge, I made Vaughn Vreeland’s Salted Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk Cookies from NYT Cooking (gift link). I made the toffee (gift link) for it one day without any issues (although some of the comments had me worried), and then I made the dough the next day and ended up keeping the dough in the refrigerator for 72 hours before transferring it to the freezer. If you make this recipe, don’t double the recipe if you’re using a stand mixer — it was too much dough for it to handle, so I had to incorporate the chocolate and toffee with a spatula. The cookies are absolutely delicious, and I haven’t decided if I will be nice and share them with my coworkers or just take a ball of the dough from the freezer and bake it whenever I want a sweet treat. They haven’t overtaken my favorite chocolate chip cookie, which is the Salted Walnut Brittle Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen Keepers, but this is a fantastic recipe that’s among the best chocolate chip cookies that I have made (maybe even beating out the Jacques Torres cookies, but I would have to try them side by side to decide).

I really need to get around to baking the dough I made for last week’s challenge. Anyway, here’s this week’s bake: Stella Parks’ Ultimate Banana Bread. I toasted the sugar (which took an hour in the toaster oven), toasted the nuts, and used all of the non-optional ingredients without any substitutions. The bread is good, but I still prefer Smitten Kitchen’s Ultimate Banana Bread, which makes one towering loaf and includes way more banana.

For this werk’s challenge, I decided to attempt bagels for the first time and used Claire Saffitz’s A Little Bit of Everything Bagels recipe from Dessert Person. This recipe uses a mixture of bread and rye flour and has the everything seasoning in the dough. I did not get nine bagels out of the recipe and would recommend weighing your dough instead of making the 113 gram dough balls specified in the recipe — I ended up with eight bagels, but one was way smaller than the others because there wasn’t enough dough left for a final 113 gram ball of dough. I was worried that these wouldn’t turn out, but the bagels passed the float test on the first try this morning. They taste delicious!

I made the Blueberry Swamp Pie from Erin Jeanne McDowell’s The Book on Pie. It’s a swamp pie because you pour custard over the top of it during its last 10-15 minutes of bake time. It may not be the prettiest pie, but it is one of the most delicious things I have baked for this challenge thus far!

I went low effort on this one and made the new scone recipe from NYT Cooking (here’s a gift link), except I made the scones into triangles instead of rounds.

My original ideas for this week went out the window due the cost of the ingredients (crème fraîche and almond flour, specifically). So I decided to go the easy route and make a cornbread recipe that I haven’t made before: I used this one from Smitten Kitchen. I know there will be some purists out there that will think, “Low sugar!? There should be no sugar in cornbread!” But I am a heathen that prefers sweeter cornbread. This recipe was okay (and did not taste sweet!), but I would not make it again — in my opinion, it’s not worth it to have to clean a food processor to make cornbread.

I swapped the breakfast and herb weeks and did the herb challenge yesterday. It actually ended up helping me troubleshoot this as the cinnamon roll dough I made last week was basically the same recipe, except the milk and water were combined in that one, but they were separate in this one, with this one calling for adding instant yeast to the water. Despite adding it at the precise temperature the recipe called for, I think this step killed the yeast. I don’t know why the recipe called for adding instant yeast to water and wonder if it meant to call for active dry. When the first rise failed, I salvaged the dough by adding a new packet of instant yeast and going through the kneading process again in the stand mixer. This saved the savory monkey bread, which ended up being a success in the end. The bread contained fresh oregano, rosemary, and thyme as the herbs.

This recipe is a variation on savory monkey bread found in Erin Jeanne McDowell’s Savory Baking. I would make the recipe again, without adding the instant yeast to water, and I look forward to trying more of the variations.