Blueberry Beer and Rhubarb Beer

After homebrewing for a couple of years now, the husband and I decided to get adventurous.  We had made a delicious German Hefe a couple summers ago and this time we decided to make an American Hefeweizen with fruit flavors.  While living in Boston, one of my favorite beers was Seadog Bluberry and the Bunker Hill Blueberry beer at Beerworks.  Naturally, we would do a blueberry beer.  We didn't want to use extract because often the extract adds an artificial flavor and we wanted a more pure fruit taste.  We decided to use frozen blueberries to reduce the cost of fresh fruit and, in addition, freezing fruit breaks down the cellular structure of the fruit allowing more flavor to be extracted.  For each gallon it's suggested to use one pound of fruit.  As we pondered over the other type of fruit to use, we remembered what we had right in our freezer.  My husband's family grows a lot of rhubarb from a rhubarb plant that had come from Sweden, brought to North Dakota by his great great grandmother and transported to California.  This plant produces so much rhubarb that when we go home to Northern California we often bring back with us bags and bags of the fruit to later make a crisp, pie, or compote.

We had never had a rhubarb beer (or heard of one), let alone use fruit in our beer making.  As it turns out, it's quite easy.  We made a 5 gallon batch of American hefeweizen beer and after the first fermentation, split the batch and added frozen blueberries to one fermentor and cut up frozen rhubarb to the other.  Because the blueberries had so much natural sugar, the beer continued to ferment in the secondary and we had to attach a "blow-off" tube.  After the secondary fermentation, we added priming sugar and bottled the beer as usual.

Delicious beer in the making

The results were really interesting and very tasty.  We were skeptical about the rhubarb because the fruit is naturally very tart.  The resulting taste perfectly mimicked a sour beer, with a nice rhubarb finish.  We were very pleased with the product!  The blueberry was a rich purple color, it looks almost like juice and could probably be mistaken for a framboise.  The blueberry flavor was present, but unlike other blueberry beers we've had, it wasn't at all sweet.  The yeast had eaten all the natural sugars.  Adding fresh blueberries helped with the sweetness and letting it age a few more weeks allowed a more complex earthy flavor to develop.

We've started the experimentation process and now we can't stop!  A banana porter and beer cookies are on the way!  Stay tuned!
  

Williams-Sonoma Mini Pie Maker

I love Williams-Sonoma and as always, they have their finger on the pulse of culinary trends.  Pie is the new cupcake and pie shops are popping up as fast as cupcakes shops in 2007.  I had to have one and since Christmas they have been sold out.  Well they are back in stock and my husband ordered one for me very recently as a gift and I love it!  It will take some perfecting with the crust but I think will definitely be a party pleaser.

It makes 4 mini pies in 8-15 minutes which is fabulous.  The maker comes with 2 cutters, one for the bottom crust and one for the top.  1/4 a cup of filling is all it requires and you are good to go!  One of the hassles of making pie is to have a perfect crust and this is no different.  However, making smaller pies and therefore rolling out smaller rounds of crust leave some room for error.  What is interesting is that they Breville cookbook suggest using regular pie crust for the bottom and puff pastry dough for the top.  I'm not sure exactly why that is, I believe puff pastry cooks faster than regular pie crust.  I used puff pastry for the bottom as well is some pies and I felt that combination yielded the best results.  

I made chicken pot pie, bacon mushroom pie, and quiche in this wonderful little machine and it's awesome the variety of pies one can make.  The machine is easy to clean with an easy wipe down.  I'm usually not a big fan of single use tools, but imagine all the types of pie you could try!  I highly recommend this pie maker!

Samoa Cookie Pie

There is that magical time of year when little girls so innocent and sweet offer delicious treats.  They will give a wicked little grin of victory when you succumb to temptation and hand over $4 for 15 delicious little cookies.  Is it the cookie itself or the hurried feeling of a limited time offer that make these little cookies seem so much more delicious than they are?  I can never be sure but every year I looked forward to these tables set up in front of my grocery store and every year I look for the Samoa cookie (or Carmel Delite, depending on the distributor).  It is a popular cookie and having it once a year simply isn't enough.  I decided I needed to make it, but in pie form.

My sister-in-law and I love pies.  It's the obsession du jour and we would love nothing better than to open our own pie shop out in wine country.  Until then, we are dedicated to finding ten perfect pie recipes.  This one is one we concocted ourselves.  The flavors are spot on, tasted just like the cookie, and even though we might tweak it a little as we go, this pie needless to say, is AMAZING.

Samoa Pie
Crust
1 package Lorna Doone shortbread cookies
1 stick of butter, melted
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted

Run these cookies through a food processor.  Crushing by hand isn't as effective because the consistency needs to be very fine in order for the crust to hold together with the butter.  Mix butter and cookie crumbs and form a crust.  Bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour.  When the crust has set and cooled, gingerly brush the melted chocolate on top of the crust.  Do this lightly and evenly as possible, some loose crumbs may stick to the brush, that's okay.

The Filling
2 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2/3 cup granulated sugar
4 large egg yolks
3 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut, toasted
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 tbsp confectioners sugar

Bring the coconut milk to just a boil in a medium sauce pan.  Remove from heat.

Beat sugar and egg yolk with an electric mixer until it increases three times its original volume.  Add flour, cornstarch, and salt.  Continue to mix and slowly add the coconut milk. Return the mixture to heat and cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly.  Once it begins to boil, let it thicken for another minute while continuously whisking it.  Remove from heat and add butter, 3/4 cup coconut, and 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Let the mixture become room temperature and cover with plastic wrap.  Make sure the wrap is touching the cream as to not let the cream be exposed to air and develop a film.  Refrigerate for 2 hours and up to 1 day.

Beat the confectioner sugar with the cream until soft peaks form.  Add remaining vanilla.  Fold into the cream.  Transfer the cream to the crust and smooth with a spatula.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes to 4 hours.

Sprinkle remaining coconut on top the the pie. Using 1/4 cup sugar,  make caramel sauce.  Drizzle the caramel over the pie.

This pie was so delicious!  The key in this is making sure the cream is a bit more thick than you'd like before you take it off the heat.  Adding the whipped cream lightens it but also thins it out.  Next time I will add thick drizzles of chocolate on top so it more closely resembles the cookie.  Try this pie, it's definitely a winner!