Honey Apple Mk. III

I used to bake lots of bread with yogurt but kind of got out of the habit gradually. I bought some yogurt Wednesday so I could make some bread to give to my aunt & uncle for staying with them this past weekend, and now that I've got some lying around, I wanted to make a pie with it.
A two-part yogurt ordeal, I've presently got four apples, peeled/cored/sliced, sitting in a bowl with a half cup of honey and a half cup of yogurt, and for the crust I figure I'll do the regular but I'll leave out the vinegar (because the yogurt is sour/acidic and because it is a milk product) and instead of gradually adding nine tablespoons water, I'll whip together six tablespoons yogurt six tablespoons water and add until moist.
My previous experiments with flavouring crusts with fluid have been just kind of lackluster since nine tablespoons is nothing to three cups, but I'm at least as interested in the texture anyways.
Also, since I don't want to reduce the apple fluid with the yogurt in it, I'm just going to make this a lattice top pie and hope it works out.
Updates when applicable!

Update the first: Pie is in oven. The crust was

2 cups stone ground whole wheat flour (white would have been better but I am out)

1 cup shortening

dash baking powder

5 tablespoons yogurt

5 tablespoons cold water

Rolled out the bottom crust, put the filling in. Rolled out the rest of the dough, cut lattice strips, assembled the lattice on the pie, put the pie on a baking pan to catch drips, and covered the pie with foil. It went in the oven five minutes ago and will spend a total of twenty minutes (somewhat arbitrary) covered in foil so as to steam/bake the apples properly, then the foil comes off so the excess fluid can evaporate through the lattice and not leave too soggy a pie. I'm considering leaving the foil on for longer, because apple pie should be juicy, but whatever.
Oh and I meant to sprinkle brown sugar over the apples in the pie before putting the lattice on but forgot! Whoops!

Update the second: Should have left it without foil the whole time, if anything, it looks like the volume inside the pie has increased. Hopefully it's just bubbling/swelling because of the heat. It's going to be a little messy to bike with...

COOKIES

So I made some pretty sweet cookies for my friends from the internet. I can't recall the precise recipe, I will post it when I get home, but the basic premise was, mix up cookies dough, but before adding the flour, split the soft stuff (1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup packed brown sugar 2 eggs dash vanilla 1 tsp(???) baking powder) in half, and give one half white flour (1.5 cups?) and a half cup of cocoa powder, and the other a cup and a half rye flour (1.5 cups) and a cup of chocolate chips.
Place the chocolate cookie dough between two pieces of wax paper, roll it out. Place the chocolate chip dough between two pieces and flatten. Place the layers on top of each, and roll it up. If you want, flatten again and fold to marble, or, if you've rolled it long side up, you may be able to just slice spiral round cookies off of the roll.
Enjoy!

Pita Mk. II

My friend gave me some delicious curry this morning, so I figured I ought to make something to give back. My first thought, then, was pita bread again.

Same procedure as last time, except ingredients were:

2 tsps dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1 tbsp malt syrup

6 cups white bread flour

two cups corn flour

2 1/2 tsps salt

3 cups warm water

They are not done yet, though I have high hopes. The problem, though, is in the naming! What do I call corn pitas? Tortilla pita? Torpita? Portittia? Portilla? Torpilla? Tortita?


P.S. dough to wet to roll, cut back by a quarter cup water next time. Rolling in coarse cornmeal made the outsides too crispy/crunchy, I think I'll stick with flour and just dust them off when they're done with a brush.
Corn taste not too prominent, I'll try a higher ratio next time.

Pie Bread!

So now that I've acquired some measure of skill in both pies and bread, it is time to commence work on the unholy bastard spawn of both foods!

First attempt:

1 1/2 cup warm water

1 tablespoon malt syrup

3 teaspoons (heaping) of 'dead' yeast

5 cups flour

1 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

I proofed the yeast (which had been given to me by a fried who said it was possibly dead after not being properly refrigerated) with a half cup of the water and the malt, cut the shortening (which was slightly more than a cup) through the flour, added the rest of the fluid, and mixed until it was doughy/stretchy. That rose, then I rolled it out flat, poured on some thick smoothie like substance (some apples and strawberries, that had been sitting in a plastic tub in my fridge for a while and were promptly blended last night), and rolled it like what I assume a jelly roll would be like. This rose again in bread pan, and was then baked for about an hour.

I really should have split the dough into two batches and made two loaves, but oh well. It didn't bake through because it was so dense and I didn't let it rise very long in the bread pan. However, I sliced the under done loaf this morning after it had sat/set overnight, then baked them again for curious results. Kind of a dense, slightly chewy fruity thing, which retained enough of the crumbly texture I was going for.

Not a perfect success, but a good first step on my mad adventure. Would make excellent french toast.

Experimental Bean Bread

I've just tried to come up with a decent bean bread recipe, I'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but here's the recipe (reimagined after having made it up while making it) that I used:

seven cups flour

two cups water

one can (~2 cups cooked?) black beans

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

2 teaspoons molasses (not sure if that was a good idea or not)

Proof the yeast with the molasses and a quarter cup of the water. While that's doing it's thing, drain and rinse the beans, then put them in a blender with the rest of the water (I only put them in with one cup, but I think using all of it would give better blending). Put the flour in a bowl and make a well in the middle, then when the yeast is done, pour the liquified beans in the bowl along with the yeast. Mix and knead, rise twice, shape, rise if applicable, and bake.
Will update when done!

Bread has good texture, no particular black bean taste. If you want a curiously coloured bread with some protein, this recipe works, but I think I'll try using a cup less water and three cups less flour as a starting point (my initial plan, before I decided to add a cup of water to help blend the beans after I'd already mixed the water and yeast with the flour) and see if that gives more black bean flavour.