Daring Cooks: Pierogies

Well, here it is. My first Daring Kitchen Post

The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Now, when I started this endeavor, I planned to do one savory and one sweet pierogi. Then I got busy (with the whole directing a musical thing), so I settled on the sweet pierogi – apple pierogi! (I just like saying “pierogi.” Pierogi. Pierogi. Pierogi.)

One of the finished Apple Pierogies.

Of course, Washington State is known for apples and the house we rent has a apple tree in the backyard that has been dropping apples this whole month.

The Two Apples destined to be grated into Pierogi Filling.

I also was hoping to use a low carb baking mix, as my husband is diabetic. I whipped up the first batch of dough using Bob’s Red Mill Low Carb Baking Mix. Unfortunately, the dough smelled… funny. And didn’t really behave like dough. So I sighed, and then decided to go for the regular flour. After some calculations, each pierogi should only have about 30 carbs. Currently, we’re aiming for 45-60 carbs per meal. The pierogies were an after dinner treat, and dinner was fairly low carb (chicken and green beans), so it was all good.

This low carb baking mix sucked for pierogi dough. Not recommended.

Did I mention he’ll be the only one eating these? I don’t care for apple desserts because they usually have cinnamon and cooked apple just is weird to me. So they definitely needed to be husband friendly.

Here is the recipe I used. Very simple. It made 5 – 6” pierogies for me. I could’ve done one more probably if I was more efficient with the filling and the cutting.

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 1/2 cup Flour

• 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 2 teaspoon Sugar
• 4 tablespoon Butter cold
• 1 large Egg
• 1/2 cup Sour cream

Filling

• 2 each Apple granny smith, peeled, cored, cut into 8 pieces [*for this, I used two apples from my tree and grated them instead of slicing]
• 1/4 cup Brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1 dash Nutmeg

Preparation

Prep Time: 10 minutes (30 minutes if making dough by hand)

Resting Time: 1 hour

Baking Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Oven Temp: 400F / 200C / Gas Mark 6

1. DOUGH: Put the dry ingredients and butter into a processor and pulse 3 or 4 times. Mix the egg & the sour cream and add to the bowl, letting the machine run until the dough forms a ball around the blade. Remove and knead the dough on a floured board until smooth, then chill for about an hour.

2. When the dough is cold, roll out to 1/4″ thickness (or a bit thinner if you can). Cut into 6″ rounds. Also – preheat oven at this point.

3. Place one piece of apple and some of the other filling ingredients onto the center of the dough [I placed about a fork full of the pre mixed filling], brush the outer edge of the dough with some water, fold the dough over the filling and, using the very tip of the tines of a fork, press down along the edge of the dough to seal the edges together.

OPTIONAL: If you want a shiny finish on the pierogies, give them an egg wash, made with 1 well beaten egg and 1 tablespoon milk.

4. Place pierogies on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown. Remove from tray and serve.

As far as looks, I’m happy with the final result.

Leave it to late afternoon sun to make anything look heavenly…

My husband’s remarks after eating one were:”They taste fine. They taste like apple. I wish I can eat them more often.” He hates being put on the spot for quotes, if you couldn’t tell.

So all is well after my first Daring Cooks’ Challenge – however, I am looking forward to one without so much flour in the future.

Stay tuned for my Daring Baker’s Challenge – the reveal date is August 27th, so very soon! I think my cast will be the beneficiaries of the challenge as our first big group meeting is August 23rd.