Raspberry, ricotta pastries

Hi, everybody. This is my first post to this blog (thanks for the invite!). This post is going to cover something I came up with this weekend to bring to a party. These "Raspberry, ricotta pastries" are made out of the "Croissants de Boulanger" dough from "The Joy of Cooking" (page 913 in the 1997 edition in my kitchen). If you've made these before feel free to skip down a bit. If you haven't read on.This starts with three sticks (3/4 lb.) of butter and three tablespoons of all-purpose flour. TJoC calls for cold butter, but I find it works better at room temperature. Mix them up with a fork, a pastry blender, or better yet a potato masher (which I find works best).

Set the butter/flour mixture aside and continue the recipe. Pour:

• 1 Cup of milk or cream,
• 2.5 teaspoons of active dry yeast,
• and 1 tablespoon of sugar

into a sauce pan and heat them to about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk the ingredients together until the yeast has dissolved.

Once that is done (or while it's heating up if you would like to speed up this process a bit. In another bowl, mix:

• 2.75 cups of all-purpose flour,
• 1 teaspoon of salt,
• 2 tablespoons of softened butter, cut into small pieces.

Once again, I like to use a potato masher rather than a pastry blender to mix this up.

Take the warm milk mixture and pour it into the bowl with the the flour mixture. At this point, you can either mix it with the masher/blender, or as I do, your fingers. Mix it up enough to soak up all the dry ingredients, but no more.

Set the dough out on a lightly floured surface (like your counter...), roll it flat, and spoon the butter/flour mixture from the beginning (remember that bowl?) out into the middle of the dough.

Spread out the butter with a spatula or something like that. fold the edges of the of the dough across the middle so that it is folded into thirds.

Roll this out flat, and fold it into thirds again. Keep doing this until the butter is fully mixed in (i.e. you should see no blobs of it when you're rolling). TJoC says this takes about four folding and rollings, but I find it takes about twice that.

At this point, you could just follow the rest of TJoC recipe and just make croissants. Now, time for the filling. Mix:

• 1 pound of ricotta cheese,
• cinnamon and nutmeg to taste,
• 1/8 of a cup of sugar,
• and about three tablespoons of good raspberry jam

into a bowl.

Roll the croissant dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch, and cut it into roughly four-inch squares (I find a pizza cutter works well for this). Spoon about a teaspoon of the filling into the center of the square and fold the corners into the center.

Set the pastries out on a cookie sheet, and let them rise for about an hour. After that's done,

preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. While your oven is heating up, scramble an egg and brush it onto the surface of the pastries. This will cause them to bake to a nice golden-brown color. Please remember to brush the raw egg onto the pastries AFTER you let them rise for an hour. It's probably overkill to have to state that explicitly, but I worry sometimes...

Once your oven has heated up, bake the pastries for 20 to 25 minutes. I find that they take a bit longer than that because I live way up in the mountains (over 7000 feet above sea level), but if you live where 90% of the Earth's population does, it should be fine. When they're done, they should be a nice golden-brown color.

At this point, you're done if you want to be. If you want to be extra fancy, melt some dark chocolate (in either a double-boiler or the microwave), and drizzle it across the top of the pastries.

If you choose the drizzle option, be sure to cool them in the refrigerator before serving. Other than that, enjoy!