Amanda from Madison, WI (2018 Week 5: Pies)

Baker

Amanda

Location

Madison, WI

Baking Challenge

Wellington

Give your pie a name based on the ingredients and decoration.

Classic Beef Wellington: Small-scale beef wellington with mushroom duxelles and homemade puff pastry. I cut small mushrooms out of the puff pastry to illustrate what was inside.

Tell us about your proudest moment – or humble failure – in this week’s baking challenge.

My puff pastry puffed up into beautiful layers. . . except that I must have folded the packets incorrectly as the top portion was very thick and did not cook through. The beef was tender, flavorful and juicy but a little overdone as I was concerned that the pastry was potentially raw. It's a fine balancing act between overdone meat and properly cooked pastry that I clearly need to hone. That being said, I cooked up the remaining puff pastry dough this morning with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, sugar and an egg wash and they were delightful!

Describe how you added a Wisconsin twist to your creation.

Wisconsin butter and beef from The Conscious Carnivore which sources all of its products as locally as possible. The morning left-over pastry treats were sprinkled with Penzey's cinnamon sugar and a few with Penzey's vanilla sugar.

How did you do?

Feeling humbled.