Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“You sure about this?” He looks uncertainly down at the frilly pink apron. I have to admit, he looks funny—a big, muscular, hardened ex-con in an apron. But he has to wear it.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I say firmly. “You don’t want to get flour all over yourself—you’re going to help me make pies.”
He looks interested.
“Never made pie before. Most of the stuff I cooked in prison was freeze-dried and disgusting.”
I know all about the prison food—he wrote about it a lot. That’s how I knew he needed a good meal when he showed up yesterday. The poor man has been eating slop for the past three years! Well, that ends now. From now on, I’ll be making sure he eats good food. But he’s also going to have to learn to make it.
“I have faith in you,” I tell him and go to the walk-in freezer to get out my prepared pie dough. I frown when I see there isn’t much of it. I usually make a double batch but this time we used more of it than I thought. Probably because the Blueberry Bacon pie was a hit, so I kept on making more.
“Can I help with anything?” Kane asks when I come back with an armful of flat dough disks wrapped in plastic.
“Sure—you can help me make more dough—this isn’t nearly enough,” I tell him. “I need to drag that big container of flour over to the mixer,” I say, pointing.
This is one of my least favorite parts of the job. Not that I mind making dough—I could do it in my sleep. But those huge drums of flour are heavy. And the metal mixing bowl of the industrial mixer is almost as big as I am—it can be really difficult to deal with. I can’t lift it, of course. Usually I just scoop out the pie dough until I get it all out—a time-consuming chore.
But my big brother makes it look easy. He lifts the 55 gallon drum of flour like it weighs nothing at all and brings it over to the mixer.
“Okay—how much?” he asks as he puts it down.
I tell him and then nod at the scoop on the wall.
“That’s the one you want—just start scooping it in while I get the butter ready.”
Really good pie dough can be made with lard or shortening or butter—to me, butter tastes the best. It costs more than using the shortening but the name of the diner is The Pie Shop so the pie has to be perfect. As Cookie says, we don’t skimp on ingredients.
I get the butter out of the freezer—we have these huge blocks of it—and start grating it into fine pieces. The secret to flaky, tender pie dough is to freeze the butter and use ice water. Everything has to be as cold as possible. You also don’t want to knead it too much and overwork the dough.
I explain all this to Kane as I dump the butter in and get the mixer started. Once the butter is incorporated into the flour, I start adding ice water from a huge pitcher I keep for this purpose.
“Wow—it’s really coming together,” he remarks, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the mixer.
“Yup—and this is where we stop. We don’t want to overwork the dough.”
I turn off the mixer and the dough hook stops revolving. I unhook it and clean the excess dough off. Now comes the tiresome part—getting the dough out.
“Now what?” Kane asks, looking honestly interested.
“Now we need to get this dough out of the mixer and onto that table.” I point to the stainless steel worktable where I roll out the dough for all my pies.
“Okay.” To my surprise, he reaches down and unhooks the mixing bowl. Then he lifts it like it weights next to nothing and asks, “Should I just pour it out onto the table then?”
I stare at him in surprise. I mean, I knew he was strong—he’s got all those muscles and he lifted me last night and carried me to bed like I weighed about as much as a feather pillow. Which is not the case, by the way. But this is really impressive—that metal bowl is heavy enough on its own, let alone filled to the brim with dough!
“Yes, the table,” I say faintly, watching as he carries the big mixing bowl over and pours out the doughy contents like it’s no big deal. His muscles bulge as he works and I try not to notice. “Great—thank you,” I say.
“Should I wash the bowl now?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. I like how good he is at offering to help. Lots of men won’t do that. Charles certainly won’t—he won’t lift a finger around the house because he says it’s “women’s work.” If I’m being honest, that’s one reason I’m not in a rush to marry him. It’s also the reason I haven’t asked him to move in with me, even though he’s been hinting he’d like to for some time now.