7 posts tagged “crust”

Banana Cream Pie

If you’ve been following my efforts you know that I’ve had “issues” with the pastry cream recipes used in cream pies.  Well nothing encouraged me to try again more than knowing I was about to interview Rose Levy Beranbaum, she of the Pie and Pastry Bible (and her latest Rose's Heavenly Cakes).  

So the night before the interview I made all the elements.

So I woke up the next morning and took the already baked crust and set it on the counter.  I had found perfect little finger bananas so I peeled them and cut them up into one inch pieces and tossed them in a bowl with a squeeze of both orange and lime juice to keep them from turning brown.  I then drained off the excess juice and folded the bananas into the prepared vanilla pastry cream.  Actually it turns out that I didn’t need the double recipe.  I plopped the banana cream mixture into the crust and evened it out with a plastic spatula.  I then whipped some cream with powdered sugar and honey to stabilize it, put it into a pastry bag, put the pastry bag of cream into a zip lock bag and took at all to KCRW.  It was beautiful and delicious and I felt like a very competent person when I interviewed RLB.  Yeah!  Now I’m thinking of turning the extra filling into a pineapple chiffon pie.

RLB's Banana Cream Pie

Fig Mascarpone Cream Pie

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I continue on my mission to conquer pastry creams and thickeners.  Exec. Producer Jennifer Ferro came back from the market on Wednesday with a little bag of figs for me so I new I needed to make a base that the figs could ride on.  Russ Parsons and I had just had a conversation about Frozen Souffles and making Bavarian Cream so I thought, let me try that.  The Bavarian Cream part, not the frozen souffle part although I'm sure that will make it's way into a pie crust as well.  So I did what I hadn't done in a very long time.  I made zabaglione.  How fun!  A few egg yolks in a bowl with just enough sugar and a shot of port set atop simmering water (not touching the bowl).  After just a few minutes of vigorously whisking,  the eggs magically increase in volume and that fabulous scent of egginess and port fills the air.  I love zabaglione.  My favorite form is Gelato Zabaglione at Da Crispino in Rome.  Let me take a moment of silence to give proper reverence..........

Okay, then I cooled the zabaglione and folded in a mixture of whipped cream that had a bit of gelatin added.  While the creamy mass was cooling and starting to set I made a very rich cashew crust, the kind that's so soft you have to pat it in the tart rings.  After the crusts were prebaked I let them cool completely and poured in the Mascarpone Cream.  It was still too soft to support the figs so I left them in the Angeli walk-in while I went to Copa d'Oro to meet a lovely bunch of listeners for a a drink.

I woke up, came to the restaurant and made a glaze for the figs with water, lemon juice, cornstarch (RLB).  The figs were thinly sliced, set atop perfectly set cream and brushed with the glaze.  Look's yummy

Cherry Tomato Filling

Cheesy Crust

Tomato Pie

For a lot of people travel is about seeing new things, running from one important and beautiful cultural experience to another.  And, of course, I love spending an afternoon in a gallery or exploring another villa garden, but Italy for me now is about hanging out with friends, good friends I see much too infrequently.  

My closest friend there, Elizabeth has a large circle of Italian and expat American and English pals.  I’ve been lucky enough to be welcomed by the “women’s group” that’s been meeting for over a decade.  It’s fun to socialize in someone’s home and see a more intimate side of Italy.  And of course, there’s the food.  One night the buffet set up in the very modern kitchen was endless but there was one dish that blew me away.  It was a cobbler of cherry tomatoes.  

As I was helping myself to the third piece all the women were giggling as they watched me.  It seemed they had a secret they were reluctant to share.  Turns out I was eating a famed Martha Stewart recipe.  Every time I make it I can’t believe how good it is.  The tomatoes are treated as the fruit they are, but with a savory palate of aromatics.  The original recipe calls for copius amounts of basil, tossed raw over the tomatoes with sauteed onions and garlic.  A little flour is added to absorb and thicken the juices.  The tomato mixture is then tucked beneath two layers of a gruyere crust.  This time around I didn’t have any basil in the house so I used cilantro instead and added about an inch of fresh ginger, minced and sauteed with the onion.  And I used a collection of baby tomatoes from the farmers markets that were sweet and colorful.  There is something about the cheesy richness of the crust and how it plays off the super sweet tomatoes  that is just awesome.  

Fried Peach Pie

Since I’m at Angeli all day today I figured I would take advantage of the fryer and make Fried Peach Pies (served with Tahitian Vanilla Ice Cream).  How bad can they be?  Sooo not bad. The best ever.

I made a crust with the dreaded Crisco since butter would burn at high temperature, but since you are actually dipping the crust into fat you can use less than would be called for in a regular pie crust.  I used a couple of eggs as well as a very small amount of icy water and a couple of tablespoons of sugar.  Deep fried,  the crust reminds me of the best cannoli shells. Shattering bubbles on the very outer layer then once your teeth hit the inner layer of dough it’s perfecly flaky and the not too sweet peaches are a great foil for the richness of the fried dough.  I sprinkled the pies with sugar.  I had to leave the restaurant so I wouldn’t fry another one.  Thank goodness I shared the tester with three other people.

I want to play with making tiny little ones for catering jobs.

The first Strawberry Pie of this ongoing project wasn’t fabulous so I’ve been combing through pie books for inspiration.  I came upon a great idea in the massive tome, Pie by Ken Haedrich.  It starts with a chocolate crust that's allowed to cool then napped with cornstarch thickened strawberry puree.  Sliced raw berries are arranged atop the puree and then topped with whipped cream enhanced with more strawberry puree. 

Kathy's Chocolate Pie Crust

I changed up the recipe a bit.  Ken’s crust was made with chocolate wafers eg, the outside of oreos.  I arrived at Angeli this afternoon to find that chef Kathy had blind baked a beautiful chocolate crust made from a recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours.  It smelled and looked wonderful.  So I chopped up some strawberries, added a bit of lemon zest and sugar then cooked the fruit down to a thick puree, relying on the pectin in the fruit to thicken the puree.  I poured the boiling strawberry puree into a large bowl and put it in the walk-in refrigerator to cool down.

Strawberry Pie with Chocolate Crust

Once it was cool I beat manufacturing cream with a teaspoon of honey and a bit of confectioners sugar until stiff.  I then folded in half the chilled strawberry puree.  The remaining half was thinly slathered over the baked and cooled crust.  The strawberries were arranged onto the puree then I piled the strawberry whipped cream on top and

 It was a bit hit with my servers.  I only hope that they don’t eat it all.

Strawberry Cream Pie

Another confession, (interesting how this pie thing is so confessional).  Today is the first time I've made a cornstarch thickened custard since I was regularly cooking out of the plaid, ring bound cookbook.  Again, I was inspired by James McNair's Pie Cookbook.  His recipe for Cherry Cream Pie came from his Grandmother Keith in Jackson, Mississippi.
I made that superb Cherry Clafoutis Pie just a couple of days ago and Harry's Berries from the farmers markets are haunting me, so I decided to make the pie with strawberries instead of cherries.  I'm still not convinced about the cornstarch, in fact I think the 2 tablespoons used to thicken the fruit may have been a typo.  I'm going to try another version of a Strawberry Cream Pie with a different custard recipe.  We did enjoy the filling as a pudding although a little went a long way.  I brought the pie with me to a meeting at the DineLA advisory board today.

Corn Quiche with Cornmeal Crust

I was 17 when I really understood that eaters could slavishly be mine.  It was my mother's birthday and we were celebrating with a grand bash at a friend's house.  By then I had a reputation for cooking for celebrations so I made Julia Child's Quiche Lorraine from Mastering the Art.  I followed the recipe to the letter and people went nuts.  NUTS.  I had been cooking on my own for years but at this party a light bulb went off in my brain.  I was to use food to lure beautiful men for years.  Now I just enjoy making people (ages 2 to 100) happy. 

So tonight I just couldn't face another sweet pie.  It's the seventh day of this pie commitment so I thought, "Why not make Mom happy with a quiche for dinner?"  She is a corn aficionado so I put together a "pie" of sauteed fresh corn niblets, a bit of bacon, a couple of tablespoons of gruyere and Julia's ratio of custard (1 egg in a measuring cup then cream to reach 1/2 cup).  I used half and half, (after all my mom is 89) and I poured it all into a cornmeal crust inspired by James' McNair's Pie Cookbook.

Mc Nair's book has all these wonderful suggestions for decorating the edge of your pie.  I attempted the "Checkerboard", forgetting that I had to blind bake the crust,  angling parchment paper and a pound of beans around the little pieces of dough edge facing the filling.  Oh well.  Next time it will be prettier.  I have to buy some different pie pans too.  Getting a little tired of the pyrex thing.  And oh, it was delicious.