Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Banana Cream Pie.... or maybe not.

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a delicious recipe for banana cream pie I got from a fun book. Mrs. Rowe's Little Book of Southern Pies has all the old favorites, along with quite a few I've never heard of, including a recipe for "weepless" meringue. (You know, it gets those little droplets of sugar water and it doesn't look as pretty. Apparently, you can fix that!)
I thought this book would be a fun giveaway on my blog but as soon as it showed up, Thor took it over. 
I could hear him mumbling to himself as the pages flipped by...
So, first of all, we need a banana. Ooooo, lookey here!
 It was sort of sunny... but sort of not. I was trying to get a good picture, and it started to rain. I'm not sure whether I like the before rain sun, or...
 ...if the sunny-while-raining picture is better. So, here they both are and you can choose.
 (You can see the reflection on the wall where the water was running down the window. I should have gone out to look for a rainbow, but I was determined to have PIE!)
 One banana, 3 cups whole milk, 1/4 cup cornstarch, 3 egg yolks, one cup sugar.
 Also, 1 TBS unsalted butter, 2 tsp vanilla. For the meringue four egg whites, 4 TBS sugar, and 1/4 tsp cream of tartar.
 Mix three egg yolks, corn starch, and one cup sugar.
This is my vintage pie tin and she's quite the chatterbox. When she and Edna get going, you wouldn't believe the stories she tells: being forgotten in the oven until she thought she'd melt, overflowing with bubbling berry juice and filling the house with smoke, left on the windowsill and being snatched away by thieves, sitting in the cool shelter of a pie safe.
 So, I filled Miss Pie Pantry (her nickname is "peaches" but I just can't call her that, she deserves more respect) with pie crust. Preheat the oven to 350F.
 I sliced the banana and lay it inside. Miss Pie kept trying to say something, but it was so muffled under all that dough. I was in a hurry, so I gave her a little pat and  just kept on...
 Now, bring the milk to a boil, and then add in the egg/corn starch/sugar mixture, cook 4 minutes. (I have to say it looked a little lumpy. Edna said I added everything when the milk was too hot. I made another batch since the little guys loved this custard so much, and it was much smoother the second time).
 After 4 minutes, remove from the heat and add the TB of butter ad the 2 tsp of vanilla. YUMMY. The kitchen smells so good!
 Pour into the crust like so. Miss Pie Pantry was still talking. She sounded sort of insistent. I resolved to get her out of the cupboard more often. She must be very lonely.

Whip the four egg whites with the 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, When soft peaks form, add the sugar one TB at a time. I think I could have whipped this a little longer.
Enlist small boy to spoon the meringue onto the pudding.
 Gentle, gently.
 Miss Pie Pantry was still making noises, but soon she was completely muffled under all that crust, banana, pudding, and meringue.
 (This is the second batch of vanilla pudding I made. I had to share this shot because, int he upper left hand corner, there is an EYE. Creepy, eh? This is what happens when you cook pudding in a house with six kids. Random photo-bombing will happen.) Anyway, of course Edna was right and this was MUCH smoother.
 Thirty minutes in the oven and the pie is done! Perfect!!!
Happy boy! He can't wait to eat the pie! But it has to cool in the fridge for 3-4 hours, so I tell him that tomorrow morning, we'll cut into it...


Except, that night, right around midnight... I cut into the pie. Just to check, you know. It was HORRIBLE!! How did this happen??? 
Once I'd cleared a space, Miss Pie Pantry informed me that I needed to BAKE THE CRUST FIRST. Oh.... that's what all the muffled yelling was about. Edna's bowls were rattling with laughter and even Thor let out a few low chuckles. 
Hm. I think it's the cookbook's fault. They should have highlighted that bit. And a bigger font.  I mean "prebaked" is such a small word and no wonder I missed it.
So, until nxt time my friends. I wish you success in the kitchen and remember to BAKE THE CRUST if you make this recipe.

29 comments:

  1. Wonderful treat to perk up a rainy day! I was wondering if the humidity played a role in the final cut? I am sure the kido ate it all up. Funny how I made sugar free banana pudding yesterday, great minds think alike.

    -Stacey

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  2. Ah fails are the seeds of great posts!

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  3. Mmmm, that sounds tasty!! But no, I think the not cooking the crust was the issue. But I want to try again!

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  4. YUM! my aunt sent me her recipes for cream pie/chocolate/coconut but haven't tried them yet. I miss the pies with meringue- it's like no one does them nowadays :-(

    I forgot to bake pizza crust before - remembered too late :-( don't mind pie crust so much since I can scrape out the good stuff but with pizza the crust is part of the good stuff.

    Susanna

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    1. SO true! And this sort of wrapped itself around the bananas, so it was a big gooey mess at the bottom. GROSS.

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  5. I WAS YELLING THROUGH THE SCREEN!!!! I WAS JUMPING UP AND DOWN, SAYING VIRG-GINNY, BAKE THAT SUCKER!!!!!! But you went blithely on and I knew, oh, I knew what was coming..... because I think I heard Thor, way over here, despite Winter Storm warnings and blizzard warnings, and the grumble of down south thunder... He was calling me to stop you... to talk to you, show you the oven. He even kept texting me OVEN PICS so that I'd call you, but I didn't understand.... Oy. Oy. Oy.

    Banana cream is Dave's and Jon's favorite pie so we make it often. Love it!!! They like it without whipped cream or meringue (What's up with THAT?????) so I make whipped cream on the side... but oh, we love it! It will be on the Easter menu, for sure!

    I have a pie pan like yours, an old "Balta Bros." pie pan that was from a pie bakery started after WWII.... The pie bakery is now owned by General Mills, and the original brother who kept his own business has sold it, but it flourishes on, a fun old testimony to great pie.

    Pie is always my fave. It's just so much more special than most everything, except maybe cream puffs.

    Laughing, Virginia!!!

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    1. I'm a banana pudding fan! Nilla wafers instead if crust...ssoooo yummy!
      Susanna

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    2. Hahahahaa!!! Oh, this made me cackle. Yes, sadly, I wasn't listening to Thor, Edna, Miss Pie Pantry OR reading the recipe correctly.
      I'm not surprised that Thor reached out to you. With the time zone differences, you were probably just getting up as I popped this in the oven that night.
      I told this story to the woman across the fence (she's a cook for one of the local grade schools and always gives me kids plates of cookies and goodies because- you know, they're missing out on the goodness of cafeteria food). I started the story by naming the ingredients and then went step by step. By the time I was slicing the bananas, she was already leaning over the fence (that's how we talk), wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. SHE KNEW the disaster that lay ahead.

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  6. LOL -- once Miss Pie Pantry started muttering I knew what was up. Honestly Virginia, you have all these lovely kitchen helpmates talking to you and you don't listen!!!!! :-)

    Are you going to share the way not to make meringue weep some time?

    I am now craving meringue...I have lemons maybe I'll make a lemon meringue pie. What else can one do during yet another blizzard? Argh!!!

    Oh, and I like the sunny banana picture best...it looks mildly mysterious with the shadows but the rainy banana picture looks sinister with those shadows closing in. There's a mystery there somewhere with Thor playing the role of a Hardy Boy.

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    1. Kav I was liking throughout the book on amazon's look inside and the meringue recipe showed up..not sure if it's random or standard. Gave a lot of crust recipes including cream cheese crust. Meringue was on p 24 or 25 I think. Neat tips in this one including partially baking the crust LOL though I'd probably have skipped the reading if I were baking LOL
      Susanna

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    2. Haahaaaa! YES, there just might be crust-baking tips ALL OVER THAT BOOK. And I may not have read them. What can I say? The pictures are so distracting.

      Right, I should do the weepless meringue!
      And I'm giving away a copy of this book on my blog next week, so hang tight. You, too, may get to ruin a perfectly good pie...

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    3. I'd have to start with store bought crust LOL and I'm the QUEEN of not reading intros - the only reason I noticed it in this book is because I was scrolling through the preview pages online and my ipad was slow LOL so I had time to look at the stuff! no pie pics though - they conveniently skip the good stuff in the free previews!
      Susanna

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  7. Am i the only one who likes the sugar droplets ?! Guess because all the ones I had in the early yrs had them!
    Susanna

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    1. I agree. I didn't know it was unattractive until I read that. Maybe it's also for commercial cooks?

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  8. Virginia, I think you need to try writing a mystery - a cozy mystery with rainstorms and the villain lurking behind a curtain.... Target middle-grade boys, and keep the humor. They'd love it!

    And pie is perfect for today! Our pastor is coming to dinner tonight and hinted he'd like pie. I've been trying to think of what kind to make (no car today, so I have to make it from ingredients already in the house), but this one will be no problem. I even have bananas :)

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    1. Isn't it a great recipe? So simple! So easy! Just follow the directions...

      And I DO have a middle grade series! I wrote it (commissioned, actually) for my then 8 year old (he's now almost 11... deadlines got in the way). The title? "FLUFFER: The Story of a Chinese Dwarf Hamster Who Saves The World From an Evil Cat Named Cupcake".
      Of course, Fluffer is brilliant and knows the martial arts and is a dab hand at mechanical engineering and chemistry.
      Cupcake is... well... evil. She carries a chip on her shoulder from being the 9th kitten and a runt and never getting a teat. Therefore, the logical next step is world domination.

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    2. BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!

      I like cats, but I'll root for a hamster every time :)

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    3. We love our kitties! But this child has a Chinese Dwarf Hamster and he thinks he's brilliant. I'm pretty sure he's not, but since I can't understand the rodent, who knows for sure.

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  9. The little enlisted boy is a cutie pie himself :))

    I wish I could bake. Cook yes. Bake no. My family shudders whenever I start to bake lol.

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    1. Isn't that interesting?? I wonder what it is about baking vs cooking that makes it so hard for some of us? A friend told me it was like algebra and geometry. Both math, totally different areas of the brain. I got A's in higher math, but scraped by geometry.
      Hmmmm.... Now I want to pursue this line of thought... Need more coffee.

      And he IS adorable! That's Edward Emmanuel... Otherwise known as "the crazy child". He never stops moving. Ever. Unless he's asleep. And then he's dead to the world in that hilarious "Weekend at Berney's" way.

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  10. And yet...it still looks gorgeously delicious. Banana Cream, Coconut Cream and Key Lime are my favorites. But I really never met a pie I didn't like. Even Chess pie.

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    1. I've never had cheese pie but I LOVE key lime. My roommate used to make that in college. I'd never heard of it! She also made Key Lime cupcakes.
      *sniff* Now I need cupcakes.

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  11. LOL! Poor Peaches.

    Virginia, that meringue is GORGEOUS! We don't have to talk about what happened underneath it all. :)

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    1. Exactly! And those kids had extra custard/ pudding waiting in the fridge anyway.

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  12. My pie crust is PREBAKED and cooling :)

    The custard is cooked and cooling (I'm doing whipped cream instead of meringue to save on time, so everything will be cooled for a couple hours before I put it together.)

    Bananas are sitting in the middle of the table, waiting for their turn.

    Writing is next...and then garlic bread and lasagna.

    We'll have plenty - anyone want to drop by for dinner?

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    1. OOoooo!!! ME, ME!!!

      And I laughed at the pre-baked and cooling part.

      Doesn't that custard smell delicious?/ I may never make packaged pudding again. SO easy, and you can adjust the sugar.

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    2. When I put the pie together, SOMEHOW some of the custard was left in the bottom of the bowl! Well, we can't let that happen, can we? And since I was the only one home....

      Let's just say it was delicious :)

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  13. It is!! I think that's one of the best custard recipes I've found...

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