Ok, maybe not so much “Queen” – that would probably be Dorie, huh? Ok how about Princess?? Lady-In-Waiting? Court Jester?……..No? Ok fine. Just forget it, then….
The day has finally come, my friends. The day when I, myself, lil ‘ol me gets to choose the recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie. When I got the email reminding me my turn was coming up, you would’ve thought I’d won a Tony award or something- I was so excited! In fact, there may have been some girlish squealing involved….maybe. It didn’t take long for me to decide – I flipped through the book two or three times, called everybody I could think of, and finally chose the Banana Cream Pie – nothing fancy, new-fangled or trendy. Just classic, good old fashioned pie. I love pie. Probably more than I love most desserts. It’s simple. It’s homey. It’s classic. Kinda like me, I guess. Funnily enough, my good ‘ol hubby doesn’t really like pie! HA!
Believe it or not, this was my first ever banana cream pie – actually, my first cream pie, too! I love this recipe because it’s the way my great-grandmother made her cream pies- by slowly stirring the pastry cream over the stove top to get a rich, velvety pie filling. And I loved that little dash of cinnamon and nutmeg; it really gave it something special! And the sour cream in the topping…WOW. I think the topping may have been my favorite part!
I think the most important part about this pie is the crust. In my opinion, a pie is only as good as its crust and by-gosh, by-golly this crust recipe is as good as it gets! It’s simple and takes maybe 10 minutes to make. And it’s sooooo worth it, believe me! So don’t flake out on the crust (I’m so punny)- trust me, you want it with this pie!
To give this pie the ultimate taste test, I decided to make it for my parents last week. Everybody loved it. Loved the filling, loved the crust – it was a hit and I was very satisfied! Even hubby, who doesn’t really like pie loved it – yippee! I hope all the other TWD bakers had as much success with this recipe as I did.
This is where I would normally say, “If you would like the recipe, head over to so-and-so’s blog, yadda yadda…” , but today I get to post the recipe to share with everybody! So, ahem, if you would like the recipe for this delicious, awe-inspiring pie, just SCROLL DOWN, BABY!! 
Banana Cream Pie
-Dorie Greenspan (AKA: The Queen)
For the Custard
2 cups whole milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar, pressed through a sieve
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into bits
3 ripe but firm bananas
1 9-inch single crust made with Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough, fully baked and cooled
For the Topping
1 cup cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sour cream
To Make the Custard: bring milk to a boil. Meanwhile, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until well blended and thick. Whisking without stopping, drizzle in about 1/4 of the hot milk- this will temper, or warm the yolks so they won’t curdle- then, still whisking, add the remainder of the milk in a steady stream. Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking constantly (make sure to get into the edges of the pan), bring the mixture to a boil. Boil, still whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes before removing from heat.
Whisk in the vanilla extract. Let stand for 5 minutes, then whisk in the bits of butter, stirring until they are fully incorporated and the custard is smooth and silky. You can either press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the custard to create an airtight seal and refrigerate the custard until cold or, if you want to cool the custard quickly (as I always do) put the bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice cubes and cold water and stir occasionally until the custard is thoroughly chilled, about 20 minutes. (If it’s more convenient, you can refrigerate the custard, tighly covered, for up to 3 days.)
When you are ready to assemble the pie, peel the bananas and cut them on a shallow diagonal into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
Whisk the cold custard vigorously to loosen it, and spread about one quarter of it over the bottom of the piecrust- it will be a thin layer. Top with half of the banana slices. Repeat, adding a thin layer of pastry cream and the remaining bananas, then smooth the rest of the pastry cream over the last layer of bananas.
To Make the Topping: Working with a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream until it just starts to thicken. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until the cream holds firm peaks. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the sour cream.
To Finish: Spoon the whipped cream over the filling and spread it evenly to the edges of the custard. Serve, or refrigerate until needed.
Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough
- makes enough for a 9-inch single crust -
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks very cold (frozen is fine) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons very cold (frozen is even better) vegetable shortening, cut into 2 pieces
About 1/4 cup ice water
Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade; pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour. Don’t overdo the mixing—what you’re aiming for is to have pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, add 3 tablespoons of the water—add a little water and pulse once; add some more water and pulse again; and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour. If after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. If you’ve got big pieces of butter, that’s fine. The dough is ready and should be scraped out of the work bowl and on to a smooth work surface.
Shape the dough into a disk and wrap it. Refrigerate the dough at least 1 hour before rolling. (If the ingredients were very cold and you worked very quickly, you might be able to roll the dough immediately—you’ll know: the dough will be as cold as if it had just come out of the fridge.) The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month.
Have a buttered 9-inch pie plate at hand. You can roll the dough out on a floured surface or between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap or in a rolling slipcover. If you’re working on the counter, turn the dough over frequently and keep the counter floured. If you’ve got time, slide the rolled out dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes to rest up and firm up.
To Fully Bake a Single Crust: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil (or use nonstick foil), fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust and fill with dried beans or rice or pie weights. Put the pie plate on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the foil and weights and, if the crust has puffed, press it down with the side of a spoon (or lightly prick the crust). Return the pie to the oven and bake for about 10 minutes more, or until the crust is golden brown. Transfer the pie plate to a rack and cool to room temperature before filling.
I’d like to thank all of the TWD bakers for baking with me this week – and Dorie, for being so friggin’ amazing! I hope everybody enjoyed the pie!
Happy Baking,
Amy
Tuesdays with Dorie Holiday “Twofer” Pie: a blend of pumpkin and pecan
Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll! (I know – you’re probably wondering why I’m blogging on Thanksgiving evening instead of enjoying family time….well, I figured blogging about pie might be a little more fun than watching A&M get slaughtered by Texas….hubby isn’t happy.) This week’s TWD recipe was chosen by Vibi of La Casserole Carree. As I said before, it’s a Holiday “Twofer” pie – a layer of pumpkin pie and a layer of pecan. Extremely tasty. The dark rum added a whole lot of flavor.
Holiday Twofer Pie
-Dorie Greenspan
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
For the Pumpkin Filling:
1 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
2⁄3 cup heavy cream
1⁄2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp. dark rum
1⁄2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1⁄4 tsp. ground ginger
1⁄4 tsp. salt
For the Pecan Filling:
1⁄2 cup light or dark corn syrup
1⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1⁄2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1⁄4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1⁄8 tsp. salt
1 1⁄2 cups (about 7 oz.) pecan halves or pieces
For the pumpkin filling: Pulse all ingredients together in a food processor. Leave filling in bowl.
For the pecan filling: In a bowl, whisk together all ingredients except pecans until smooth.
Preheat oven to 450°. Roll dough out to a 12″ circle on a floured counter, turning dough over frequently; keep counter floured. Slide dough into the fridge for about 20 minutes to rest and firm up. Fit dough into a buttered 9″ pie plate; cut excess dough to a 1⁄4″–1⁄2″ overhang. Fold dough under itself, so that it hangs over the edge just a tad, and flute or pinch the crust to make a decorative edge.
To assemble: Give the pumpkin filling one last quick pulse, then remove bowl, rap it on counter to debubble batter, and pour filling into crust. Top pumpkin filling evenly with pecans, then pour over pecan filling. Poke down any pecans that float to the top and aren’t covered with filling. Bake pie for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300° and bake for another 35–40 minutes, or until it is evenly puffed and a slender knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer pie to a cooling rack and let it stand until it is just warm or until it reaches room temperature.
Here are just a few more Thanksgiving pictures! Enjoy!
Hubby, brother-in-law, nephew and Daddy playing football across the street.
My Thanksgiving Table
Pies galore! Pumpkin, pecan, buttermilk, and of course, my TWD pie.
Nephew having his pie on the floor! Silly boy!
It was a great day! Hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! On to the Christmas decorating!!
This week’s recipe was Dorie’s Summer Fruit Galette (delicious!) chosen by Michelle of Michelle In Colorado Springs. Lately, over at TWD, we’ve started doing things a wee bit differently; for instance, now we’ve started being informed of the chosen recipes for the entire month, instead of one week at a time. I think I’m the only person out of the entire group who doesn’t really cozy up to this idea. Call me crazy, but I enjoy finding out one recipe at a time – its like a little weekly surprise! It sure makes Mondays a little more enjoyable, I’ll say that! But, I understand most of the members’ reasonings for wanting this new method- going to the grocery store sucks. Let’s just come right out and say it. Nobody likes to go more than they absolutely have to, so by finding out the whole month’s TWD recipes, it allows us to go the the store one time and get everything we need for the whole month of baking. I get it. No judgement here, ladies. That’s why I didn’t make a peep when the idea was proposed…I’m just one of those weird people who like the spontaneity, I guess. I don’t have to have it, though….therefore, no gripes from SingForYourSupper!
Anyway, this galette rocked, in my fruit-and-pie-crust-lovin’ opinion! It starts with Dorie’s perfect Pie Crust, followed by apricot jam, graham cracker crumbs, plenty of fresh sliced summer fruit, such as nectarines, plums, apricots, peaches…(whatever your heart desires! I used nectarines and apricots), then topped with a surprisingly yummy pastry creme and baked….pure delicious, people! If you would like the recipe, and trust me, you do, you can visit Michelle’s blog and she’ll fix you right up! As always, you can see TONS more galettes on the other TWD members’ rockin’ blogs here.
I hate to say it, but this was the first recipe of Dorie’s that I just flat out did not care for – at all! I thought the day would never come when I would dislike, hate even, one of Dorie’s recipes, but there really is a first time for everything, I guess.
This week’s recipe was Cherry Rhubarb Cobbler, chosen by Amanda of Like Sprinkles on a Cupcake. To start with, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about another biscuit topping “cobbler” (not that it matters what I think – all that matters is the person who chose it, and if she wanted cobbler, than by gosh, cobbler is what she’ll get!), but its a cobbler containing rhurbarb….I think I’ve actually seen rhubarb in person once in my whole life around these parts….but not now apparently – the stuff is darned near impossible to find – so it would be a cherry rhubarb cobbler minus the rhubarb. Maybe that’s why mine was so unappealing – who knows. (At least it looks good, right?)
I bought a truck load of fresh cherries at my farmers market and was all excited to get home and start on my cherry cobbler. Until I realized I had no cherry pitter thingie. Great. I read on the TWD website that you could use a chopstick instead….so there I was in my kitchen, using a chopstick to try to pit my cherries. Five minutes into the process, it looked like I had murdered a small animal or something – bright, red cherry juice – EVERYWHERE. My face, my hair, my clothes, my walls, my hands – my fingers are still stained!- but I managed to get all those @#$%^&! cherries pitted, alright. During the whole process I kept thinking, “this had better be the best cherry cobbler known to man, or else I’m going to be really upset!” Against my better judgement, I decided to go ahead and make the biscuit topping instead of using a different topping like I did last time (the TWD gods were not amused at that), and hope for the best. I pulled it out of the oven and it looked delicious – juicy and red with a nicely browned crumbly topping. The taste, however wasn’t near as good as it looked. Both hubby and I were disappointed in the topping – it tasted like flour and nothing else – and the cherry filling was just “ok”. Now that could be due to the lack of rhubarb – so I won’t judge that part too much. Either way, it didn’t get eaten. And I was disappointed that I made something of Dorie’s that I didn’t care for. I guess it happens though – she can’t make everyone happy 100% of the time. So, there’s always next week (Summer Fruit Galette) and I’m particularly excited about it! Stay tuned!
This week’s recipe was Dorie’s Double Crust Blueberry Pie, chosen by Amy of South In Your Mouth. I think pretty much all of us at Tuesdays With Dorie loved this pick and thought it was perfect for the 4th of July Holiday! I was really excited to try this recipe for two reasons: 1.) I’ve never had a blueberry pie before and 2.) I’ve actually never made my own piecrust! I couldn’t wait to get started…..only there were hardly ANY blueberries to be had in my grocery store. I don’t know if there’s a “blueberry shortage” or what, but it was near impossible for me to find fresh blueberries (unless I was willing to spend a fortune…which I wasn’t, thank you very much!). So, I had planned on using frozen blueberries; that is, until my good buddy Jessica, over at My Baking Heart invited me to come blackberry picking with her and her mother! YEE HAW! I’d never gone pickin’ for anything before, so I decided fresh blackberries would be delicious!! We got TONS of ripe, delicious blackberries (sorry, Jess sent me the pictures, but I couldn’t figure out how to get them onto my blog, so if you want to see pics from our little outing, go visit her blog – she’s got ‘em up!) and came home and made our pies.
Unfortunately, I had a bit of trouble with my pie crust. I don’t know if I didn’t let it chill long enough before baking or what, but something just didn’t seem right as it was in the oven (as you can see by the picture above!) My crust was MELTING OFF!! It was the strangest thing! Not only that, but it burned rather quickly, too, even covered with foil. However, it was still delicious! I took the pie to my mom and dad’s house for the 4th of July weekend and the crust was a big hit. The blackberry filling was good…just very, very, VERY runny. I guess blackberries weren’t the wisest choice here. We ended up having to eat it with spoons! However, it was still pretty tasty with my mom’s homemade vanilla icecream over the top of it!
Sorry for the crappy pics….I didn’t get ANY good ones of the inside of the pie, mostly because its “innards” were running all over the place and hardly looked suitable for a close-up. Regardless of the appearance of this pie, it was really tasty and my whole family enjoyed it! Nex time, I’ll definitely try it with the fresh blueberries, though!
No, I didn’t use Dorie’s recipe for the biscuit topping. Shoot me. Sorry, but I don’t believe in cobblers with “biscuit topping” – that’s just not how its done in my family. I’m sure Dorie’s recipe is perfectly delicious – but if I’m going to make a cobbler, I’m going to use my great grandmother’s crust recipe. Everything else is just like Dorie calls for – just not the topping. And guess what – it was delicious! Every week, I follow the recipe exactly how its written – I’m a good little TWD member….just not this week. Don’t worry, next week I will definitely be making the Apple Cheddar Scones exactly as Dorie calls for; I promise I’ll go back to being a good girl.
This weeks’ recipe was the Mixed Berry Cobbler chosen by Beth of Our Sweet Life.
