They’re giving the figure for a very thin crust, a very shallow 9″. Screw that. Crust #1 became breakfast, with cinnamon and sugar.
I have crust #2 chilling now. I’ll bake later today. And bake again tomorrow. I’m going to get this.
It was good, though. Just too small, too thin.
Got it. DO not flour the rolling pin. Life is much easier with a marble rolling pin—or even a drinking glass, if you don’t have a marble pin. Rolling it out on parchment let me get it over to the pie plate unfractured. Don’t forget to prick the crust all over with a fork so you don’t get bubbles.
We have now a banana cream. It’s not as beautiful as Mom’s, but hey, it’s the first since 1980, and I’m rusty. Of all places to make a small error—I got one too many egg whites in the meringue and it didn’t want to set up as stiffly as it should, but it has peaks, and they’re brown. The secret with this custard, which is fairly easy is, either use a double boiler or a pan set in a skillet of boiling water. It sets up faster than you’d think. And…put the sliced bananas into the very hot custard mix while you’re making the meringue, so they cook somewhat. Of course you then bake the meringue for about 12 minutes, then allow the pie to cool, all the way to near-chill, so you can cut it and not have pudding. 😉
Sigh. Technical errors. If you make the cream pie, continue to cook it until it is not only thickened, but thick. On cutting, it ran. And I could NOT get the crust to behave. I’m still trying to figure on that one. A bought crust would have been better. So a warning, until I get it figured. For Jane’s birthday, we’re getting a coconut cream from the store.
Note: by morning, it had set up. Maybe we cut it too soon. But the crust still won’t work. Bummer. I’d plotted for two months to bake that pie. Spent days getting the stuff. I think the biggest disappointment is that I didn’t do a trial run a week before, which would have let me know this wasn’t going to work: overconfidence will get you every time.
But—we’re going to have a nice day: going back to the rink for the first time since Jane got sick. Having a party with OSG this evening. And we’re having (lol!) storebought coconut cream pie!
Aha! And there was skating, and it was good. Damn good. 😀
There are some pretty good store crusts out there, but reaching into my ever dimmer past I have memories of my Nanu making banana cream pie in a graham cracker crust. I think her recipe called for whipped cream on top,which she rarely used. She used to say whipped cream was too ‘sinful’ for everyday. She would make crunchy cracker crumbs when she baked the crust and would sprinkle them on the finished pie before serving. This was all very long ago. When I was very little she still had a real icebox with ice deliveries.
Happy Happy Birthday to Jane. Good health, good times in the year to come.! (Cue the trumpets and drums with fireworks!)
Happy Birthday, Jane!
A Most Happy Birthday to Her Janeness. One hopes that the celebration is Awesome!
Try the pie crust recipe from King Arthur Flour – they had a pie crust demonstration road show here in NoCal this past weekend and I sat in on it. The website has a lot of good information on techniques that work; I am an inveterate pie baker, especially this time of year and was hoping for some new ideas. It was great for beginning bakers, but all the “best” practices were techniques my grandmother taught me almost 50 years ago! Actually, she had some tricks I’ve never seen or read in how to make pie crusts work (like putting the water in the freezer when you started, so it was really ice cold (but not frozen) when added to flour/butter.
I use my grandmother’s recipe – very close to the one in Joy of Cooking, with real butter and lard (not the superstablilized stuff from the supermarket that doesn’t go bad). I just can’t get myself to use any of the hydrogenated shortenings anymore, especially after reading the Gourmet article several years ago about how the industry manipulated the data and ran a campaign to demonize coconut and palm based fats since right after WWI. Now, I’m not for for the palm farming, which is destroying natural forests in tropical area, but even as a child I was suspicous of the extraordinary whiteness of the shortening. Don’t get me started on “butter flavor”, either.
I found some solid coconut fat in the health food store and was thinking about trying that in place of the lard for a coconut cream pie crust.
CJ, When the Mrs heard about your difficulty with the pie, she told me to send you this:
Pastry for 2-crust pie
(pastry for one 2-crust pie or 2 8- or 9-inch pie crusts)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup shortening
5 to 6 tablespoons cold water
1. In a medium bowl with fork, lightly stir together flour and salt.
2. With pastry blender or 2 knives used scissor-fashion, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Sprinkle in cold water, in a tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with a fork after each addition until pastry just holds together.
4. With hands, shape pastry into a ball. (If it is a hot day, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate 30 minutes.)
5. For a 2-crust pie, divide pastry into 2 pieces, one slightly smaller than the other, and then shape each into a ball.
6. On a lightly floured surface with lightly flowered rolling pin, roll larger ball into a 1/8 inch thick circle, 2 inches larger all around than the pie plate.
7. Roll half of circle onto rolling pin; transfer pastry to the pie plate and unroll, easing into bottom and side of plate. Fill as recipe directs.
8. For top crust, roll smaller ball as for bottom crust; with sharp knife, cut a few slashes or a decorative design in center of circle; center over filling in the bottom crust.
9. With scissors or a sharp knife, trim the pastry edges, leaving 1-inch overhang all around the pie plate.
10. Fold top crust overhang under the overhang of the bottom crust; pinch a high edge; make a decorative ridge. Bake pie as directed.
Making 2 pie crusts:
Prepare pastry as directed in steps 1-4 then divide in two equal portions, shaping each into a ball. On a lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin, roll each ball as directed in 6 & 7. Trim pastry edge and make decorative edge as in steps 9 & 10. bake as recipe directs.
The Mrs further states that the secret to flaky crust is the ratio of flour to shortening. If it’s not flaky, you may be adding too much water, not enough shortening, or you are rolling it too much. Handle the pastry as little as possible. Mix it just enough to stick together, too much makes it tough.
This makes a very good pie crust. All of our Thanksgiving and Christmas pies use this crust. Enjoy.
here is our british delia smith on pastry – interestingly she says don’t use strong, ie bread-making flour .. and just a pinch of salt!! obviously this is a british thing ….
http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/how-to-make-shortcrust-pastry.html
and a very happy birthday to Jane .. glad to hear you got some skating in … 😀
Happy Birthday to Jane.
Thank you all! A great time was had by all, and Jane swears she’s going to post.
We went skating, then had enough time after we got off the ice to buzz downtown to see The Three Musketeers in 3-D…Jane will likely post her opinion; but my own is that it was fun, still doesn’t surpass the Michael York/Oliver Reed version, but is fun—to a writer, the transitions are a hoot, because you wonder how they’re going to get from here to there, and of course they do. We think it’s done by the people that did the Robert DOwney Sherlock Holmes—same feeling. And they’re having another of those.
We finished up with a nice evening of dinner (our local pub gives a free steak on your birthday)—and movie (How to Train Your Dragon)—since Shu very closely resembles Toothless, right down to the mannerisms, it’s a particular delight to us. A good time was had by all, I BOUGHT a pie, (Jane gallantly swears my crust was still better) and we had a lovely evening with OSG.