Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Topped with halved dark chocolate malt balls.

Between the ages of 12 and 14, I was obsessed with the banana cream pie recipe from The Joy of Cooking. My dad loved it too, which made it easy to find an excuse to make the pie whenever my mom the flight attendant was working. Little more than sliced bananas between layers of whipped cream and chocolate shavings, the pie would hold up in the fridge for about a day before the filling turned slimy and gray and became something that only my dad had the stomach to stomach. While I know that I totally loved banana cream pie, it has grossed me out in recent years since the day-old refrigerated alien mush is much more present in my mind than the fluffy banana layers that beget the mush. Now fast-forward to this year's Kickasserole feast where I ignored my slimy misgivings and revisited the banana cream pie printed in Baked Explorations. This recipe uses pudding instead of whipped cream, and the pie is topped with a peanut butter layer that makes for a sturdier update on the bare bones banana pie of my youth. In short, this recipe is awesome. It would last longer than a day in the fridge, but won't last longer than an hour on your dinner table since it's super good, so I say hop to it and see if you can squeeze this one into your Thanksgiving repertoire.

And a merry Thanksgiving to y'all! Thanks so much for supporting this blog!

Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Barely adapted from Baked Explorations

This pie is seriously easy, but it takes a while to make because of the refrigeration steps. It's a good one to start in the morning and then forget about while you work on other dishes. Also awesome is that the only part that needs baking is the crust. I didn't add any bourbon to the pudding, but I was seriously tempted to; let us know if you customize!

For the crust

6 oz. vanilla cookies (a good time to remember that Nilla wafers taste exactly like marshmallows)

6 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into half-inch cubes

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Put all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, and blend until mixture looks like moist crumbs, about one minute. Transfer to a nine-inch glass (glass!) pie plate, and press the crust to the bottom and up the sides until it's even with the rim and even thickness throughout. I do this step by pressing a floured metal measuring cup on the bottom and up the sides, and using the thumb of my other hand to tamp down a rim.  Bake crust until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes; if the crust has puffed, push it down with a metal spoon. Allow to cool completely. 

For the puddin' layer

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup whole milk

2 large egg yolks

1 vanilla bean split lengthwise

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

3 firm, but ripe bananas

2 tablespoons orange juice

1. In a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar, cornstach, and salt. Slowly add the whipping cream, then the milk, whisking the whole time to prevent lumps. Add yolks, and using a small pointed knife or a quarter teaspoon, scrape the vanilla seeds into the mixture. Drop the pod in too. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until pudding thickens and boils, about five minutes. Remove from heat and add butter, whisking vigorously for about two minutes to release excess heat. Spread pudding in cooled crust, and chill until filling is cool, about one hour.

2.  Thinly slice bananas on the diagonal and, in a small bowl, gently mix them with the OJ (this prevents them from turning brown). Blot the excess OJ off the bananas with a paper towel, and arrange the slices in a single layer across the top; make sure to cover completely. Proceed with PB layer.

For the peanut butter topping

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (not old-fashioned or freshly ground; I used Whole Foods 365 brand)

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled

Malt balls, chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate shavings, or any decorative goodness of your choosing

1.  In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the vanilla, then peanut butter, mixing until the color is uniform and the mixture is slightly fluffed, about one minute. 

2.  In a separate glass bowl, beat the whipping cream on medium-high until soft peaks form (not stiff peaks please). Here the directions said to add the whipped cream to the PB mixture in large spoonfulls and fold it in with a rubber spatula. This didn't work well for me though, so I ended up using my electric mixer for about 30 seconds, until the topping was smooth and uniform in color. 

3.  Spread the peanut butter topping evenly across the pie. Adorn with chocolate topping of your choice; I went with dark chocolate malt balls sliced in half. Chill pie for at least three hours, and up to eight.

Spicy Chocolate Sorbet

Sorbet is so much more photogenic if you lick it first.

Joey just handed me a glass of IPA and is now beat-boxing Beethoven and dancing the robot in the center of his bedroom. This is among the many things that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving season, also including knowing some exceptionally talented and fun people in DC who love to eat. Yesterday, my house and I hosted the first of what will hopefully become an annual Thanksgiving for friends, lovingly dubbed Kickasserole, and it was a downright killer if not outrightly hedonistic meal. Our friends and their friends rallied to bring awesome soups, apple pie doughnuts, standout pies, cheesecake, roasted vegetables aplenty, handmade pasta, smoky salads, sopapaillas, and of course, boatloads of macaroni and cheese (vegan and regular; photos to come). I made a few pies and some rigatoni that was fully drowning in gruyere, and with the tightrope walk that is sharing one oven between six housemates and 44 friends, well, I was thankful to have made a few ice creams and sorbets earlier in the week. As you're making preparations for your own feast-y celebrations this week, fear not the convenience and awesomeness of the freezer. In addition to cuties with robot moves and friends with culinary prowess out the wazoo, pie à la mode is another reason to be thankful this (and every) season. 

Spicy Chocolate Sorbet

The basic chocolate sorbet recipe is by David Lebovitz; the addition of spices and booze is my own and inspired by my lovely friend Samantha. Cinnamon is my jam, but next time I might try steeping cardamom pods and adding espresso powder instead of using cinnamon, chili, and brandy. So many good combinations await!

2 1/4 cups water

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (use Ghiradelli or better)

1 cup granulated sugar

Salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons chipotle, smoked paprika, or chili powder of your choice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (I used Guittard chips)

1 tablespoon brandy, or to taste

1. Make sure that your ice cream bowl is frozen and ready to churn. Okay, check. In a large pot, bring 1 1/2 cups of the water, the cocoa, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and chili to a boil over medium heat; whisk frequently. Let  the mixture boil for 45 seconds, whisking vigorously the whole time.

2. Remove from heat and add chocolate; stir until it's melted. Add the remaining 3/4 cup water, vanilla extract, and brandy. Put the mixture in a blender and blend for 15 seconds to smooth it out. Transfer to a container and chill the mixture thoroughly, preferably overnight. Then, freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. I then froze my sorbet in the freezer for an additional two hours to thicken it up some more.  

Maple Pecan Tartlets (And When Things Could Go Better)

Hazelnut cardamom "tartlets"

I have a hard time screwing up. Sometimes I cry, often I break things, and if I'm not snappy then I'm hysterical. Shown are some hazelnut, cardamom, honey tartlets that I absolutely effed up three times in a row (in the same night!). Not shown is my poor little dented tartlet pan bottom that I banged repeatedly and frustratedly with a fork while trying to dislodge a stuck, curdled tart. The truth behind my kitchen is that I'm thrilled with about 80% of what I bake and totally mortified by the rest of it, and usually I only blog about what turned out awesome. I've done a lot of bake sales and events in DC since participating in that first bake sale way back when, and I've always been proud of my contributions. This makes me pretty lucky as far as sharing what I love goes, but I have yet to learn how to troubleshoot or recover when things go disastrously. If there was any day to know how to screw up gracefully, it would have been last Saturday.

Maple pecan tartlets. Say it proud!

Before the Punk Rock Flea Market, my pumpkin whoopie pies fell flat, I broke my favorite dish, broke my oven thermometer, broke the sink, and I'm pretty sure that our new oven is out of whack, so maybe I broke that too. I burned cookies, underbaked cookies, over-diluted icing, ran out of butter, lost a tartlet pan bottom, dropped stuff on the floor, and didn't bake my maple pecan tartlets with enough time to allow them to set. Panicked, I called my sister who counseled me to save what I could and walk away from the rest; "remove the stress," she said. And I did! And she was right! In the end, I donated four potato-gruyere tartlets and two dozen cookies (less than half of what I had planned to sell) with moderate success, and Joey and I spent a killer day thrifting and eating food made by others. I learned that if I must mess up, then I shouldn't agonize over it or smash my tartlet pans with a fork. I'll save what I can and walk away from the rest and hey, who knows, maybe by the time I get back, my maple pecan tarts will be set and they will taste so dang good that any anguish will have almost been worth it. Plus, I'll relearn for the umpteenth time that rushing through the kitchen is no way to bake; lesson learned (again).

Maple Pecan Tartlets

Adapted from Gourmet

Makes six tartlets, but could be adapted for one nine-inch tart.

These would be super for Thanksgiving. I love maple with most of my soul, and it's great and gooey with the pecans. The original recipe calls for maple sugar, but since it's so pricey and there's already maple syrup in the tartlets, I opted for tubrinando sugar. I don't think these needed any help in the maple department, but if you've got maple sugar lying around (you luxurious animal!), you might try it.

For the tartlet shells

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1.  In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, and salt, pulse once to blend. Sprinkle the cold butter across the top and pulse several times until mixture has some pea-sized lumps of butter and some oatmeal flake-sized lumps of butter. Do not overmix. Add the egg a little bit at a time, pulsing after each addition. Once it's all in, process in long pulses--about ten seconds each--until mixture comes together in clumps. Shortly before this stage, the processor will make a different, deeper sound; that's how you know the dough is about to be ready.

2.  Dump the contents of the processor onto a lightly floured surface, and using your hands, gently incorporate any ingredients that didn't get mixed in. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about two hours.  After the dough has chilled, divide into six equal rounds. Roll out each round to a five-inch diameter and gently line your tartlet shells with the rounds. Either trim the overhang or tuck it down for a double wall of crust (what I do). Pop them into the freezer for 30 minutes to chill thoroughly (this helps prevent the crusts from shrinking).

For the filling

2 large eggs

1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup (the good shtuff)

6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3 tablespoons maple sugar (I used turbinando)

1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup pecans, 2/3 cup finely chopped and 1/3 cup coarsely chopped

1.  Preheat oven to 370 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with foil, and line each of the frozen crusts of the tartlets with a square of lightly buttered foil, shiny side down. Bake the tartlet shells for ten minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional seven to ten minutes, or until the edges are slightly gold.  Remove and let cool (in pans) for about 15 minutes.

2.  Increase the temperature to 375 degrees. As crusts are cooling, whisk the eggs, syrup, sugars, vinegar, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Make sure that everything is evenly mixed.  Put the tartlet crusts on the cookie sheet, and evenly distribute the finely chopped pecans to each of the shells. Then evenly distribute the filling among the shells, and top with the remaining large pieces of pecans. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until filling is just set. Remove and cool on racks for at least 15 minutes and up to 30, until filling has firmed somewhat. Serve warm or at room temperature, possibly with bourbon whipped cream.

Punk Rock Flea Market and Bake Sale: This Saturday!

If you're in the Washington, DC area this weekend, please come to Positive Force DC's Punk Rock Flea Market at St. Stephen's Church on Saturday! Positive Force DC is an awesome organization that works throughout the city to build community and help people in need, and it's a huge supporter of local arts and events. The flea market benefits Positive Force, and there is going to be a heap of local crafts, art, music (by True Womanhood, Imperial China, Tereu Tereu), and food, including baked goods made by myself and others! I'll be offering some brand-new baked goods, one with about a bucket of maple syrup, and the other with some salty-as-shit gruyere for the savory crowd. Please join us, and come meet other awesome folks about town who are dedicating their Saturday to a great cause! 

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

It has been an eventful week (okay, okay, eight) since I last blogged and summer reluctantly, finally expired.  It's cold now! And while it was becoming such, a lot happened. I moved from the house that feels like Christmas to the house that feels like Thanksgiving, started selling earrings in an awesome store that newly opened in DC, took a vacation to visit my parents in Maine (where we discovered the perfect flat-iron building for housing a dream bakery), became briefly obsessed with religious snake-handlers after reading a memoir about the exploits of one, acquired shared responsibility for a Rottweiler named Emma Jane who looks cute as pie dressed like a banana, and gave all of the Tootsie pops to a five-year-old who was dressed like Harry Potter and holding the hand of his curly-haired baby sister. I have yet to go apple-picking (for shame!), but a group of considerate folks from New York brought us a bushel of upstate apples that have been put to good use inside cheddar cheese pie crust and given as consolation prizes to the post-candy trick-or-treaters that were banging on our door at 10:30 on Sunday.

And while I hope you haven't tired of the lone September recipe that I bequeathed--and really how could anyone tire of a doughnut recipe?--I come bearing a new autumn-appropriate recipe for pumpkin cinnmon rolls that I hope you'll try. This was originally posted on TheKitchn a few weeks back, and while I was skeptical about the instructions that don't require you to activate the yeast or knead the dough, my dough was nice and puffed the next morning when I pulled it out of the fridge, and these rolls baked up delicious! I would have liked them better with the cream cheese icing from over here, but it's real hard to go wrong with cinnamon rolls of any kind, especially on a Sunday morning when enjoyed first hot and second cold after a bike ride and during a retreat to plaid blankets.

P.S. Please don't forget to vote today!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

Adapted from TheKitchn.com

Makes about 16 rolls

As I said, I was skeptical about the yeast, so I've provided instructions for activating yeast as I normally would have done. If you'd like to skip that step and want some validation about it, go ahead and consult the original recipe over here.!

For the dough

1/4 cup water, warmed, not hot

1 package active dry yeast (just shy of 1 tablespoon)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup sugar

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups toasted pecans, chopped and divided

For the icing

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup brown sugar

2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I don't like the taste of powdered sugar, so I try to get away with using as little as possible)

Pinch of salt

1.  Mix the yeast, warm water, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl, and set aside. Mixture will become foamy if years ts alive and ready to rise.

2.  Warm the butter and milk in a small saucepan until butter is melted.  Combine in a very large bowl with sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.  Let the mixture cool somewhat until it is just warm (as opposed to piping hot), then stir in your foamy yeast mixture and the pumpkin.  Add the salt and five cups of flour, stirring until the flour is well-incorporated.  The dough should come together in a shaggy ball, but if it still feels moist, add the remaining half-cup of flour (I did).

3.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, dry place for one to three hours; it should double in size.  Then gently deflate it by pressing two fingers into the top, cover it again, and pop it in the fridge overnight for up to eight hours.  If you'd rather bake the dough right away, deflate it and begin shaping instead of refrigerating overnight.

4.  To shape the rolls, shake some flour onto a large work surface.  Dump the dough out, pat it into a rectangle, and use a well-floured rolling pin to push it into a rectangle that's about 1.5 inches thick, and longer than it is wide (mine ended up being about 20 inches by five inches).  To make the filling, mix the melted butter, milk, sugar, and spices in a medium bowl.  Pour the filling onto your dough rectangle, and spread it around evenly, leaving a half-inch border. Sprinkle one cup of the toasted pecans on top.  Working long-ways, roll the dough into a cylinder and pinch it closed at the top. Using a sharp knife or bench cutter, cut cylinder into rolls about 1.5 to two inches thick.  Arrange them side by side in a few buttered caked pans, cover, and allow them to rise until they look puffy, about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  When the rolls have puffed and are all squished together, bake them for 20 to 25 minutes until golden.  Rotate the pan halfway through baking.  Meanwhile, make the glaze by heating the butter, milk, and brown sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat, and sift in the powdered sugar; blend thoroughly with a fork. You now have pourable, awesome glaze. 

5.  When the rolls are golden, remove from the oven. Pour on the glaze and the remaining chopped pecans.  These are best if eaten immediately, but will keep for a day, covered.