Tuesdays with Dorie: Banana Cream Pie

I'm behind, I'm bewildered, I'm bothered and busy. I barely made banana cream pie. But I love banana cream pie. Only crazy people and custard-phobes don't love banana cream pie. And, I suppose, a few people who unaccountably abhor bananas. But for me, banana cream pie is just great. Cream. Banana. Custard. Pie. This particular pie, which I'd made once before for the great pie extravaganza of 2008, is exceptional in every way, from the cinnamon pastry cream to the sour cream whipped cream. Cream cream cream. Of course, since we're trying pretty hard to eat like normal people and less like pastry chefs, who needs all that cream in the house? And when I'm trying to write five papers in one month and Matt's trying to be in a play, even the time to properly make and admire the banana cream pie is lacking. And it's Pesach. Still, it was banana cream pie.
So I made it. That lumpy thing above is the crust, with some buckwheat subbed in for some of the flour--buckwheat and bananas are a very good thing. I made it in a tart pan because I don't have any adorable little six inch springforms or pie plates. This is something I'm thinking about investing in, though, because seriously, what is the sense of making a nine inch pie for a family of two? Also, I was out of tin foil, so the prebaking was a little haphazard. (Are you getting a sense of what kind of week this was yet?)

I also managed to undercook the pastry cream and not care enough to take the two minutes to fix it, so the bottom layer was runny. After that, I lost patience and fixed the rest by cooking it a little longer, then dumped it on. I like this best a few hours after assembly, so the banana has time to permeate the pastry cream fully. It was a mess, but tasted wonderful.
Some time soon, banana cream pie, I promise to make you with proper attention and love, because you're a wonderful dessert. As it is, I might be scaling back on TWD this month, which is a lot of cakes and cream pies. Next week I may just make the Amaretti for the Chocolate Amaretti Torte. We'll see. As I said, it's going to be a busy month, but I'm still here. When Pesach is over, we'll see what we can do about the next step in the gingerbread project (hint, no one has shared any recipes yet...), and about more thoughtful blogging as CSA season and our rooftop garden get started up.
Meanwhile, there's sponge cake and matzo toffee crunch somewhere around here. Excuse me.

Buckwheat Bastards, Second Round

A second take on Daniel Leader/Eric Kayser's Buckwheat Batards, from Local Breads. What with Passover and all, the roommates were starting to take note of a lack of bread, so I got it together and made two kinds in a day. This batch of dough was a little dryer than my first attempt, probably because of the whole wheat bread flour. It was, therefore, easier to handle and shape, and I think came out as well or better. After thinking about the great crust on the no-knead breads, I decided to try an experiment and bake a kneaded bread in the dutch oven. The results were encouraging, though not decisive. On the left, the control, bread baked with steam on a stone in the open oven. On the right, the same bread baked in the heated dutch oven. Both look great, but the difference isn't that noticeable. Continued investigations to follow.

Buckwheat Butter Cookies with Cacao Nibs

I made these. They are delicious. I increased the salt slightly. Don't ask why I happened to have both buckwheat flour and cacao nibs on hand. I just did.

Also, on the bus this morning, I was reading Judith Jones' The Tenth Muse and realized that the picture of her great-niece that I was looking at was my college friend Josy. That combined with the appearance of Anne Carson and her escort along with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed at last night's Richard Foreman show created a little whirlpool in the mind. (Just think, for a second, about how much terrible theater/performance/film etc... one must have to see to be an avant garde scenester of a certain era).

Buckwheat Bastards

These are Buckwheat Batards from Daniel Leader's new book, Local Breads (pictured with a leftover loaf of plain sourdough). They are made using a 'liquid levain' sourdough, and are very wet and sticky and hard to shape. Buckwheat from Anson Mills turns them that dark color and gives them a great flavor, sour and almost clay-like. The reward for all that stickiness is the texture--soft and open.


The shaping can still use some work. Libby, who misread the name as Buckwheat Bastards (obviously they'll not be known as anything else around here), had a whole loaf fresh out of the oven for second dessert.