The Request Line Is Open...

...for a select few (and by "select few" I mean "my father-in-law"). A few months ago, or late last year, when I was doing some baking, Michele's father asked me for a cream pie. I can't remember if it was when she was telling him about what I was making for Birthday Tea or if she was describing one of the experiments I was gifting to her co-workers but he put in an order for a cream pie of some kind. He recently put in the order again when we got together for lunch. "Chocolate or Banana?" were the options I gave him because I am not making a coconut cream pie; I hate coconut. As much as I like him, I can't bring myself to get over my aversion to that tropical delicacy enough to bake with it. Michele ended up being the deciding factor, mainly because she had a hankering for bananas the other day.

After a lovely afternoon wandering around the Greenmarket at Union Square yesterday, I stopped in at Fairway on East 86th Street to pick up ingredients. Both of these shopping destinations are ripe for deeper blog exploration (it's amazing to me how many topics can present themselves to me here) and made the crust late last night. I'm not one hundred percent sold on the crust, though. It's graham cracker and my technique with that kind of crust isn't the best...yet. We'll see

An aside: I love doing some baking tasks just before what should be bedtime. I get a sense of accomplishment just before I conk out for the night and the apartment smells like freshly baked somethingorother. Talk about fodder for good dreams!

So, it's now father's day, Sunday, and I'm having some coffee while finishing the pie. I don't normally have coffee on the weekends before Michele gets up but today I really needed the warmth of that cuppa' as I worked on the filling. Usually I wait until she wakes and make coffee for both of us. This morning it was percolated coffee for one, using this cute little, vintage percolator.

Crust made, coffee percolating!

I'll go into the story of this coffee maker later but for now, let's just say that it was the perfect contraption to make the perfect amount of coffee to have with filling fixing! The recipe I used for both the crust and the filling is in Judith Choate's The Great American Pie Book, one of the cookbooks I've had for many years that I'm rereading with renewed baking vigor. It's a very good book for basic technique, ingredient suggestions and good recipes. I highly recommend it.

The custard was very simple enough to make and it firmed up perfectly. I think I'm starting to get the hang of some custards. (I'm definitely going to compare and contrast this recipe with the one I'm using for the egg custard pie.) I figured cooling the custard on the marble slab while I worked on lining the crust with bananas would work nicely. I was right.

Custard, coffee, cookbook

Not quite "bell, book and candle", but baking is magic, anyway. Twenty minutes later and, look! Filled pie crust!

Sans topping

I'm chilling the pie in the refrigerator and will transfer it to my all-purpose Pyrex dessert transporting container in a couple of hours so that we can carry it to my in-laws downtown. I'm making the whipped cream topping there, so I'll post pictures later.

Currently listening to: Virginia Coalition, Sing Along 

7: 59 p.m. – The results are in!

Michele and I just got back from her father and step-mother's apartment and we're full of Ford Farm Dorset Red cheese (with which I'm dying to make a grilled cheese sandwich sometime soon), artichoke hearts, French breakfast radishes, baby spinach salad with smoked chicken breast and walnuts – dressed with fig-infused balsamic vinegar and olive oil. And the finished banana cream pie. Michele took these pictures with her phone (I totally forgot my own camera, so thank goodness for technology) the topping.

Is my hand really that big?

Topped!

I was right about the crust, though. I need to work on it. Still, it was quite tasty and I'd make this one again for sure. I love the way the taste and aroma of the bananas wrapped themselves in the sweetness of the custard. Quite tasty indeed.

Something I appreciate a great deal is sitting with my in-laws, sharing a meal and swapping  stories. I find that Michele's family has that in common with my own and that makes for some delightful times together. My father-in-law did indeed enjoy the pie and offered to taste-test anything else I'm concocting. My step-mother-in-law seconded that. It's good to have volunteers.

Now, on to the next adventure, which is something I'm working on for my father.

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Scenes From The Table

There are times when you're at family gatherings that you find yourself thinking that you picked the exact right place to sit at the table. I don't get to visit with my family very often, so hitting that sweet spot is important to me when I do. This time around, at the bar-b-cue for my oldest niece, I hit a jackpot. I shared the kitchen table with two of my aunts, Johnnie and Mable, my uncle Leon and one of my oldest friends, Mary, who I saw here in NYC a couple of years ago (and with whom I wish I could visit much more often).

Picture this: a quiet, slightly nervous, kid transfers to a new high school school midway through his freshman year. He's befriended by a sweet young lady in his geometry class. They remain fast friends for the rest of their high school career, graduate and go their separate ways but manage to stay in touch. Thirty-six years later, not only are they still fast friends but she has become a high school teacher, worked along side his aunt (Johnnie) and taught his niece for a year. If you can imagine that, you've got the gist of my relationship with Mary. We share so many connections that it seems as though the universe demands our friendship remain intact. The latest connection we share is blogging. Hers is here and you should check it out; what she has to say about living a sustainable (in all its definitions) life is worth reading.

I've missed being able to sit across a table and talk with Mary, so I made the most of it. Cooking, baking (she brought a fig cake, which everyone loved, to the meal), writing and even graphic novels (she recently read her first one and I'm sending her a copy of V For Vendetta) were all on the agenda. Interestingly enough, we didn't touch on any high school memories; I guess we're more interested in connecting our present lives than in reliving the past.

Auntie Johnnie joined in the conversation and I got a chance to tell her that I still use her sweet potato pie recipe. Many years ago I was talking with my mother about sweet potato pie because I wanted to bake one for some holiday or another. She suggested I call Johnnie because she thought Johnnie's sweet potato pie was delicious. I ended up combining Johnnie's recipe with another I'd found somewhere else into what has since become my sweet potato pie. That's something I'll talk about in a future post. Discussion of buttermilk-based pie crusts, crusts made with vinegar, souffle-like fillings and technique kept us smiling, and eating, for quite a while.

I got an opportunity to talk with my Nana about my attempts at making her egg custard pie. She smiled when I told her that her pies and the love she put into them inspire my final version.

By the end of the night, most of the cherry cheesecake was gone. Mary's fig cake, and the glaze she provided for it, had taken quite a few hits. The strawberry cheesecake had just enough left for my brother to lay claim to at least two more slices. It was a joyous gathering.

Full hearts, full stomachs and well-fed spirits.

Oh. Did I mention that I brought a box of ginger lemon creams with me? When I arrived, I gave it to my father (who was rationed just one from the batch I sent one of his sisters for her birthday) with the intention of it being "for the house". He interpreted that to mean "for him" and by the time I left, he'd managed to scarf down the majority of them. I guess I can't ask for a better compliment than that, can I?

Currently listening to: Andreas Vollenweider - Letter To A Young Rose (Just seemed appropriate...)

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The Filling

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I'm was at home in San Antonio, in the house my folks bought when I was a freshman in high school. My oldest niece, my sister Mony's daughter, graduated high school Saturday, June 2, and we had a bar-b-cue that was kind of in her honor. I got the chance to hang out with my father, sisters and younger brother and, as I told them, I had a great time! It was hard on my stomach muscles, though, because I hardly stopped laughing! It was a bittersweet visit because we've been without my mother for almost four years, now. The five of us are finding ways of filling in for her presence in each others lives and that's made us all stronger and closer than ever. But we miss her terribly. This was the first time I'd been back there since the funeral.

And that underscores the significance of my decision to make a dessert for the bar-b-cue. I wanted to fill in for my mother in that regard. She would have happily made something delicious for us, so I took on the responsibility of doing just that – despite the fact that I haven't had much success baking in that kitchen. (Astro Dome Apple Pie, remember?). But which dessert? It needed to be something that was evocative of past celebrations. My mother's favorite dessert to make was cherry cheesecake with pecan crust and if she were alive, that's what she would have made. I even had the recipe, which she gave me many years ago, so that's was that.

I've actually made this dessert a few times but I've always swapped real whipped cream for the Cool Whip the recipe calls for. I would stick with that alteration this time. Why change the recipe from what she did? Why not go for authenticity, you might ask? Remember who you're talking to here. Let's see: take the time and effort of making actual whipped cream to mix with the cream cheese for the filling or use a tub of ready-made conglomeration of who-knows-what? Extra work versus easy-to-spread-could-be-plastic? Heavy whipping cream, here I come! Besides, I don't like not knowing what's really in Cool Whip.

My older sister doesn't bake these days – although she used to be fond of popping a batch of Toll House or oatmeal cookies in the oven from time to time when we were kids – so I made sure she had a few basics: blender, mixer, measuring cups, pie plates, Pyrex baking dishes, etc. When I arrived there were two boxes waiting for me – a blender and a hand mixer. I was hoping to use the Sunbeam mixer that both my parents used for so many years but my father told me it gave up the ghost when they checked to see if it was still working. That was disappointing but life goes on. So far so good. I was less successful with wooden spoons, rolling pin and pastry blender but another quick trip, or two, to the grocery store took care of first two, and I could use the old "two knives in scissor fashion" technique for cutting in the butter for the crusts.

A word about grocery stores: For the last twenty years I've called New York City home. There are no large grocery stores here. Oh, there are stores that think they're large, and, yes, they're bigger than the corner bodega but they're not large. I was born and raised in San Antonio and the the small grocery stores there could swallow three "large" New York grocery stores and still have room for a bodega for dessert. Talk about your one-stop-shopping! Practically the only thing you can't get at a grocery store in San Antonio is your tires rotated, or, apparently, a pastry blender. You can, however, get tires at some of them.

Though all the ingredients and equipment was assembled, I'd have to wait until after my siblings and father, along with some other friends and family, assembled to watch the Avengers assemble. Yes, it was my third time seeing the film. I'm a geek; sue me. Consequently, I didn't get started on the crust until almost midnight. That actually went very well. It's been ages since I used knives instead of a pastry blender but the technique worked for the pecan crust. I always have a more difficult time using it for a regular flour crust.

Not being in my own kitchen, where I have access to a marble slab for rolling out crust, was an experience. I had to improvise with wax paper and a cutting board because there's nowhere near enough counter space to work with in that house. Oh, rolling the pecan crust isn't what my mother did when she made this dessert; she patted the crust into the baking dish instead. We'll add that to the ways my version is different from hers. Also, she usually made one big cheesecake, in a rectangular Pyrex dish but I used two 9.5" pie plates because of my little brother, Rob. He likes strawberry but I like cherry, so I decided to make both of us happy.

While the crusts baked, I turned my attention to the cream cheese part of the filling. And immediately found out that the Hamilton Beach hand mixer wasn't as heavy duty as it thought it was. Even though I've been without it for years (the beaters got lost in a move and I've yet to replace them), I'm still used to my Kitchen Aid hand mixer, which had power to spare. Sixteen ounces of cream cheese had that Hamilton Beach motor wheezing! I decided to put the filling back in the refrigerator because there was no way I'd be able to finish the cheese cakes that night. It was nearly two in the morning and I was so tired that I could see myself getting into a tragic kitchen accident that I'd never live down. I devised a good way to cool the crusts, since I was also without a cooling rack, and tucked myself in bed. "Nighty, night! Sweetums go to bed now," (which was something my mother used to quote to me when I was a kid because she knew she could crack me up by doing Sweetums' voice.)

When I woke up, I dove right back in because I knew Karla and Rob would need the kitchen to work on the bar-b-cue meat and Mony and company would arrive soon. I divided the cream cheese in half to spare the poor Hamilton Beach. It handled whipping the cream well enough, though. After I blended the whipped cream and the cream cheese together, being very careful not to lose any volume in the whipped cream, I filled in and topped the crusts. The completed cakes went into the freezer to set up in time for the bar-b-cue. If I had been able to finish them the night before, I would have put them in the refrigerator. Oh, well.

The Results

Two cheesecakes and a piePad

Cherry

Strawberry

The majority of the folks who were at the bar-b-cue had tasted my mother's cheesecake, so I had a bit of anxiety about how they'd like my version. But I could almost hear her saying "Baby, if you think you can do this, I have no doubt that you'll do it well." She said stuff like that to me all the time. I had her love with me and that was all that mattered. They were very well received. And at the end of the night, after everyone had left, my father had a second slice.

Me: "So...what do you think?"
Daddy: "It's very good. But I'll tell you what: it's not your mama's."
Me: "No. It's not," I had to admit. "But I'll tell you what: this version's better for you because we know what's in whipped cream."
Daddy: "You're right about that, son."

We all miss her. And I can't do things exactly like she did. I'm just doing my best to fill in.

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The Pie's The Thing... (with apologies to W. Shakespear) - 3

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that you have to bake while the oven is hot.

Yes, I went there!

Corny twists of phrases aside, I thought it would be best if I didn't wait too long for the next egg custard pie attempt because I wanted to serve it for dessert at Christmas dinner with Michele's family. So, as soon as the pie plate was drying in the rack, I assembled ingredients for version 2.0. Monique (a.k.a. Mony, a.k.a. Monica, a.k.a. My Beloved Little Sister) told me she thought the milk needed to be "condensed" instead of whole. This was going to cause me to adjust the amount of sugar, because condensed milk is sweet! I also found another recipe on-line that gave me a couple of useful techniques: coating the inside of the pie crust with egg white, to prevent it from getting soggy, and scalding the milk before adding it to the egg mixture. Wait. Scalding the milk?


Brief explanation: In the days before pasteurization, people would heat milk to the boiling point, about 185º F, to kill harmful bacteria. It was sometimes tricky business because if you didn't pay attention you burned it or, worse, burned it and scorched the inside of your pot to boot. Diligence was the order of the day because who back then could afford to just run out and buy another pot?
Brief explanation ends.

Despite the risk to milk and pot, and ignoring how completely archaic the procedure was, I thought I'd try it anyway because I had a feeling it would help the filling cook and set better. Besides, I really love configuring my Revere Ware pots in double-boiler mode! Besides-besides, I'm a traditionalist – except, of course, when I'm not.

With ingredients and tools assembled, I made my next attempt. Everything went very well, even scalding the condensed milk. Except for some reason I forgot to sprinkle the nutmeg on top before I put the pie in the oven. I'd done the same thing the first time, too. Fortunately for me, I've got a pretty good "hasty add forgotten topping" technique and it came out looking good. But it was way too sweet. Dang you, condensed milk! This overabundance of sweetness didn't deter my chosen group of guinea pigs, Michele's office cohorts, from enjoying the pie, though. They've been so appreciative of everything I've sent their way that I've designated them as my primary taste "focus group".

So. Egg Custard Pie v2.0 was a bust for recreating Nana's pie. It was, however, a success in three other ways: 1) the egg white prevented the crust from getting soggy, 2) adding scalded milk did indeed help the filling cook and set much better, and c) I had a grand time scalding the milk! I love learning a new baking technique!

I had to get serious, though, because time and Christmas dinner wait for no baker. Another phone conference with my little sister yielded a correction on the milk: "unsweetened condensed milk." I'm going to have to ask her where she got that term because it took me a bit of digging through cookbooks and the Internet to learn that "unsweetened condensed milk" is plain-old evaporated milk. I use it in my sweet potato pie. My mother often put it in her coffee. My Hispanic friends back in high school called it "leche Pet". Nothing exotic about it at all. And it turned out to be the ingredient that turned the corner for me on this pie.

Version 3.0, turned out very nicely and was devoured at Christmas dinner. Version 3.1, pictured below, helped me refine my crust technique and my popping-into-oven technique (splash potential for this pie is through the roof).

Egg Custard Pie, Version 3.1

Version 3.1 with appropriate companion beverage!

Please note that I still forgot to sprinkle the nutmeg before popping it into the oven. Arrgh! What's that all about? I mean, the pattern looks cool but the nutmeg is supposed to be sprinkled evenly. Oh, well. It still tasted great!

Believe it or not, I did one more round of this pie last month. I'd promised a friend who was visiting with us I'd bake it for her birthday. Instead, baked two simultaneously because I wanted to test a version using one less egg. That one, I'll call it Version 3.1.2, actually had a texture that was more like what I remember of Nana's pies, but it was, again, overly sweet. Having that extra egg seems to work best with the amount of sugar in the recipe, and it delivers what I'll now consider the taste I'm going for.

I'm finished tweaking this recipe, for now. What I've discovered is that this isn't my grandmother's egg custard pie and it never will be. I'm going to stop trying to recreate what she did. My memory of the pies Nana lovingly baked for us will suffice and bring many smiles to my face when I think back on them. Those were her pies. This pie is mine, with a heaping helping of inspiration from my her. I'm good with that.

*****

Oh, and how did I present Version 3.1.2 to my friend? Boxed it up with five paper plates, napkins and plastic forks and took it to the showing of The Avengers. The five of us sat there, watching Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Hawkeye and The Hulk defend the very city we were in, while we devoured slices of pie. Now that's the way to see a movie in New York!

Currently listening to: Michael Henderson and Roberta Flack - At The Concert

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Cookie Interlude (What? Again?!?)

Yes, again with the ginger lemon creams! Remember, I said I wanted these to be my snack cookies, so I'll be baking them fairly often. That is not the reason for this post. The reason for this post is to mention the fact that I'm baking a new batch to take home to San Antonio with me next week. My oldest niece is graduating high school (boy she and her mother are getting old) and I wanted to have something to share at the celebratory bar-b-cue. What would be better than the ginger lemon creams?

To be honest, though, I'm tempted to try to bake something there as well. Nothing too involved – maybe an apple pie or something. That's the exhibitionist in me talking. The reality of the situation is that I haven't cooked in that kitchen in such a long time and I'm not sure how my older sister has it stocked for baking essentials. Plus it's an electric oven and I'm not a fan of electric ovens.Still, the temptation is great and I may give in regardless.

So, I've made some additions to a baking music play list I have on iTunes and it's time to get busy! Oh, and I've made some refinements to the recipe, so we'll see how they turn out.

Currently listening to: "High Gear" by Neil Larsen

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The Pie's The Thing... (with apologies to W. Shakespear) - 2

Due to circumstances beyond our control, this installment 
has been unavoidably delayed. We now return you to
the scheduled pie-filled melodrama already in progress . 

Cooking for family is always different for me than cooking for friends. Since I don't get to visit with my father or siblings very often, I rarely have the chance to show them that I've evolved from that kid who made pretty decent french fries (they're amazing now) and pretty decent fried eggs (I can do over-easy now with confidence and skill). So, when the opportunity arises, I put a lot of pressure on myself to turn out an amazing meal or baked dish. In the past said pressure has led to some disastrous results. (An apple pie that had a crust that baked up like the roof of the Astrodome comes to mind.)

Last December I had the chance to make a different impression on my big sister, Karla, since she was coming to NYC for a visit. As fate would have it, her time here would include my birthday and she'd get to have the experience of one of my not-quite-world-famous Birthday Teas.

Sidebar: I absolutely love celebrating my 
birthday! I'll blog about Birthday Tea some
other time, though. I just wanted to say that
I absolutely love celebrating my birthday!

I usually have a select group of friends over and I serve my version of an afternoon tea. I have a standard menu of baked goods and meats and cheeses but I always serve a "showstopper", something that's delicious and surprising and has a lot of "wow!" factor. With Karla attending, everything had to be as perfect as I could make it to erase the memory of the aforementioned "Astrodome Pie" from her brain. And mine.

Seriously! The pie looked like this...only it was brown.
And made of flour. And was almost as hard.
Almost.

I'd already decided what the basic menu was going to be – adding my first attempt at the ginger lemon cream cookies to that. As I was trying to come up with a true "showstopper", Karla made a suggestion: "Why don't you make Nana's egg custard pie?" "Sure! Why not?" I replied. The exchange was casual. The panic it instilled in me was not. I'd never attempted that pie before and now I'd committed myself to make it for not only my friends but also for my big sister, who knew what it should taste like! No pressure, right? Ack!

*****

I like to think I can rise to any baking challenge given the proper pans, the right recipe and a reliable oven. In this case I had one out of three: the pans. The oven was becoming temperamental and I didn't have a clue as to the recipe Nana used – because she no longer had a clue. I could have called her and asked, again, but I already knew the answer to that. I decided to pull a couple of recipes and combine them with my own pie memories to give myself a jumping-off point.

I consulted one of my "go-to" books, The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

I bought this in 1986 and I still turn to it whenever I'm starting a culinary adventure.

I've had it for twenty-six years and it's been a life saver. It certainly helped this time around. I that and another recipe I found on-line, and my standard pie crust recipe, for Egg Custard Pie 1.0. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it; I just didn't have the time to take process shots or end result shots; I was way too busy baking...and fretting over getting ready for Tea. I will say that the pie looked pretty good and the guests liked it but both Karla and I knew that it couldn't compare with Nana's. In my opinion, it came out with a consistency and taste too close to flan. I'm not a fan of flan, so my rating on that pie attempt is "fail". It took forever to set, didn't taste right the internal texture was all wrong.

Overall, though, I'll put the experience of baking for my big sister in the "win" column. She had a great time and went back for thirds. She even took home a batch of ginger lemon creams to share!

The next day I called my little sister, Monique, to talk over the results of my labors. I asked her what she remembered of the recipe she got from Nana and the ingredients she rattled off were surprising in the only thing common to both our recipes was eggs! And not even the same number of eggs at that! On top of this, Nana had only given her a list of ingredients with absolutely no amounts of any kind. Not even a "pinch" of this and a "dab" of that. So, we really were on our own with this.

Part 2 Ends

**Cue wistfully sad musical riff.**

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Have Cookies, Will Travel!

Last month, Michele and I took short trip (darn you, nine-to-five job!) to Barbados to celebrate our one-year anniversary. I wanted something tasty to snack on for the flight, so I loaded up a bag of ginger lemon creams. It turns out that I'd actually bagged enough for the flight down, the entire stay and the flight back!

What can I say? I love traveling with snacks!

Just A Guy Who Bakes goes to Barbados! And brings some friends!

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