Week 20: Banana

Week 20.  Baby is the size of a banana.  I decided to make Banana cream pie.  The recipe I found surprised me.  Instead of making banana pudding, which I anticipated, my recipe called for vanilla pudding and just added sliced bananas to the bottom and top of the pie.  It was pretty tasty though.  My husband said he liked the vanilla pudding better than banana pudding anyways so I might be making this one again sometime soon.

 Banana Cream Pie

2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups milk
4 egg yolks
2 Tbs butter
1 Tbs vanilla
Pie Crust
Whipped Cream

Bake pie shell at 475 degrees for 8-10 min.  Mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan.  Stir in milk gradually and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil.  Boil for 1 min.  Gradually stir in some of the hot mixture in with 4 egg yolks in another saucepan.  Slowly add to the egg yolks so the yolks do not bake, but are incorporated.  Blend in the rest of the hot mixture and bring to boil over medium heat.  Boil for 1 min and remove from heat.  Add butter and vanilla last.  Add sliced bananas to the bottom of the pie crust.  Pour hot vanilla pudding over the banana slices.   Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but no longer than 48 hours.  Add another layer of bananas on top.  Top with whipped cream.

 Baked the pie crust.  Add the sugar, cornstarch, and salt together in a pan.

 Add 3 cups of milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  I always use whole milk when baking.  It just tastes better.  Remember:  Fat is Flavor.

 4 egg yolks in a separate pan.

 Slowly add hot pudding to the egg yolks and whisk together.

 Add the rest of the hot pudding to the egg yolks and bring to a boil.  Boil for 1 min.

 Remove pudding from heat and add butter and vanilla last.

 Slice bananas at the bottom of the pie crust.

 Pour hot pudding over the bananas and refrigerate for 2 hours.

 Add another layer of bananas on top of the pudding and top with whipped cream.

Whipped Cream

1 pint of heavy whipping cream
2 heaping Tbs powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Whip it, whip it good for about 6 min until it thickens.

 My beautiful banana cream pie.

 It was so delicious.

Enjoy

Here I am at 20 weeks pregnant.  I made it to the half-way point.  I am feeling very scared and very big.  I find myself eating all the time.  My pregnancy craving is chips.  I normally do not like chips that much and hardly ever eat them, but I find myself craving salty chips with sour cream.  I still have bouts of morning sickness and have started a "Days without Incident" board for my own amusement to keep track of how long I can go without an... incident.  Since I found out I was pregnant my record has been 11 days.  This week I had to re-set to 0 days again because I twisted my ankle.  The added weight is throwing me off balance and the ligaments in my joints are loosening which makes me more clumsy that usual.  Oh the joys of making a person.

Apple Dumplings

I found this darling recipe in my 1978 Betty Crocker cookbook.  The cookbook was a wedding gift to my parents.  I "borrowed" it from my Mom a couple of years ago.  To this day it still has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever tried.  The cookie chapter is worn and stained with years of family love.  We had what Mom called "Brownie Sunday".  It was not always brownies, just a dessert baking day, and always on a Sunday.  Chocolate Chip cookies were made just as often as brownies.  I honestly think the cookie chapter was the only chapter we used growing up.  I found this recipe as I was flipping through the book.  I was craving a dessert that I could pour heavy whipping cream over something hot out of the oven.

Apple Dumplings

Pie dough

2 Baking apples

3 Tbs raisins (I hate raisins so I used cranberries instead)

3 Tbs chopped nuts

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup water

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

 Heat to boiling the brown sugar and water.

 Roll out pie dough into 7" x 7" squares.  Chop nuts and raisins and mix together.  Core the apples, but do not peel.  Place the apple in the middle of the Pie dough square.  Fill the apple core with nuts and raisins.  Fold pie dough over the apple.

Place the doughed apples in a baking pan.

 Pour the brown sugar syrup over the apples.

 Bake at 425 degrees for 40 min.  Every 10 min or so spoon the brown sugar syrup over the apples.

 Take the baked apples out of the oven and pour a generous amount of heavy whipping cream over them.

Enjoy.

Mini Baked Donuts

I have a long and sordid history with yeast.  I have more bread failures than successes.  Due to my impatient nature, lack of confidence, or years of past experience with things failing to rise; I am afraid yeast.  Therefore, it was quite the conundrum when I found this recipe for mini donuts.  I love donuts.  I have been looking for a baked donut recipe for years, but when I finally find one I was dismayed that it requires one of my most feared ingredients.  Needless to say this time it worked.  This time...      

Mini Baked Donuts (makes about 48)

1/2 cup plus 3 Tbs warm (95 to 105F) milk, divided

1 and 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbs butter, softened

2 and 1/2 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

melted butter, cinnamon or powdered sugar for coating

(I don't know why the powdered sugar is on the counter.  I think my original plan was to coat them in powdered sugar, but I went with cinnamon instead.)

Stir 3 Tbs warm milk with yeast in a large bowl until blended.  Let stand 5 min.  

Add sugar, butter, and remaining 1/2 cup milk.  Mix well.  

Add flour, egg, and salt.  

Beat with dough hook at low speed until the dough starts to climb up the dough hook.  

Knead dough on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic.  

Transfer dough to greased medium bowl, turn dough over to grease the top.  Cover and let stand in warm place for 1 hour.  Spray 48 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.  Punch down dough.  Shape into 1 inch balls and place in prepared mini muffin tin.  Cover and let rise for 1 hour.  

Preheat oven to 375F.  Bake 10 - 12 min until light golden brown.  Remove to cool on wire racks.

They are pretty tasty plain, but I like sugar, so I decided to add cover them in cinnamon and sugar.  You could also add powdered sugar.

Drizzle the donuts with melted butter first so the cinnamon sticks better.  I used the shake and bake technique.

Plain or Cinnamon.  Both are tasty.

Enjoy.

Home-Made Puff Pastry

At all times in my freezer I like to have 1 - frozen pie crust, 2 - Filo dough, and 3 - Puff Pastry for those "just in case" quick to make pastry desserts.  After all I am a dessert fiend.  Secretly I also like eating frozen pie crust dough.  It's a texture thing.  Imagine my joy when I finally found a recipe in which I can make my own puff pastry.  This fits right in with my "make everything from scratch" goal this year.

Puff Pastry

1 cup flour

1/3 cup cake flour

1 and ½ sticks (3/4 cup) butter, cold and cubed

¼ tsp salt

¼ cup ice cold water

Freeze all ingredients for 1+ hour.  Combine dry ingredients.  Cut butter into dry ingredients.  Add water 1 Tbs at a time until the dough comes together in a ball.  Knead on floured surface.  Roll out, fold in thirds, repeat four times, turning dough 90 degrees each time.  Store in the freezer.  If using that same day, freeze at least 45 min before use.

Freeze all ingredients.  I combined the dry ingredients and froze the butter separately.

Cut up the frozen butter into chunks.

Food processor dry ingredients with butter cubes.

Process until it resembles sand.

Then slowly add ice cold water.

Add water until it just barely comes together and starts to clump, forming the dough.

Dump the dough out on a floured surface and knead it together into a ball.

Roll out on a floured surface.

Fold in thirds and roll out again.

Move the dough 90 degrees and continue the roll and fold into thirds about 4 times.

The dough should start to look more smooth as you go along.

When done, fold into thirds again and freeze it.

Home made puff pastry.  Not as tasty as frozen pie dough.  But that is why I like to have both available.

Just in case quickly made Elephant ears made with my home-made puff pastry.

Enjoy!