I got baking tonight. The urge overtook me. That and Leah and Travis have both been after me to bake an Apple Pie. The thing with baking, is if you’re going to bake one pie, you might as well make more. The kitchen is going to be a mess anyway, and your return on your time is greater. So I baked (with both Leah and Travis’ help) an Apple Pie (such a simple recipe and so good), two cream pies, and a Blueberry Cheesecake.
I made a Banana Cream and a Coconut Cream pie, the custard base is the same for the two, it’s only the last step that differs. Want the recipe? Okay, you’ll need a pie shell, you could use a bought one, but pie pastry is simple, and I just blind bake a bottom shell. In a heavy saucepan mix 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup corn starch and 1/4 tsp of salt, and then add 3 cups of milk, mixing well. Heat over a medium to medium high heat until the mixture thickens and boils, and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and add 3 egg yolks (temper them first with three or so spoonfuls of the hot custard). Return it to heat and stirring constantly (which you should be pretty much doing anyway the entire time the custard is on the heat) heat until the mixture begins to bubble again. Remove from heat and add 2 tsp vanilla and 2 tbsp of butter. Its at this stage you diverge.
For Coconut Cream pie, add a cup of coconut and pour into your pie shell, refrigerate until completely set, about 4 hours.
For Banana Cream pie, cool the crust completely and line it with sliced bananas (about two). Mash a half of a banana and add it to the custard. Cool the custard to luke warm before adding it to the pie shell and again refrigerate until set. Top both with whipped cream.
When I was a young boy every Saturday my dad would take me to the local McLeod’s Store on Main Street in Roblin. Every Saturday he’d buy me a slice of Banana Cream Pie (sometimes he’d have Banana Cream and some times he’d have Coconut Cream Pie) and we’d sit there at that lunch counter and savour that creamy goodness, but even more we’d savour our time together and the ritual that we’d observe almost without fail. It is, without a doubt, amongst my most happy memories of a pretty happy childhood. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll have a slice of each, one for Dad and one for me. And I’ll probably call him.
Comments
5 responses
HEY! I clicked over from my feed reader expecting PICTURES!
Tease.
Yea, I wouldn’t mind some pictures of those pies! 🙂 What a great story. I’m saving the recipe!
Efficiency is so delicious.
MacLeods is that old?
Hey Blogmom. Sorry, I just can’t take a decent picture of food. Come on up and I’ll bake you several.
Thanks Liza. See above re: Pictures.
They were delicious Michael. Thanks for stopping by.
No Bro. I’m not talking about the MacLeod’s store that you’re thinking of. I’m talking about Smitty McLeod’s, the blacksmith. We’d go down and have our pie while watching him shoe the draught teams. Sure it was hot, noisy and smoky in there, and you’d occasionally get burnt by a glowing piece of metal while he made the shoes on the anvil but the pies were worth it.