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Humble pie

They're not fancy or pretentious, but pies are part of a longstanding American love affair. And cream pies may just take the cake.

By JANET K. KEELER
Published April 13, 2005

	[Times photo: Scott Keeler]
	Butter Brickle Banana Cream Pie combines homemade crunchy butter brickle with soft vanilla cream and sweet bananas in a blissful harmony.
	Pie recipes

I've found a recipe for a banana cream pie with attitude that you must serve at your next dinner party.

Or perhaps for a party of one.

Butter Brickle Banana Cream Pie combines the familiar soft banana slices, smooth vanilla filling and luscious topping of whipped cream with the nutty-sweet-buttery candy bits famously laced in ice cream. Your mouth jitterbugs with each bite: Salt jives with sweet, and silky jukes with crunchy.

Make your own crust. Or don't. This recipe can be as simple or as complicated as time and patience allow.

That's true for most cream pies whose fillings are prepared on the stove and then poured into a cooked pie shell. They set up over several hours in the refrigerator, which puts them in the icebox pie category.

And anyway, who wants to have the oven on long enough to set custard or cook fruit pies during the long Florida summer?

John Phillip Carroll praises the cream pie in his new cookbook, Pie Pie Pie (Chronicle Books, $19.95). His is the second cookbook published in the past year about America's love affair with pies. Ken Haedrich's 300-recipe tome is simply called Pie (Harvard Common Press, $24.95). With a dessert that beloved, why call a book about it anything else?

"Cream pies and custard pies are similar in that they are based on milk and eggs, but for the cook, cream pies are easier and more forgiving," writes Carroll. "That's because their fillings are thickened with cornstarch and cooked on the stovetop."

Fillings made with cornstarch stand up to boiling temperatures even when left on the stove a bit too long, but overbaked custards lose their silkiness and can be rubbery.

If you lose interest in making a crust or blow it altogether, cream pie filling can be served as an old-fashioned, homemade pudding. Nice to have a fall-back, isn't it?

Custard and cream pies share another trait: They are best served fresh, within 24 to 48 hours of preparation. A fruit pie can last up to a week in the refrigerator, but custard and cream pies weep and lose their shape. The crust becomes soggy.

A Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cream Pie lived three days in our refrigerator sans whipped cream topping. Each piece was dressed with a leaning tower of canned whipped cream as it was cut. This helped lengthen its life.

That's another thing: Whip the cream yourself or buy it in a tub or pressurized can. Do not let limited time or skills keep you from making a cream pie.

I don't.

I do not come from a tradition of piemakers. The first time I made crust from scratch, my mother cursed my future attempts by implying it was a waste of time. Don't they sell frozen pie shells at the grocery store?

I've not made a gorgeous pie crust since, as witnessed by the photo of the Butter Brickle Banana Cream Pie accompanying this story. The crust slinks down the pan while cooking (yes, I pricked it more than 100 times, and I've also tried pie weights).

Rolling it evenly and relatively round is also a problem. Crimping and fluting the edges? Somehow, mine always look more Dali than Vermeer.

A former sister-in-law gave me a no-fail pie crust recipe. It failed.

Let's just agree to call my pies "rustic."

My mother was right, though: Prepared pie crusts are sold at grocery stores. Buy them formed in tins or in frozen disks to thaw and press into your own pans. Follow cooking instructions on the packages.

Beyond pastry crusts, ready-to-use graham cracker or chocolate cookie crumb crusts are widely available and often come in reduced-fat versions.

Crumb crusts are suitable for cream pies and easier to make than pastry crusts because they are pressed into pans rather than rolled out.

Add the Nutty Graham Cracker Crust recipe used for the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cream Pie to your recipe files. Its versatility will elevate any pie, including one filled with instant pudding and topped with Cool Whip, a favorite of kids learning to cook.

The version I made included dry roasted peanuts, but the nutty flavor can come from pecans, pistachios, macadamias, almonds or walnuts, or a combination.

Use your judgment when adding melted butter to the dry ingredients. If it all comes together when pressed in your hands, the mixture is ready to pack into a pie pan. If not, add more melted butter in small amounts.

More tips from Pie and Pie Pie Pie :

Gently press a piece of plastic wrap over the filling to keep a skin from forming as it cools. Don't leave any gaps, or moisture will puddle there.

Cover icebox pies with loosely tented aluminum foil, not plastic wrap, which can cling to the surface. Bunch the foil around the edges, letting it form a dome in the center.

Prepare whipped cream immediately before serving. Whipped cream will break down overnight.

Unless otherwise specified, milk in cream pie recipes can be whole, low-fat or skim.

The Butter Brickle Banana Cream Pie recipe is a keeper. The most daunting part of the recipe is making the butter brickle, which actually is no more difficult than scrambling eggs.

Sugar, butter and sliced almonds are heated in a skillet until the butter and sugar melt and the mixture browns. Pour the melange on a large piece of foil to cool and harden. Break in pieces by hand or make the brickle finer in a food processor.

Butter brickle is worth the effort even if you don't make the pie. Stir crunchy bits into ice cream or sprinkle over a strawberry-spinach salad.

A little attitude never hurts.

-- Janet K. Keeler can be reached at 727 893-8586 or krieta@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 12, 2005, 12:51:04]