Tag Archives: cream

Peanut Butter Cream Pie (Redux)

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Peanut Butter Cream PieI’ve done a Peanut Butter Cream Pie in a previous blog post.  You can see it here.  Why do it again?  One:  it’s Peanut Butter Cream Pie.  The question is why not do it again.  The previous pie was a dense, sinful confection.  This version is whisper light and airy, but don’t be fooled.  This pie contains a whopping 4 cups of whipping cream.  You read that correctly.  2 cups in the pie, 2 cups on top.  YUM!  Add to that 8 ounces of cream cheese and some peanut butter and you have a calorie extravaganza.

On the plus side, making this pie is incredibly easy.  It’s seriously no bake, and it doesn’t have to sit in the fridge for hours.  The pie is perfect for a pot luck, or a thrown together dessert just because.  The recipe is very novice cook friendly, and definitely within the abilities of younger budding chefs, provided they can use a mixer safely.

I had this pie at one of Emeril Legasse’s restaurants in New Orleans.  Before he became a mega start and the BAM! guy,  I actually met him.  Granted, he was on Food Network, when they actually cooked on that network.  But, not many cable companies had the channel (mine didn’t!).  He very nicely came out to my table to autograph a cookbook my father and I bought for my mother.    The food was spectacular that night, but meeting and conversing with him was tremendous.  Despite the passage of time, the memories of the pie stuck with me.    Light, airy, yet rich and creamy all at the same time.  Truly the perfect ending to a summer cookout.  When I was recently invited to a cookout, I brought this pie.

I made just a few changes to this recipe in the margins, but there’s no denying my inspiration was Emeril’s pie.  For the original recipe, click here.  Some general notes, though. I love natural peanut butter because mostly I hate transfat.  However, you need the “no stir” natural peanut butter for this recipe to really work.  Also, I always use Philadelphia brand Cream Cheese.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners sugar, sifted
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons heavy cream
4 cups (minus the two tablespoons used above) heavy cream, whipped until thick
1 Oreo Pie Crust (store bought, may use any crumb crust, though)
1/2 cup chocolate shavings

In a mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar and peanut butter. Mix until light and creamy. Add the heavy cream and mix well. Fold in half of the whipped cream. Whip the ingredients together with whip attachment on the mixer to thoroughly combine.

Spread peanut butter mixture into pie shell. Refrigerate for at least an hour, until set. Top with remaining whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

http://dawnoffood.com

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

 

New England Clam Chowder

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As a kid I LOVED Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder.   As I began cooking more for myself, there’s no comparison between canned soup and homemade.  Gumbo is the biggest example of this disparity.  Canned gumbo and actual gumbo are two entirely different species.  Would homemade New England Clam Chowder be that much better?  I had to find out.

I also vividly remember the moment when I, as a child,  ordered Clam Chowder at a restaurant and something very much not New England Clam Chowder was put in front of me:  Manhattan clam chowder.    For the longest time, I just thought it was me who found the Manhattan version awful.  When searching for a recipe to try for New England Clam Chowder, I came across James Beard’s opinion on the Manhattan Version.  In his introduction to Miss Farmer’s Recipe for Rhode Island Clam Chowder his American Cookery:

This is the closest bridge I have found to that rather horrendous soup called Manhattan clam chowder.  It is a sensible recipe and takes away the curse of the other, which resembles a vegetable soup that accidentally had some clams dumped in it.

Pretty much sums up my feelings on the non-New England version.

Now, I am usually all about using the traditional old recipes.  But in this case, a slightly more modern version ended up being more simple and easily done.  Traditional clam chowder has the following narrative:

Cook clams, chop clams, reserve cooking liquid.  Render fat from salt pork, sauté onions in salt pork fat.  Parboil potatoes for 5 minutes.  Arrange onions in the bottom of a heavy sauce pan and top with a layer of half of the potatoes.  Add the salt pork pieces, chopped clams, second layer of potatoes and salt and peppers.  Cover with boiling water and cook.  Add scaled milk, bring to a boil, add crackers soaked in milk and the reserved clam liquid.  Lastly, add a bit of flour and butter that have been kneaded together, return to the boiling point and serve.

You can find the above version in Fannie Farmer and other famous New England cookbooks.  I agree with James Beard that it appears this recipe allows the clams to cook for too long.  Plus, I would worry the onions would burn.  I’m sure they wouldn’t, but didn’t see the point of testing it out.

So, I came across a little recipe in Beard’s American Cookery that seemed easy, yet captured the spirit of the New England Clam Chowder.  As a plus, it is cracker (and gluten) free!  As an extra bonus, this recipe is shockingly cheaply made.  At Whole Foods, I grabbed a pound of frozen clam meat for $6.99.   Heavy Cream was an additional $4.99 for a quart (I don’t use it all), add a couple of potatoes, an onion, few stalks of celery, and a few strips of bacon and you are good to go!    The recipe below was inspired by Beard’s “My favorite Clam Chowder” recipe from American Cookery.  The family loved it and I’ll never eat canned chowder again.  It was really, really good!! It also makes a great weeknight dinner!

New England Clam Chowder
Serves 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes

3 slices of thick slab bacon
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
2 cups of water, salted
2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced
Salt and Pepper
1 pound frozen clam meat with frozen clam juice (or cooked clam meat with juice)
3cups heavy cream (may substitute half and half)
Butter
Thyme
Chopped parsley

Cook the bacon in a sauté pan over medium heat, until fat is rendered and bacon is crisp. Remove bacon and add the onion and celery and sauté until translucent, or just slightly brown and remove from heat. In a 4 quart sauce pan, bring the salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes, cooking until just tender. Add the bacon, onion, celery, salt and pepper to taste, and the clams and heavy cream, simmering until the clams are no longer frozen. Bring to a boil and remove from the heat. Correct the seasoning. According to Mr. Beard, serve with a “dollop of butter, merest pinch of thyme, and a bit of chopped parsley”.

Clam Chowder

Clam Chowder

Strawberry Shortcake

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I have a love/hate relationship with Strawberry Shortcake.  I generally have a “no fruit”  dessert policy, save apple and pumpkin pie.    Why waste my few precious carb calories on a dessert with no chocolate?  Seems like madness, truly.

The other thing is, well, I thought shortcake sort of sucked.  It’s either made with that yellow spongy crap that I now realize is the yellow spongy cake that makes up a Twinkie.  Well played, Hostess.  Tell people that all they have to do is spray whipped cream into these yellow dimpled cake shells and top with strawberries.  Voilà!  Strawberry “shortcake”!  Or, it’s made with cut up store bought Angel Food Cake.  Ugh.

A few years ago I had a berry shortcake at a small restaurant in Annapolis called “O’Leary’s”.  Honestly, the other desserts looked terrible.  “Terrible” being defined as a dessert “containing chocolate that was contaminated with fruit”.   Is there a rule that raspberries must be in a chocolate dessert?  Anyway, it was an order of last resort.   My low expectations were exceeded when a lovely confection was placed in front of me.  A tender, yet crispy biscuit split and oozing thick whipped cream topped with berries of all colors.  What was this?  Where was the Angel Food or bland yellow cake?  Instead, I got an actual “shortcake” and it was amazing.  Despite it being really good, I had no desire at the time to make it because of the whole lack of chocolate thing.

So, I’m reading the Wall Street Journal the other day and come across an article about how the French are up in arms about whether an establishment can be called a “restaurant” when it doesn’t actually cook all of the food served.  Some of the food, gasp, is frozen and prepared off site.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323398204578488990597549094.html0597549094.html

This article brought me back to my shortcake experience, and other brushes with mass produced food being used in a “restaurant”.  The “semi-homemade” take on strawberry shortcake is far removed from the real dessert.  The same could be said for dry chocolate cake or waxy “New York Style” cheesecake.  Most desserts at restaurants are so lackluster.  They pretty much taste like they came from Costco, Restaurant Depot, or some other mass production facility.   I was very sad to learn that Molten Chocolate Cake dessert can be microwaved in a minute and served.  Sigh.

One time, at Outback Steakhouse, my plate came out with a plastic bag on it.  Inside the bag were my veggies, freshly microwaved, I presume.    Honestly, it’s why I cook.   I know where my stuff comes from and who made it.

So, inspired by some of the most esteemed names in French Cooking saying they had to preserve the French Cuisine, I wanted to make a real, authentic shortcake.  My small attempt to rescue the true shortcake from the “dessert shell” purgatory it’s currently in.   On the plus side, there are plenty of old recipes.  On the minus side, they are all different.   Of course they are!!!

First of all, shortcake is not so named because the cake is short.  It’s because a fat inhibits the flour from forming long structures.   Adding a fat (in this case two, butter and shortening) creates the “short” part of the shortcake.    Shortcake also got a boost of lightness from the advent of chemical leaveners like baking soda and baking powder.    Traditional English shortcakes made without chemical leavening are extremely dense.

I think it’s amazing that a classic dessert is built around the humble strawberry.  A fruit that, realistically, was only available for a very few weeks every year.   Strawberries are fragile and they have a short harvest season.  Despite the restricted availability of strawberries during her time, Fannie Farmer has no fewer than 3 dessert recipes for just Strawberry Short Cake in just one of her cookbooks.  She also has one for “Fruit Short Cake”, which, according to Mrs. Farmer may also include strawberries.  The dessert called for the strawberry  to be paired with a quick cooking “shortcake”.  Originally, whipped cream was not part of the dessert.   Just a sweetened shortcake, strawberries, sugar and butter.  By the mid-1800s, whipped cream became integrated into the recipe.

While any berry could be used, the dessert is synonymous with strawberries.  You can certainly make a “raspberry shortcake”, but let’s just say they didn’t name a doll “Raspberry Shortcake”. This is certainly a classic summer recipe.  And, really, making the shortcake is very easy.  Make the whole dessert and really, you won’t be disappointed.

I love cooking from extremely old, some would say “historic” cookbook.  I feel a bit like an archeologist trying to recreate the exact dish the author did over a hundred years ago!  I picked a very traditional recipe from Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book called:  Rich Strawberry Short Cake, she credits a “Hotel Pastry Cook” with the recipe.

Rich Strawberry Short Cake

2 cups of flour
1/4 cup of sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup butter (about 5 1/3 tablespoons butter, diced)
1 1/4 tablespoons lard or vegetable shortening
1 egg, well beaten
2/3 cup of milk
1 pint strawberries, washed and quartered with tops removed
Sugar
1 quart heavy whipping cream

Heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease 12 inch cast iron skillet with lard.

Mix dry ingredients and sift twice. Work in butter and lard to the flour mixture, until mixture appears crumbly. Add egg and milk. Stir until the dry ingredients are moistened. You may need to add a bit more milk if there is still a lot of dry flour. Place mixture in the cast iron skillet, and use your hands to spread mixture into the pan. (Tip, oil hands first!) Bake until the bottom is lightly browned and a slight crust is apparent when the shortcake is touched, about 12 minutes.

While the shortcake is baking, sprinkle enough sugar on the strawberries to sweeten the fruit and slightly macerate, about 1-2 tablespoons, depending on the strawberries.

Whip the cream until stiff peaks are formed. If sweet whipped cream is preferred, add a tablespoon of sugar to the cream while it is being whipped. A bit of vanilla extract (a teaspoon) can be added too.

Split shortcake, add whipped cream and strawberries layered with the shortcake, and serve.

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Peanut Butter Cream Pie

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You’re invited to a cookout. You want to bring something, but what? You could pick something up at the local supermarket. I find those foods sort of sit because people want to try the homemade stuff first. But you are busy, right? No time for homemade. Or, maybe your cooking skills just aren’t up to where you would like them to be.

You want to take something that will be the talk of the picnic. You want to be fawned over. I get it. Who doesn’t? No one wants to be potato salad #3 at a picnic with 5 different types of potato salad.

So, I offer the following dessert: Peanut Butter Cream Pie. Why? Because, frankly, fruit desserts just aren’t my thing, with the exception of apple pie. Peanut Butter Cream Pie combines some of my favorite ingredients: cream, sugar and peanut butter. What’s not to love? It’s not like Chocolate Cream Pie, so don’t be worried about whether the pie will “set” or if you will need to serve it in bowls. If you have a mixer and a freezer, you can totally make this dessert. It’s that easy. I found this dessert years ago in New Orleans at Emeril’s. He put the recipe for it in his cookbooks and now, on his webpage. The pie is crazy easy. Combine peanut butter, cream cheese, confectioner’s (powdered or 10x) sugar and whipped cream. Pour into crumb crust. Freeze. Done. Seriously. If you want to be fancy, melt some chocolate and stripe the top of the pie.

Some caveats. This is a really rich pie, so cut the slices small. You will want to cut a hunk of pie off and eat it. Don’t. You can’t. My 10 year old son who grows 6 inches a year tried and couldn’t. Also, you need to not just like peanut butter, you need to love it.

Now, I mentioned that I was inspired by Emeril to make this recipe, and I was, but this recipe is inspired by Martha Stewart. Why? Well, Emeril called for 4 cups of cream and Martha 2. I had 2. So, the winner was Martha! Her original recipe can be found here: http://www.marthastewart.com/258413/chocolate-peanut-butter-pie

My deviations are the crust and the amount of peanut butter. I looked at a pre-made graham cracker crust, but that had trans fats. So, I was resigned to the fact that I was going to have to make a crust. I thought chocolate wafer crust would be the best, but the thought of taking the middles out of a ton of oreos made me weep. Luckily, on my travels to three different grocery stores (can’t 1 just have everything I need?), I found an oreo cookie crust with no trans fat or other terribly nasty ingredients, so I went with it. As a result, that last minute find made this recipe super easy and fast. I reduced the peanut butter by 1/4 cup just to bring a little more balance to the pie.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie
Serves 6-8
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

6 ounces of cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (sifted)
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups heavy cream
1 oreo pie crust
1 ounce semisweet chocolate, melted, for decorating

Cream together the cream cheese, sugar and salt, until well combined and “fluffy”. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and beat until combined. In a separate mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Loosen the peanut butter mixture by folding in about a third of the whipped cream. Add the rest of the cream to the peanut butter mixture and, using a mixer with a whip attachment, whip until well combined.

Pour peanut butter mixture into oreo pie crust and freeze for about 2 hours. Place melted chocolate in a freezer bag and snip a small opening on a corner of the bag. Drizzle chocolate on the pie and serve.

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