Tag Archive for: whipping cream

Strawberry Pie

It is such a beautiful day outside, and the weather is supposed to stay like this for a while.  I love spring time.  It makes me feel like we will be at the beach in no time at all- which of course is a wonderful and horrifying thought all at the same time.  Everything is so fresh and bright, and a strawberry pie pretty much describes my mood and this weather exactly.  Here is a favorite easy recipe that will put you in a good mood even if winter is trying to hang on in your area!

Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:

1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked
1 quart fresh strawberries
1 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Arrange half of strawberries in baked pastry shell. Mash remaining berries and combine with sugar in a medium saucepan. Place saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water. Gradually stir cornstarch mixture into boiling strawberry mixture. Reduce heat and simmer mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour mixture over berries in pastry shell. Chill for several hours before serving. In a small bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form. Serve each slice of pie with a dollop of whipped cream.

Hot Chocolate Pudding

Every year when I was little, we would spend either Thanksgiving or Christmas at my grandparent’s house.  It was always a lot of fun being with the whole family, but the best part every year was dessert.  My grandmother used to make the most amazing dessert that I had always known as “Gook” but that is not its actual name- actually it was hot chocolate pudding.  I don’t know why it was called that other than maybe a combination of gooey cake, but either way- it is awesome.  For some reason around when I was ten or twelve, we stopped having this as dessert, and while of course only complimentary things were said of the new dessert- everyone really just wanted the “Gook” back.  I decided to make it for dessert last week mainly because the weather seemed to call for a hot dessert, and I hadn’t had this goodness in about twenty years.  It was everything I remembered and more.  The recipe calls for two squares of unsweetened chocolate.  I got the best unsweetened chocolate I could find at the grocery store as opposed to just the regular Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate.  I think better chocolate equals better dessert.  The squares however were much bigger than the regular squares that you find, so I added extra sugar and milk to the recipe. The other slight adaption that I made was I only had skim milk, and I thought that heavier milk was probably needed.  I also had heavy whipping cream in the fridge, so I used a little more than half heavy cream and the rest skim milk- this worked well but probably whole milk would be best.  Also, the recipe says to grease and flour a double boiler.  I had never heard of this, nor had anyone at the store where I went to buy my double boiler.  The reason behind this is because the bottom and edges of the pudding get cakey- which is the desired effect, so if the double boiler is greased and floured- it is obviously easier to get out.  This might be the most decadent, rich and delicious chocolate dessert I have ever had because basically what you are making is not fully cooked brownies- it’s pretty awesome.  Enjoy!!

Hot Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients:

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp butter

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Beat egg and sugar together.  Melt butter and chocolate.  Add to sugar mixture, beating well.  Add vanilla and milk, then the flour sifted with the baking powder and salt.  Place in greased and floured double boiler for 1 hour.  Serve at once with whipped cream.

 

Peanut Butter Pie Fail

I love The Local Palate (www.localpalatemag.com), the new cooking/food magazine in Charleston.  Yesterday, they put up a link to all of their recipes http://www.localpalatemag.com/recipes.html, and I tried the Peanut Butter Pie recipe.  You know those days in the kitchen where everything goes wrong- you drop eggs on the floor, you burn butter, your flour explodes everywhere into a disastrous mess- that was pretty much my experience with trying to make a Peanut Butter Pie.  You know when you have those days, and despite all the mess and frustration, your dish turns out marvelously- well, that didn’t happen.  Ok- here is the recipe from the Local Palate-

Peanut Butter Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups peanut butter, smooth or chunky
1 pound cream cheese
¼ cup powdered sugar
1 pint heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
3 large egg yolks
1 Oreo cookie prepared pie shell
4 tablespoons peanuts, toasted
4 ounces shaved bittersweet chocolate

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, whip together peanut butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Pour cream into a second mixing bowl or stand mixer. Whip cream with vanilla bean seeds to stiff peaks.

Fill bottom of double boiler with water and place on medium-high heat on the stove. Place egg yolks in top of double boiler and lightly temper egg yolks until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let come to room temperature.

Fold eggs into peanut butter mixture.

Fold in whipped cream with peanut butter mixture. Combine thoroughly.

Pour mixture into prepared Oreo pie shell. Top with peanuts and shaved chocolate. Place in freezer for 2 hours. Use a warm knife to serve.

Now- here is what went wrong.  First of all- I could not find an Oreo pie shell as the store, so no big deal, I got a chocolate pie shell. Next, I decided to use my stand mixer to mix the heavy cream and my hand mixer to mix the peanut butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar together.  Bad idea.  Perhaps I might have used too small of a bowl, but mixing cream cheese, peanut butter and powdered sugar is not so easy- but mess aside- got it done.  Now to the heavy cream and the seeds of a vanilla bean.  I got some of the seeds out and the rest all over me, so I added some vanilla extract, but despite the work to get the seeds- my heavy cream did not whip… at all.  It just stayed very milky and spraying everywhere.   A phone call to my mother informed me that even though the recipe said heavy cream, I should have bought heavy whipping cream or just whipping cream and fortunately she had some at her house.  In the mean time, I did not have a double boiler for the egg yolks- it took five attempts to get the three yolks needed.  Not only that, but in my homemade double boiler of two pots on top of each other, are you supposed to have the bottom pot boiling before you put on the eggs- I don’t know, but I did not have the water boiling before I added the eggs, so I am not sure if the eggs turned out correctly.  I took the eggs off of the stove to let them get to room temperature and rode my bike over to my mother’s to get her whipping cream.  She only had 1/2 a pint, but it whipped beautifully, so I then added half of mine that I had been mixing for 15 minutes to no effect.  Well, of course that diluted the whole mixture but I added it and the eggs to the peanut butter mix anyway.  This part all went ok- and I put it in the pie shell and froze it and it looked very pretty.  It really didn’t taste very good, and it wasn’t that it was horrible by any means, but just not great.  I don’t know if it was the eggs or the bad heavy cream or what, but if I was to attempt this again, I would get some good whipping cream, and I would cut the amount of cream cheese in half as it was a very strong flavor and kind of hid the peanut butter flavor, and I would double the amount of powdered sugar to 1/2 a cup.  I think you could do this without messing up the recipe too much as I had a ton of the pie filling left over.  I will say the chocolate pie crust was very tasty, and if you can’t find oreo- this works just as well!  Here’s to feeling like a complete beginner in the kitchen again!!

Strawberry Shortcake Done Proper

And old pal from childhood, Chris Ellinger, agreed to offer up his secret recipe for strawberry shortcake. According to Chris: “There’s a hundred versions of strawberry shortcake. Some use those store bought sponge cakes, some use lady fingers, some just use regular cake. These are all WRONG! You are cheating yourself if you don’t make it proper! You can use a regular biscuit recipe with a little extra sugar added, but if you want an extra rich real south Georgia shortcake, the secret is hard boiled egg yolks!”

So, listen close to some real strawberry shortcake expertise –

Preheat your oven to 425

 and sugar up your strawberries! Make sure to save some big’uns for the top!

Dry ingredients:
3 cups low-protein or all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons sugar
Wet ingredients:
1/3 cup COLD butter
4 egg yolks, hard boiled
1 1/4 cup whipping cream

Directions

Cut your butter and yolks into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender (NOT a mixer!). Don’t mash it up too much, just a coarse blend.

Add in the whipping cream and mix with a fork until all the dry is wet.

Knead and fold it out on the counter – not too much! The more folds you have the more layers you’ll get!

 You can either do individuals with a biscuit cutter or you can put it in a greased cake pan. I like to brush the top with a little whipping cream or buttermilk before baking.

Keep in oven until they are just turning gold on the edges – usually about 15 minutes.

Let cool on wire rack. If you made the cake pan size, remove from pan right away!

Whip up your cream with some sugar and a squirt of vanilla!

 Split your cake or biscuits in half and slop on some sugared berries. Whip cream and whole berries on top – Bingo.

(Thanks Chris!)