The idea for this tart began with me wanting something just a little bit different from one of my favorite desserts: pecan pie. I’ll spare you the loose set of ideas that led to this final product and just get to the food–rather than a topping of exclusively pecans, through complete indecisiveness sheer brilliance, I used a mix of pecans, hazelnuts, and almonds. Then, in place of the usual corn syrup-based custard, I instead made a maple syrup and chocolate based custard.
Taste and texture-wise, the pecan pie heritage of this tart is very clear. All the tweaks add to what is still very much a pecan pie flavor foundation, and I loved it. You pick up the flavor of almond and hazelnut with deeper, dark sweet notes of chocolate and maple which I found was a great foil to the touch of cinnamon you get from the graham cracker crust. You still get that gooey custard filling with a nice, crunchy
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Posted by mike on December 8th, 2009 in Dessert, Pie
Before peach season entirely draws to a close, I felt I needed to have at least one peach pie in some shape or form. As we start to enter autumn and pecan season, this pie seemed like a natural bridge for my cravings (and entirely in line with other favorite pies of mine).
There are three major elements to this pie: the crust, the peach filling, and the pecan topping. I fell in love with each and the trio was a great mix. The crust was a pâte sablée (sweet pie dough) made with ground almonds for an assertive, sweet, but nutty flavor and a crisp, crumbly bite. The filling has the sweetness of peaches, accentuated by the tartness and added creaminess of quark (if you’ve never heard of it, it is a kind of cheese. I would compare it to a mix of cream cheese and sour cream as far as texture/flavor), the total combination of which is almost custardy
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Posted by mike on September 20th, 2009 in Dessert, Fruit, Pie
Mangoes hold a special place in my house. The only tricky thing is the weekly gamble where you think you have a good looking mango and hold your breath as you cut into it to discover whether or not you actually have a well disguised dud. Much to my delight, I chanced upon some incredible mangoes recently and thought I had to do something with them right away. I’ve done some mango desserts before, and I didn’t want to do more of the everyday kind of mango dishes, so I thought back to something I’d only had once before: mango pie.
I loved the taste when I’d first had it, but there was one thing I didn’t care for (and if you look into mango pie, you’ll find so many of them do the same): they’re gelatinous. Not just a little bit, but to the point where its distracting–as if the pie crust is simply a jello mold and not actually housing a
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Posted by mike on July 24th, 2009 in Dessert, Fruit, Pie
Strawberries were in season when I made this pie, but even more important than my strawberry obsession, I had a need to make a pie crust so I could get a photo of it (more on that a little further down). Given that rhubarb wasn’t gracing the grocery store shelves just yet and I couldn’t make my absolute favorite pie, strawberry cream pie seemed like a natural alternate choice.
Not wanting to be too boring, I had a few ideas to dress things up a bit. For instance, I’d recently read of an odd flavor combo that I was eager to try: strawberries and thyme. So I decided to incorporate both thyme and almonds into the pie crust and I’m very glad I did. The flavor was fantastic–buttery, rich, almondy, and the thyme was very distinct. I was honestly surprised by how nicely the almond and thyme enhanced one another and made the crust a force to be reckoned with. And
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Posted by mike on April 14th, 2009 in Dessert, Fruit, Pie
I recently mentioned beef as one of the go-to pregnancy ingredients lately. Another one: bananas. Of course, this was during the winter when not much other fruit was in season, and I really overdid the oranges to the point where my wife didn’t want to see another orange, so maybe I’m to blame for that one. I could have worse habits! 
Anyways, in honor of this, I decided to focus today’s dessert on bananas. It also seemed strange that in all the desserts I’ve posted up until now, there’s not a single banana dessert. I know, blasphemy! So to fix this at once, I decided to make a classic British dessert: Banoffee (also spelled Banoffi or Banoffy).
If you’ve never had this before, you’re probably wondering what’s up with the name? Its simple really: bananas + toffee = banoffee. Knowing that, you should be drooling now. I was when I first saw it and knew I had to try it. Its really quite
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Posted by mike on March 19th, 2009 in Dessert, Fruit, Pie
Winter is the time for comfort food. Adding to the collection of some warm-you-from-the-inside American comfort food, today I thought I’d share a dish that we’ve all had in some form at one point or another (and if you haven’t, you need to): chicken pot pie.
There are many ways you could approach a pot pie, but the core of it is the same: a rich, broth full of chicken and vegetables packaged in a flaky pie crust. Some would make individual serving sized pot pies (e.g. in ramekins), others would fill a casserole dish with the broth and lay pastry on top, while I have done pie crust on the top and bottom (like any other pie). What can I say, I like pastry!
While my resulting pot pie was not a looker (in retrospect, individual servings in something like ramekins would have looked better), the flavor was just awesome, if not the best chicken pot pie i’ve ever had. This
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Posted by mike on February 3rd, 2009 in Chicken, Main course, Pie
