Alphabake: P: Portuguese Custard Pies

"Oh Blog, once again you have been neglected for far too long. I truly do apologize. Things have been so busy with school and work and moving. I have finally found a moment to myself, as I leisurely sit in front of the TV watching the Food Network ('Cupcake Wars', to be specific...aka TV gold)"...

Anyway, this week on Alphabake we are featuring two recipes that start with the letter 'P'. "Two recipes?!?," you ask? Yes, dear reader, and just to let you know, currently in my books the letter 'P' stands for "pain", "problematic", "pest", etc. Maybe I am being a tad dramatic, but you get the idea.

So, the first attempt to complete a recipe for letter 'P' was in the form of Peanut Butter and Sweet Banana Cookies from Anna Olson's Sugar: Simple Sweets and Decadent Desserts. It is a sandwich cookie recipe and unfortunately something went horribly wrong with the filling. It must have been something I did because I can't imagine anyone writing a recipe so that it would purposefully taste so horrid. Basically I had to caramalize some bananas and the sugar must have burned. I didn't have it cooking for very long at all but it turned dark so quickly. I used oil instead of butter because I didn't have any left and I think that might have lead to the rapid burning...but I'm not sure. Even though the filling was horrible, the actual peanut butter cookies were amazing on their own so I've posted the recipe at the end of this entry in case you want to just try making them (or even battle with getting the filling right).

About a week later I decided to try and tackle a new recipe. For quite a long time I had been eyeing one for Portuguese custard pies in Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef Takes Off. They reminded me of my trip to Lisbon. I also recently saw them featured on Jamie's 30-Minute Meals so they couldn't be too time consuming, right? WRONG!!! Ok, they weren't too difficult but they definitely took way longer than thirty minutes to make--at least they were super tasty.

My main problem was with the pie shells. The recipe calls for store-bought puff pastry which was easy enough but it took me a while to figure out how to bake it. In the book he uses glass tumblers, turns them upside down, greases and flours their bases, and then stretches and places the dough on top. On his TV show he baked them in a muffin tin. Since I didn't have any tumbler glasses I started with the muffin tin method. It was hard to roll out the dough because it tends to shrink back, and after it baked it formed a very shallow pie shell that wouldn't hold a lot of custard. I happened to have another roll of puff pastry so I started over and this time I took the muffin tin and flipped it upside down and stretched the dough over the cup bases and that seemed to work pretty well. A couple of other small alterations I made to the recipe were that instead of using vanilla pods and fresh nutmeg, I used vanilla extract and ground nutmeg since that is what I had.

Once I figured out a good technique for making the tart shells, things were pretty simple (although making the custard filling took a little while) and the results were great. The pastry turned out really crispy and delicious and the slight citrus notes in the custard was really pleasant. They were slightly different than the traditional custard pies I tried in Portugal, but definitely caputured their essence. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Pastry
approximately a 9-oz slab of puff pastry
1 large egg yolk
4 Tbls superfine sugar (caster sugar)
light grating of nutmeg (or a pinch of pre-ground nutmeg)
a couple of pinches of cinnamon

Custard
6 large eggs
4 generous tsps honey
2 vanilla beans, scored lengthwise and seeds removed (or a tsp vanilla extract)
zest of 1 orange
2 1/2 cups heavy cream

Caramel
1 big handful of superfine (caster) sugar
3 Tbs water

1) Dust a surface with flour and roll out your pastry to a bit bigger than a 9x11 inch piece of paper. Brush with the egg yolk and scatter the rest of the ingredients over, being subtle with the nutmeg and cinnamon.

2) Roll the pastry up tightly like a jelly roll to make a long sausage shape. With a knife, cut across the sausage into 1-inch pieces.

3) Preheat the over to 400F. Turn all the pieces of pastry swirl-side up and flatten them slightly. Dust the work surface and your pastry with flour, then roll each piece out into a thin circle (around the size of a teacup saucer).

Attempt # 1 (see introduction)

Attempt # 2

4) For this next step please see my comments in the introduction. Jamie Oliver wrote that he uses 8 sturdy glass tumblers. You should places a circle of pastry on top of each tumbler, pleating, pinching and hugging the pastry around them. Place the tumblers on a baking tray, pastry at the top, and put in the preheated oven for around 15 minutes, until crisp and golden....instead of using tumblers, I used a muffin tin that I flipped over, but then followed all of the other steps.

5) Remove from the oven and, while still hot, take a kitchen towel and pat the slightly raised top of the pastry back down onto the flat bottom of the tumbler--giving you a flat base again. Allow to cool and carefully remove the pastry cases from around the tumblers (or muffin tin bases).

6) For the custard, whip up the eggs, honey, vanilla seeds and orange zest in a bowl. At the same time, in a thick-bottomed pan, heat the cream until nearly boiling. Add it immediately to the rest of the ingredients in the bowl, while whipping fast with a whisk for 30 seconds.

7) Add the mixture back to the pan over medium heat, stirring continuously and using a spatula to get into the edges. This is a very quick and almost aggressive method of cooking a thick egg custard--which is normally done in a bowl over simmering water or in the oven in a bain-marie, like a brulee--so keep stirring to keep your custard smooth. When it gets as thick as thick yoghurt, spoon it into your pastry cases and allow to cool. A skin will begin to form on the top of each pie.

8) For the caramel topping, place the sugar and water in a pan. Bring to the boil and gently agitate until golden brown. At this point it will be hotter than hot. Dribble the mixture randomly over your custard tarts--it will bubble and cool to a crisp caramel. Place the pan in the sink and half fill with water before boiling it again to help with the cleaning process.

Makes 8 tarts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P: Peanut Butter Sweet Banana Cookies

Ingredients:

Cookies

1/2 cup (125ml) unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup (125ml) sugar

1/2 cup (125ml) golden brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract

1/2 cup (125ml) peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)

1 1/2 cups (375ml) all purpose flour

1 tsp (5ml) baking soda

1/4 tsp (1ml) salt (optional)

Filling

1 Tbsp (15 ml) unsalted butter, room temperature

4 1/2 tsp (22ml) golden brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 tsp (7ml) sugar

1 Tbsp (15 ml) rum

dash cinnamon

2 bananas, sliced

4 oz (125g) cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup (125ml) smooth peanut butter

1) Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Cream together butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Stir in peanut butter.

2) In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Add to peanut butter mixture and blend in.

3) Drop by tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and crisscross mark them with a floured fork. Bake for 9-11 minutes, until cookies just start to colour around the edges.

4) In a sauté pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add sugars and increase heat to medium-high. Stir until melted and bubbling. Add rum (watch out for flames) and cinnamon. Stir in bananas to coat and set aside.