My neighborhood foodies and bffs decided that our next food competition would be a pie contest. Now this was during the last week of school which you teachers know is like the BUSIEST TIME OF YEAR. So I didn't put more time into thinking about what to bake than necessary. In fact, it wasn't until the day before the contest that I finally decided to make a delicious sounding peanut butter chocolate banana cream pie. I was going for the husband vote.
I found the recipe while perusing my favorite food blogs. This recipe can be found on Joy The Baker's blog and though she only refers to it as peanut butter banana cream pie I had to add in the chocolate because I used the richest chocolate I could find in my pantry (70% cacao) and it was my favorite part of the whole pie.
It started out with a simple enough graham cracker crust. And I was in luck because my daughter and fellow contestant, Kika, had purchased a box of graham crackers. It had 3 packs of graham crackers in it and the entire crust just took one whole pack. I used my food processor to crush it all up. Oh and no need to grease the pie pan. I used a fancy ceramic pie plate I bought years ago from William-Sonoma. I hardly ever bake pies (fear of pie crust failure) so I was a tad excited.
Next up was the chocolate layer. It was super easy...I just chopped up the chocolate squares (I used one of those nut choppers. I could easily have just used a knife, too. I do that a lot. Once it was all chopped up, I put it in a metal bowl and set that bowl in a very small pot and it all melted up in a matter of a couple minutes. Then I just poured it on the baked pie crust and used a rubber spatula to spread it around.
Next up, lovely peanut butter layer. Yum. I used an organic peanut butter I bought at Costco. The oil separated but I just mixed it all in. Then I measured out the correct amount and put that in a small bowl and stirred it up until it was nice and smooth. This made it easier to spread out once I layered it upon the hardened chocolate.
I kept telling myself that I was just going to use a vanilla or banana cream pudding mix but I ended up making it from scratch as the recipe called for. I don't know that it made that much of a difference but it was good to know how easy it is to make it from scratch. E A S Y . The recipe said to use whole milk. I only had 1%. I wonder if whole milk would have made it a bit thicker. I bet it would have. I'll try it next time and report back. Or you can report back.
Here is a picture of saran wrap directly on the cream filling, a necessary step to prevent a "skin" from forming on the top. Personally I used to love to eat the skin whenever I made pudding as a kid. My favorite part but probably not on a competition pie.
So here it is...the not award winning pie. I just thought I'd tell you that right now. I didn't win.
Seriously, though, doesn't it look award winning? Doesn't it? I thought it did. But I was outdone by my very own flesh and blood. Yup. By my #2 girl, Kika. She's the one who hardly ever cooks. I cook. Or bakes. Kala'i bakes. But she was coerced into competing. And her grandma suggested Key Lime and she set out, with the help of our food network fav, Ina Garten, to produce the most delicious and beautiful Key Lim Pie. Ever. Although I don't think it was key limes. But who cares. It was delicious.
Here are the pies: key lime pbcbc pie (mine), pecan, apple crisp, peach, and berry crisp.
I am happy to report that I did not come in last place. In fact, my toughest competitor, Jo Kim (whose nickname is Betty Crocker amongst other names), voted for mine. We cut a piece out of each pie and we each took a bite out of each pie to see which we would vote for. My own husband (for whom I chose my pie) voted key lime. I voted key lime (I mean, seriously, look at it. It's gorgeous. It was frozen. It was full of lime zest. I am still dreaming about it). But once Jo took a bite of mine she proceeded to eat the rest of the slice. I don't know if others got to partake of it. She leaned in, scooted it towards her, and ate forkful after forkful.
Needless to say, the men thought it was the best food contest we ever had. Probably because chili and jambalaya 5 different ways is not too exciting.
Curry is up next.
