JennaDish

Golden Syrup Buttermilk Pie

 

 
Saw an enticing-looking buttermilk pie on the website 101cookbooks.com.  Never had it. Had to make it.

What do you think, Gracie?

Never mind.

I don't make pies too often - about once a year.  Therefore I'm not an expert, yet.  The actual dough mixing and rolling went just fine.  Prebaking, though, is tricky and I goofed it up the first time and it shrank.  Here's the great looking dough before baking...

 

 
and here it is afterwards, dagnabbit (in the spirit of the reality show, Gold Rush, I feel like talkin' like a prospector now) ...

 

 
So my pie dun went all shrinky dink on me.  This is on a count of I didn't get this here pie dough cold enough afore bakin' it.  I went an' gave it another go with these here itty bitty pies

 

 
an' put 'em in the freezer for dang near 30 minutes, which kep 'em from shrinkin' whilst they was bakin'.  

Well, bust my britches, it worked!

Yee hah!  Lookie here ...

 

 
Pay you no mind to the pie on the fer side there.  It ain't nowheres near as bad it looks.  They both are right near perty.  I'm a fixin' to shed me a tear.

 

 

An' oh the taste o' this here pie is like ... is like....

Wow, I just googled "How to talk like a prospector" for a little help, and great balls o' fire, you ain't a gonna believe this.  We just missed Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day by one week.  I think I got some kinda ESP startin' ta talk like a prospector afore I even knew they went an' made a special day just fer it.

OK I'm tired now.  Scooby doo wave.  Scooby doo wave. Scooby doo wave. I'm me again now.

Here's the recipe... I didn't have the two main ingredients (real buttermilk and maple syrup) so I adapted it greatly, therefore I changed the name from Maple Buttermilk Pie to Golden Syrup Buttermilk Pie.  Turned out terrific.  Seriously, I took one bite and I turned into an animal, with my arm moving a piece to my mouth every 2 seconds, my eyes darting to the sides to check if someone was around to take my pie.  Or to judge me.

Golden Syrup Buttermilk Pie
Compliments of JennaDish

adapted from www.101cookbooks.com

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

Rye Pie Dough (makes enough for 2 single crusts - only need one for this recipe)

2/3 cup rye flour

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter, cold
1/4 - 1/3 cup cold water

Pie Filling
zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons brown sugar
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Lyle's Golden Syrup
2 cups buttermilk (made my own with 2 cups skim milk + 2 Tblsp white vinegar, let sit 10+ min)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract plus a squeeze of vanilla bean, if available
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Sanding sugar, for sprinkling

 

Pie Dough:

 

Put flours, salt, and butter in that order, in food processor.  Pulse a few times and stop when butter is in large chunks, pea-sized or larger.  Pour in 1/4 cup cold water then quickly pulse a few times. DON'T overprocess. Check the consistency - should hold together when squeezed between fingers.  At this point, I usually go ahead and add another 1 Tablespoon cold water and run a couple of seconds just to make sure it's not too dry.  Your call.

Empty dough onto a clean board, divide into two equal parts, and shape into two rounds and flatten a bit.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap or in plastic baggies.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer.  When ready to roll, remove one half from refrigerator, let sit about 5-10 minutes so it's not too cold to roll out.

 

Preheat oven to 375^oF with a rack in the bottom third.

 

Roll dough on floured surface (leave other in fridge a couple days or freeze, well-wrapped a few weeks).  Roll dough away from you one direction, then another direction, then flip over and keep rolling and moving and flipping in this way so dough doesn't stick to anything.  Roll to 11-12-inch inches around. 

 

Line a 9-inch pie plate with the pie dough. Trim overhang to about 1 1/2 inches of dough past the rim of the plate edge. Tuck the overhanging dough under, and crimp with a fork or your fingers. Poke the crust a few times with a fork, then place in the freezer for at least 20 minutes while you make the filling.

For filling, combine lemon zest, brown sugar, egg yolks, and flour in a medium bowl. Whisk until the flour is lump free. Gradually add the golden syrup, stirring. Add buttermilk, vanilla, vanilla bean if using, and sea salt.  Set aside or in fridge if longer than 20 minutes.

 

Pre-bake the pie shell. To do this, line with parchment paper, fill to the top with pie weights (or heavy beans or pennies), and bake until lightly golden, about 20 minutes. Remove the weights with parchment, and continue baking for another 10 minutes, until golden.  May want to place a pie edge protector or make-shift foil ring if edges are getting too golden too soon.  Remove to wire rack.

Lower the oven temperature to 325^oF.

Let the pie shell cool completely.  When ready to bake, place on a wire rack over a baking sheet (to avoid toasting the bottom of crust by direct contact with hot baking sheet), and fill with most of the filling. Place in oven near edge in order to pour remaining filling in shell, quickly. Bake until the filling is set, about an hour. Carefully remove from oven, sprinkle with sanding sugar, and cool on a rack.  Cooled pie slices cleaner than warm pie.

If making mini pies, they take the same amount of baking time for the filling.  Prebaking may take slightly less time - keep an eye on it.  I would recommend covering the edge of pie crust the entire 1 hour of filling baking time.  Peak near end and remove protector if edge needs to be more golden.

 

 

 

Baked Buffalo Wings

These are the hot wings Alyssa made this year on New Year's Day.  Delish.
 

I got fancy with the empty Frank's RedHot bottle.

Baked Buffalo Wings
Compliments of JennaDish

from Leesah on Allrecipes.com

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
20 chicken wings
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup hot pepper sauce (such as Frank's RedHot®)

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and lightly grease with cooking spray. Place the flour, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt into a resealable plastic bag, and shake to mix. Add the chicken wings, seal, and toss until well coated with the flour mixture. Place the wings onto the prepared baking sheet, and place into the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Whisk together the melted butter and hot sauce in a small bowl. Dip the wings into the butter mixture, and place back on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink in the center, and crispy on the outside, about 45 minutes. Turn the wings over halfway during cooking so they cook evenly.

 

Banoffee Cheesecake (Banana Cheesecake with Caramel Sauce)

 

 

 

Evidently banoffee is a British term for a dessert that includes bananas, cream and toffee (we go by caramel in the U.S.).  Bananas + toffee = banoffee.  Unless Wikipedia is wrong. But I don't think so.  When I was in graduate school, we were thoroughly warned about the evil Wikipedia and how it can't be relied upon for research.  But I don't think it's a big stretch to trust that someone in England decided it would be cute to call bananas and toffee ban-offee. 

Either way - this was great.  Didn't have much of a banana taste, which I will take responsibility for.  I was supposed to use overripe bananas but I had none.  I had to buy new ones and hope they would ripen a lot overnight....

They didn't do too bad.  These front bananas looked like the back bananas when I bought them.  To hasten the ripening process, put the bananas in a closed paper bag with an apple.  Put them in a warm place but not necessarily over an open fire, or else you'll have a flaming bag of bananas.

Did you know you can freeze bananas?  Oh yes.  Yes, you can. I toss them in the door of my fridge whole, peel and all.  Turns black.  When ready to use, just thaw on counter for 15 minutes or so and unpeel.  They will be very mushy but perfect for recipes like this one or banana bread. 

 Wow this was close.  I think I might need a bigger food processor.

 This was the star of the show, though.  

The caramel sauce is made from Lyle's Golden Syrup (tastes like a thick, mellow honey) and brown sugar and butter.  Triple yum.

This is a make-the-day-before recipe because it needs to sit in the fridge overnight.  When you are ready to bake, all cold ingredients should be room temperature, so put the cream cheese out in a bowl, sans wrapper, about an hour ahead.  You can take the chill off eggs by putting them in a bowl of lukewarm water for about 10-15 minutes.

Banoffee Cheesecake
Compliments of JennaDish

from Nigella Kitchen by Nigella Lawson

SERVES 10

for the base:
18 sheets graham crackers, crushed (for 2 1/2 cups crumbs)
6 Tablespoons soft unsalted butter

for the cheesecake:
4 overripe medium-sized bananas
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 8-ounce bars cream cheese, room temperature
6 eggs
3/4 cup (packed) plus 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar

for the caramel sauce:
7 Tablespoons soft unsalted butter
1/2 cup golden syrup (such as Lyle's Golden Syrup)
1/3 cup light brown sugar

A 9-inch springform cake pan
A roasting pan, for a water bath

Preheat the oven to 325^o and put a full kettle on to boil (measure amount of water you'll need for water to go 1/2 way up the round pan in your roasting pan- I need more like 2 kettles full).  Wrap the outside (underneath and sides) of your springform pan with a double layer of plastic wrap, then cover that with a double layer of aluminum foil.  (No, the plastic wrap will not melt.)  This will act as a waterproof casing to protect the cheesecake as it sits in its water bath.

Process the graham crackers (I put them in a plastic zip bag and crushed them with a rolling pin first because my current food processor doesn't do a great job with crackers) with the 6 Tablespoons of butter until you have a sandy rubble that is beginning to clump, and press into the bottom of the prepard pan.  Set this in the refrigerator and clean out, thoroughly, the processor bowl - no crumbs.

Mash the bananas well with a fork (I used a potato masher), add the fresh lemon juice, and set aside.

Process the cream cheese until smooth, then add the eggs and sugar.  Last, add the mashed bananas with lemon juice, processing until you have a smooth mixture.

Put the wrapped springform pan in the middle of the roasting pan, and pour the cheesecake filling into your springform.

Now put the roasting pan with springform into the oven and pour the recently boiled water into the roasting pan so that it comes halfway up the springform.  Cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes, checking after 1 hour.  The very center of the cheesecake should still have a hint of a wobble, but should seem set on top.  (In my oven, this took 1 hour and 15 minutes total - heed the "hint of a wobble" more than the exact time).

Remove from the oven and, still wearing your oven mitts, take the springform out of the water bath and place on a cooling rack.  Gently and carefully peel away the outside layers of plastic wrap and foil, and let the cheesecake continue cooling on the rack. (Do not unmold until after refrigerated overnight).

Put the cheesecake into the refrigerator but dont' cover it till it's fully chilled, then leave overnight - and remember to remove it from the refrigerator about 1/2 hour before you want to eat it. (Actually mine sat out only 10-15 minutes and it unmolded beautifully.)

To make the sauce, melt the butter with the golden syrup and sugar in a saucepan over a gentle heat until everything comes to a bubble, then let it bubble, keeping an eye on it for 1-2 minutes.  It will be a foamy, amber mixture like liquid honeycomb.  Then let it cool slighly before pouring into a small pitcher and leaving to cool further; it will thicken as it cools.

To help unmold the cheesecake, work a thin, flexible spatula around the top edge, before unspringing from the pan, then put it on a serving plate, preferably one with a lip.  Whisk the caramel sauce in the pitcher and drizzle some over the cheesecake, leaving the rest for people to add greedily as they eat.