Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pie, Charm City Cakes West and More!

Last night, I had chocolate banana peanut butter pie for dinner. Then I had a slice of my very first Charm City Cakeof the famous Ace of Cakes :)Wait…..what??Let’s rewind.

Sunday afternoon, thanks if great part to my beautiful friend, Taryn Olsen, KCRW, a rad local L.A radio station, hosted a pie contest at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). I found out about the contest 3 hours after the deadline to submit a pie had closed. Nuts. I may not have been able to enter the contest, but I sure as you-know-what was able attend and taste the entries!

Armed with my great friends, Amy and Courtney, we overtook the courtyard at LACMA. Adorned with aprons (if you wore an apron you got free admission to the exhibits) and excited to taste some pie, we waited in line in the hot sun. Apparently a few hundred other people had the same idea. The nerve…!

Amy and Courtney!

The beautiful Amy, sporting an Anthropologie apron!

As we neared the front of the line, the announcer called everyone wearing aprons to the stage. Why? Well, to participate in an apron fashion show, of course! Wearing my Lobster apron, I strutted myself around the museum grounds in a conga-esque line of fellow apron wearers. Yes, that’s right, kids – I did a little turn on the catwalk, maybe even, dare I say, I little better than Right-said-Fred. Yup – I said it! But, alas, I was not too sexy for my apron. No, no – in the end, my apron was too sexy for me. But I digress…

Waiting in the sunshine, and literally turning into a Lobster!

Ready to strut my stuff!

After the fashion show, we viewed over 200 pies, and an hour later, got to taste as many as we wanted. Savory pies, fruit pies, nut pies, cream pies – they were all accounted for and oh so delicious! What a great day!

A very cool, Tim Burton inspired pie in honor of the Tim Burton exhibit!

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Um….YUM!!

This is a beet and chocolate pie! Another salute to Tim Burton!

This displays some AMAZING skill!!

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James and the Giant Peach pie!! This one won in the fruit category.

Miles of pie!

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Not my cup of tea, but very interesting!

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Tim Burton? I think yes.

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Time to taste the pie!!

Devoured…

The winners’ ribbons! I want one!!

Eating pie with my beautiful friends 🙂 Aren’t they lovely?

Admittedly, pies are not my forte, but as you can imagine, I was inspired by the pie contest, and really would like to enter next year. But that requires some practice. 365 days worth…Duff (my pastry hero from Ace of Cakes) showed a restaurant on Sugar Highthat served a chocolate peanut butter banana pie a few weeks ago, and my mouth was watering. Pair that desire with my inspiration from the pie contest, and you have all the makings of an experiment in my kitchen! Oh yes…Peanut and graham cracker crust?

Check.Chocolate pastry cream?

The cookbook where I got the pastry cream recipe, compliments of my dear Pat and Phil 🙂 Thanks so much!!

Cooking the custard

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mmmm…chocolate…

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Adding the chocolate at the end – should have melted it first!!

Work in progress, but still very edible 🙂 I think I cooked it too long on the stove. Note taken.Bananas?

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Chop, chop, chop. Blonde proof. Phew!Peanut butter cream cheese “mousse?”

Easy. As. Pie.Ha ha.Caramelized bananas?

Sugar!

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Bananas arranged beautifully in the pan – it’s art!

Ahh…the cooking begins…

I wish you could have smelled these puppies!!Sprinkle the bananas and some chopped peanuts along the sides of the pie, let it set in the fridge, and you have my version of the chocolate peanut butter banana pie I saw on Sugar High!

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Ta-da! What is this “ta-da?”

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Onward, to the tasting! I took my first bite when the pie had just come out of the fridge. Not a heck of a lot of taste. But that makes sense, because the cold actually dulls the taste of your food! So I left the pie at room temp for 30 minutes. Bite #2? So good! Not too sweet, peanut buttery and delicious.

Bite numero uno!

Slowly disappearing….weird…

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But I never take just my word for it. Feedback is the name of the game! I had to test it. Ted not being home, I needed a little help from my friends. So up to apartment #18 I went to see my Chef friend, Chuck. He often hosts the neighbors in the building for dinner, so I figured he would have a sensitive enough palate for the test. I knocked and found him watching Iron Chef America with his mom, Shirley, who was in town visiting from Norther Cali! They were thrilled to get the pie, and promised to give me feedback. I am still awaiting sentencing 🙂 To be continued…

In the meantime, full from the pie, I got dressed up and went to an event I was invited to called The Inaugural LA Breast Cancer Fundraiser. A close friend of mine is a breast cancer survivor, so I went in support of her beautiful, beautiful self. Plus – Charm City Cakes West did the cake for the event! Yes – the same Charm City Cakes from Ace of Cakes with Duff Goldman! They opened up a place here in L.A a few months ago!! And they made a beautiful cake. A shout out to Anna, Katie Rose, Lauren, Katherine  and the rest of the crew for creating this masterpiece! You ROCK!

Beautiful!!

So not only did I get to support a good cause, and be there for a good friend, I also go to meet amazing new people, and I got to taste my first piece of a Charm City Cake! What more could a girl ask for?

I swear I didn’t cut that piece of out the cake! But I wanted too!

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My new friend Maya, trying on a pink wig for the cause!

I got to have my cake, and eat it too.

Have a beautiful weekend, friends! Sending you love and big hugs, and wishes for a glorious day!

Love always,
Lauren
xxx

Makes 3 cups

2 cups heavy whipping cream

6 large egg yolks

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 oz melted semi sweet chocolate

1. Heat the cream in a small saucepan until it just begins to simmer.

2. In another saucepan, whisk the eggs, sugar, flour and salt together until light and fluffy. Temper in the hot cream 1/4 cup at a time – whisk as you pour so that you don’t cook the eggs!

3.Once the mixture is tempered, add the rest of the hot cream to the egg mixture. Put it back on low heat and whisk until it thickens. This can take anywhere from 4-10 minutes. You’ll know it’s thick enough when it coats the back of a spoon and doesn’t run when you run your finger down the spoon.

4. Melt your chocolate.

5. Once the cream and egg mixture is at the desired thickness, take it off the heat and strain it into a bowl.

6. Add the melted chocolate. Stir just enough to incorporate it.

7. Cover the pastry cream DIRECTLY with saran wrap – yes – this means that the saran wrap must touch the cream directly. This ensures that no skin is formed!

8. Place in the fridge to cool.

8 oz cream cheese, softened (room temp)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4-1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, depending on how sweet you want it

Pinch of salt

1.Cream together the cream cheese and peanut butter.

2. Slowly add in the salt and confectioner’s sugar. Taste as you go and add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until you get the desired sweetness.

3. Set aside.

Once the chocolate pastry cream is cooled, make your crust:

1/4 cup peanuts, salted or unsalted

220g graham crackers (that works out to almost an entire row of graham crackers)

4-6 oz butter

Grind the peanuts and graham crackers together in a food processor. Pour into a bowl. Melt the butter and add to the crumbled mixture. Toss around with your hands until moist. If the mixture is still too dry, melt some more butter and keep adding a little bit at a time until the mixture sticks together. A good test is if you grab a bunch in your hand, squeeze, and then let go. If the mixture stays together in a ball, it’s good to go. If it crumbles, you need to add more butter.

1.Cover a pie dish with your crust, using your fingers to ensure the entire dish is covered.

2.Add your chocolate pastry cream so that it comes up the sides of the crust. Create a dip or valley in the middle of the pie so you can add bananas and filling.

3. Chop up 2 bananas and layer them on top of the chocolate pastry cream.

4. Cover them with the peanut butter mousse so the there is still a ring of chocolate pastry cream showing around the edges.

5. Caramelize your bananas (in a sauce pan, add 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 2 oz of butter and 2 bananas, sliced in half and then lengthwise. On medium heat, let the sugar and butter cook down. Be careful! Sugar gets hot fast! Stir the the bananas around and coat them in the sugar. At this point, you could add rum to the pan and sizzle them, but I didn’t do that. Take them off the heat before they get too soft) and chop your peanuts (about 2 tablespoons).

6. Chop the bananas and sprinkle them along the sides of the pie. Sprinkle the peanuts on top of the bananas. Refrigerate until ready to eat! Leave the pie at room temp. for about 30 minutes before serving to the flavors come out.

7. ENJOY!