Joy the Baker

I like you.  I like you a lot.  I mean it… and I don’t think I’ve told you in a while.  Sweet.  I’m glad you’re here.

Would now be a good time to tell you that I have a serious, though not lasting, aversion to my kitchen these days?   I have an even more serious aversion to my oven.  For reals.

It’s just that… well, it’s summer!  There seems to be so many museums to visit, brunches to have, friends to laugh with, wine to drink… and somehow none of this fun takes place in my kitchen.

Amazingly, and through the miracle that is my freezer, I’ve managed to throw together a lovely and waaaay super easy summer recipe.  It’s apple pie meets snow cone, minus the cone, plus a hint of awesome.

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Pie takes time.  Pie requires attentions.  Pie demands love and care.  Pie, even for an everyday baker like me, is a lost art.

I needed a good, old fashioned, pie contest to help me slow down, take a breath, and dream up the most delicious pie I could.

The most delicious thing I could dream up was this:  bananas, homemade peanut butter, chocolate, graham crackers, butter, whipped cream, and as much sugar as I could reasonably pack into a single pie dish…. and some chocolate shavings for good measure.

The result:  one mad Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie.  The contest:  inspired by Whitney and several bottles of wine.  The contestants:  as serious about pie as they are about being incredibly fashionable and audaciously cool.  The competition:  stiff.  The winner:  one devastating, delicious and perfectly tart Key Lime Pie.

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I want to show you how to bake a pie.  I’ve got step by step pictures.  I’ve got instructions.  I’ve got encouraging words.  I’ll even hold your hand if you need me to.  This isn’t anything to be scared of… but I do have a secret.

See, there’s a secret to making the best apple pie in the world.  Love.   Any way you can get it or give it, the secret to apple pie is love.

Love is a funny thing.  (Ok, you should totally call me out- that’s just a silly thing to say.)  While I don’t contend to be any sort of expert on the subject, I do take comfort in the knowledge that getting love, and giving love, without a doubt, the best feeling in the world.

I’d like to think of my apple pie as a pure and unadulterated delivery device for love.

You know how cupcakes are actually a delivery device for sweet and fluffy frosting? How cheeseburgers are just an excuse to go crazy with the french fries?  How movie theater tortilla chips are merely edible spoons for gobs of fake yummy, cheesy nacho sauce?  Well this apple pie, I cross my heart and hope to die, is just an excuse to pour all of my love right into a pie crust and into the oven.

It’s perfect.  There isn’t a more perfect thing in the world… ok, except maybe babies and puppies and snowflakes and kate spade flats (but WHY so expensive kate!?  $300, seriously!?)

I will warn you, this pie is a labor of love.  It takes time.  It takes commitment.  It takes a personal outpouring of love and support.  I’ll just say it now, there’s cutting and pressing, chilling, peeling, macerating, boiling, tossing, rolling, preheating, baking, slitting and slicing…. almost in that order.

If I haven’t yet scared you away.  If you’re so full of love that you just might burst, throw it into this pie, and send it out into the world.  It’s important.

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This weekend, I went to Oakland, smiled a lot, sat in a tree and ran over a tumble weed at high speeds.

I wanted to sit down today and tell you about pie… about pie that’s so full of love and goodness it might make your heart explode. I’ve got the pictures, I’ve got the proof, and I can’t find the recipe. It’s got to be here somewhere covered in crumbs and flour.

Gimme a minute. Ok… gimme a few hours. I’ve got pie. You’ve got a heart that’s ready to explode. Now we just need to find that darn recipe…..

Update: I just got a lovely note from Barbara Duke, one of the authors of Panache at Rose Hill.  Here’s what she has to say about this lovely pie!

I just woke up from one of those sloppy weekend naps. It was the kind of nap that left my face barely recognizable from marks from the pillow case folds. It was the kind of nap that might very well have taken place in the back seat of my car, at 173 degrees F. I feel like, lying here in my bedroom on this summer afternoon I may have justed baked my brain. I can’t blog bout that, that’s not good for you.

I just took the kind of nap that makes me wish I could take it all back. It now feels like a mistake. I might have just felt better if I stood in the road and waited for Mac truck to hit me. I just took the kind of tragic, unforgiving nap that can only be healed with creamy coffee and buttermilk pie with warm blackberry sauce.

Keep reading, I have a story to tell you about this pie.

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Ok everyone… take a deep breath.  It’s time for pie!

This beast of a pie is Peabody’s Grandmother’s Lime Conspiracy Pie with marshmallows.

It is a result of the convergence of several things in my mind and in my pantry.

A friend mentioned a pie topped with tiny colorful marshmallows.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  On the same day, Peabody posted a recipe for the most amazing and bizarre lime jello salad.  The fruity marshmallows were on sale at the grocery and the rest of the ingredients practically jumped out of the pantry.  I put everything on hold.  I just had to make this pie.

And then, this pie took on a life of it’s own.  I felt like Dr Frankenstein, except my pie didn’t learn compassion or love.  Nonetheless it sat there in my fridge with it’s colorful marshmallows and sweet oozing topping, practically begging to be touched up and gawked at.  And what a camera whore… don’t even get me started on that!

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The title to both this post and this dessert is a little hum drum.  Russian Grandmothers’ Apple Pie Cake… it just doesn’t set off fireworks in my head.  And frankly, I always feel a bit off put when apostrophes are in strange places (here I am considering s’ strange).  I was an English major in college, and I still just feel put out with the apostrophe after the s.  I actually have to think about the Pie Cake, and who, and how many Grandmothers it belonges to.  It’s a lot. I know!  Well let’s just clear things up right now and say that this Apple Pie Cake belongs to many Russian Grandmothers.  That’s what the whole s’ was trying to tell us.

I would also like to informally change the name of this recipe to The Apple Pie Cake that belongs to Many Russian Grandmothers.  I don’t think Dorie will mind.

Grammar lesson, over.

Recipe and more cake talk after the big jump.

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