Recipe: Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie from Baked Explorations

I volunteered to bring dessert to our friends' New Year's dinner party. I opted for a maple bourbon cheesecake, but alas, the drawback of finding recipes on random blogs via pinterest is that sometimes the instructions stink. This led to a, shall we say, less than beautiful cheesecake.

We had little time and an ugly as all get out cake, so after I stomped about and had a bit of a hissy fit, my darling hubby stepped in to save the day by heading back to the grocery store to get me ingredients for something else.

The guys behind Baked know how to make a gorgeous and delicious dessert, so I eschewed Pinterest and went old school with an actual cookbook - Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented.

Banana cream pie is surely one of the most delicious and comforting desserts out there, and peanut butter is such a divine combo with bananas, so I knew this recipe was certain to blow the maple bourbon cheesecake out of the water. And sure enough it did. It was easy to prepare, appealing to look at and just as heavenly as it sounds!

The crust was simple to make and a classic accompaniment for banana cream pie. The vanilla pudding is very subtle and would also be good on its own. The peanut butter icing is pure bliss and may have compelled me and the Mr. to lick the bowl and beaters clean. It would make a great icing for other desserts as well, such as chocolate cupcakes.

Turns out my cheesecake actually tasted pretty good, too, despite its uggo appearance, but this was the clear star of dessert. Yum!

Full recipe

The Best Pancakes You Will Ever Eat!

Anyone who has ever lived in New York City knows that Clinton St. Baking Company makes the best pancakes EVER. I've waxed poetic on these little miracles before (read here). Now thanks to the Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook, we can enjoy the experience minus the expensive flight and 2 hour wait in the cold.

You can find the pancake recipe we used here. The recipe is for blueberry pancakes, but adding banana is where it's at. The secret to these pancakes is folding in egg whites, so they are oh so fluffy. I also love how the banana goes all ooey gooey and makes for a wonderful creamy flapjack! As you can see from the pic below, the Mr. went extra decadent and added some chocolate chips to some of them as well.

To get the full experience, you also have to make the maple butter, which is essentially liquid crack. It's simple to make - it's just a combo of tons of butter and grade B maple syrup. Find the recipe here. And great googly moogly is this stuff good. It puts plain syrup to shame and takes these already top notch pancakes to another level.

A couple of tips - first make sure your griddle gets hot enough, otherwise your first pancake will be a stinker. Also some good advice I picked up from Tyler Florence at a demo years ago is to rub butter on the griddle with a napkin once it's hot to get just enough of a light coating and ensure that the butter doesn't burn.

We made more batter than we needed and saved it to use another day. These are total bliss, so don't miss out!

Buy your copy of the Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook here.

Mourad: New Moroccan takes Atlanta

Chef Mourad Lahlou, chef/owner of Michelin-starred San Francisco restaurant, Aziza, and the previous winner Iron Chef American has been a bit of a moment. His new cookbook Mourad: New Moroccan has garnered oodles of praise with a the nice little write up in the NY Times, and Bon Appetit named his it one of the year's best cookbooks. Not a bad year!

Woodfire's Chef Kevin Gillespie and Chef Mourad Lahlou

So I was thrilled when I scored an invite to the Moroccan Takeover at Woodfire Grill to sample some of his melding of Moroccan and northern California cuisine!

Mourad New Moroccan dinner.

Hor d’ Oeuvre

goat cheese, tomato jam, hazelnut, argan oil.

roe, cracker, yogurt, urfa.

eggplant, burnt preserved lemon, tomato raisin.

n.v Lucien Albrecht, Crèmant d’ Alsace AOC, France.

Amuse

florida yellowfin. charred pumpkin. roasted garlic. cilantro.

fried pumpkin seed. satsuma.

First Course

scallop, cauliflower, raisin, vadouvan.

2008 Sanford Chardonnay, Santa Barbera County.

Taste

hen yolk, charmoula, smoked potato, long pepper.

Second Course

hudson valley duck a la plancha. roasted parsnip puree.

smoked hibiscus. hot and spicy green tomato.

2010 Henry Marionnet Gamay, Première Vendange, Touraine AOC, France.

Third Course

braised beef cheek, couscous, carrot jam, harissa emulsion.

2007 Bonny Doon Vineyard, Le Cigare Volant, Earth.

Dessert

spiced chocolate gel. cinnamon ice cream. hazelnut tuile.

satsuma mandarin gastrique.

2009 Quady Elysium, Black Muscat, California.

Moroccan is one of the cuisines they may actually taste better when cooked in America. When the mister and I traveled to Morocco several years ago we found it very same same. Sure a tajine of lamb, dates, apricots or prunes is delicious, but you can only eat it so many times in a one week period before it's sweetness becomes cloying. Add that to the epic food poisoning I got there, and it's not a place I have super fond food memories of.

Despite my misgivings, I love Moroccan cuisine's unique spices and the fact that it is truly different from every other cuisine commonly enjoyed stateside. We mentioned our qualms about the sameness of Moroccan cuisine to Chef Mourad, and he agreed, even throwing in some rather salty language to describe his feelings about how Moroccan cuisine was begging to be updated. That's just what he's done to such great effect!

The dinner was a delight. Nary a sickly sweet tajines or so-so couscous in sight. The dishes were unusual twists on Mourad's Moroccan childhood and Northern Californian adulthood. Vadouvan, every Top Chef's secret weapon made an appearance, paired with scallop and cauliflower. Chermoula, a North African marinade, contrasted perfectly with a silky hen egg. If you'd previously experienced Moroccan cuisine, it seemed familiar, and yet entirely different.

Yellowfin, charred pumpkin, satsuma

Hen yolk, smoked potato, long pepper

Hudson Valley Duck, parsnip puree, hot and spicy green tomato

Braised beef cheek, couscous, carrot jam, harissa emulsion

Spiced chocolate gel, cinnamon ice cream, hazelnut tuile, satsuma gastrique

We each went home with an autographed copy of his new cookbook. My home cooking has been a little slack lately, but I'm psyched to try my hand at dishes like confit chicken wings with brussels sprouts and apple puree or lamb shank with spiced prunes and brown butter faro. The cookbook is a beauty replete with not only recipes, but also tales of his Moroccan youth and stunning photography. Pick your very own copy up here.

*Full disclosure: Although my meal was comped, I always endeavor to offer my unbiased opinion about my experience.