Pie for Breakfast: KEY LIME PIE!

In order to celebrate the end of lectures, we decided to have a pie breakfast. I’d been wanting to try key lime pie for a while, so I seized this opportunity to give it a try.

Unfortunately, because of the nature of it being a ‘pie breakfast’ the lighting for the photos wasn’t great, and I was too tired to take process photos like I had intended. Next pie post will most definitely have process photos! Especially with regards to the pastry process – as I insist on making pastry by hand, none of the store bought pastry for me!

Visually, the pie was not the most beautiful pie I’ve made, but it tasted delicious and had a beautiful texture…though was very rich! Furthermore, the recipe called for a bigger pie dish than the one I usually use but was too small for my other one which is enormous. So because the pie was somewhat meringue-ish, I decided to turn the rest of the pie filling into a souffle!

Finally, I didn’t get any photos of it served with cream, but that is most certainly how I ate it 🙂 Next time I make pie, I might try and serve it with homemade ice cream as well…

Key Lime Pie!

The difficult task of cutting the pie without mangling it

Mmmmmmmmm...all that is missing is the cream!

Improvised key lime pie filling souffle

Improvised key lime pie filling souffle

This might be my last post until my exam is over….I really need to stop focusing on food and focus more on studying! However, once exams are over, I imagine I shall be back to cooking extravagantly much more frequently.

Shortbread

My mother tells me that being able to make good shortbread is one of the true tests of good baking. I haven’t made shortbread for years, but seeing as my parents are visiting tomorrow and my father is a huge fan….I thought I’d give it a crack again.

I used my trusty Edmonds Cookbook for the recipe, which is short and sweet!

See below:

225 g Butter

125 g Icing Sugar

125 g Cornflour

225 g Flour

Cream the butter and sugar well, add sifted flour and cornflour. Knead well, roll out until 12-18mm thick. Cut into pieces, place on a greased tray, prick with a fork and bake for 30 mins at 150 degrees celsius.

DONE!

Shortbread - as you can see I didn't make them all exactly the same size....oops

Mmmm...think Dad will be pleased

Mushroom Stroganoff

My favourite veggie shop was offering two bags of portobello mushrooms for $3, an offer too good to pass up! I couldn’t be bothered cooking a pasta base for it – though I haven’t eaten it all yet, so it is still possible that I may still do it, or else I could just eat it with toast slathered with butter….mmmm! If I do something with it, I’ll add some more pics later. I used Alison reliable ‘Dishes without Red Meat’ for recipe inspiration.

Mushroom Stroganoff

Almond and Chocolate Gateau

the ache to bake relieved with CAKE. Buttery vanilla cream between layers of moist almond cake, glazed with rich chocolate icing. The cutting of the masterpiece was a whisper-inducing occasion. This recipe for ‘Biscuit aux amandes et au chocolat’ serves 8. or in some cases, 3.

Ingredients, method & tentative tips

almond cake

6 egg whites

pinch of salt

150g white sugar (or thereabouts)

1 Tbsp flour

250g ground almonds

preheat oven, 150C! Grease 2 round 7-8″ baking tins (or reuse 1)

In a large mixing bowl beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm. Add sugar, gradually. Gently fold in the flour and ground almonds, then spoon into the prepared tins. Bake for 30 minutes, remove from tin, let it cool.

vanilla butter cream

1 egg yolk

30g white sugar

1tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp cornflour

100ml milk

60g butter

Mix egg yolk with the sugar and vanilla, until pale yellow. Stir in cornflour. In a saucepan, bring milk to the boil (I used rice milk), pour it over the egg mixture while still mixing and return to the pan. cook on low heat, stirring continuously until thick, 10 minutes or so. Add butter! Mix until smooth! Refrigerate!

Much chocolate, appropriately decadent.

Chocolate icing

100g Dark chocolate

3Tbsp water

30g butter

50g icing sugar

melt Dark Chocolate with water over low heat in a saucepan. add butter and icing sugar. mix til smooth. set aside. pour over cake, lick bowl. makes a fairly generous amount of icing, and THAT’s just right.

Find a serving plate, and assemble the lovely thing. Finish with toasted almonds! The recipe suggests refrigerating for at least 2 hours before serving. I think it’s okay to ignore this, but will refrigerate the remains. For breakfast.

5 egg yolks left over! Custard was attempted, results were amusing.