Butterscotch Cream Pie

Coconut Cream Pie has always been the claim to fame at Union Street Cafe.  "They'll get you high with their Coconut Cream Pie" go the words of Eve Goldberg, Canadian folk singer-songwriter.  Rich coconut custard, yellow with egg yolks and butter, piled into a flaky, almost salty crust, topped with piles of whipped cream and even more toasted coconut. My sister, my aunt, myself and now my mother have baked and perfected  it over the last ten years.  We were faithful to that pie, never veering towards any variation thereof. No chocolate, banana, or butterscotch cream pie for us!  Until now.

It all started with a simple and delicious butterscotch sauce recipe that we had been making to top our sticky toffee cakes.  Inspired by the comment that eating the sauce by the spoonful was better than sex, I wanted to make a pie with the same rich caramel flavours.  I used our tried-and-true coconut custard recipe as a base and came up with this lovely treat.  It beats the pants off boxed butterscotch pudding!   So to speak.

This time last year:  Energy Balls


Butterscotch Cream Pie

1 baked 9" deep dish pie crust (Canadian Living has a great recipe)
1 C. Sugar
1/2 C. Butter
3/4 C. Whipping Cream
2 C. Milk
2/3 C. Flour
1/4 C. Cornstarch
1/2 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 C. Milk
4 Egg Yolks
1 t. Vanilla

Sprinkle the sugar evenly over the bottom of a large heavy saucepan, and place over medium low heat.  The sugar will begin to melt after a minute or so.  Stir it carefully so it doesn't burn.  When it has all melted, carefully add the butter and whipping cream and stir until the hard bits of caramel have dissolved.  Raise the heat to medium high and add the two cups of milk.  Meanwhile, whisk the flour, cornstarch and brown sugar together in a bowl.  Add the 1/2 cup milk and whisk until smooth.  When the mixture in the pot boils, whisk in the flour mixture and keep stirring as the filling thickens and bubbles.  Whisk in the egg yolks and vanilla, then remove from the heat.  Scrape into the pie shell and let cool, then refrigerate with plastic wrap on the top for an hour or so before serving with piles of whipped cream.  This pie will keep for at least two days if refrigerated.

Blackberry Apple Pie

After I write this, I'm going to pick some blackberries. In the spring, I planted raspberries and while I was at it, I gave the blackberries that surround the house some compost and a little extra water. They seem to have responded to my gesture, and are ripening by the handful. Hopefully you have some wild blackberries growing nearby, or you can head down any back road and likely find some in no time. They are beautiful plants, especially right now, when berries of all colours from green to red to black occupy the same branch. If you can't find them wild, they are available right now at many farm markets, and just a small amount of them will add a lot of flavour to your seasonal baking.

I can't get through this season without thinking about how I met the father of my kids. I was on Saltspring Island at the time, where the wild blackberries grow so profusely that you could live off them, like a bear. Bakeries in the town of Ganges buy berries from anyone who will bother to pick them. I was living in a tent at the time, and some friends of mine and I decided to pick some blackberries and take it one step further-bake Blackberry Apple pies and sell them by the piece, with ice cream, at the Farmer's Market. We picked gallons of berries near a construction site. Adrian and Dennis hadn't made pastry before, so they let me take the lead, buying flour and shortening and apples at the Thrifty's supermarket downtown. The three of us settled into a long afternoon and evening of peeling apples, measuring sugar and berries, and rolling pastry, using my friend Jill's kitchen.

The next morning, we set off to make our fortune. We had brought spoons, plates, and ice cream in a cooler along with our 15 or so pies. We had planned to cut each into 8 pieces, and sell it for $3. Sales were slow in the morning, but Adrian was a charming salesman and roved the market, directing people to us. A tall, dark and handsome man who I had seen many times, but to whom I hadn't been introduced, came and bought a piece. He was a friend of Adrian's and they settled into a conversation. Soon, he was heading to the nearest Cafe and came back with coffee for all of us. Another piece of pie later, and he and I were well on the way to everything that has happened since; a wedding, two beautiful and magical children, a home, a garden, and a restaurant. The marriage itself didn't work, but everything else has flourished, a sure sign that it was meant to be.

In the end, after expenses, we made exactly the same amount we would have had we just sold the berries to Embe Bakery. But I think we had fun doing it, and we got to eat a lot of Blackberry Apple Pie.

Blackberries are as mysterious and seductive as their colour suggests. Really a dark, dark purple, blackberries possess a strange and fragrant quality. Eaten out of hand, they taste like berries. But cooked and made into pies or crumbles, they are perfume-y, sometimes almost soapy. This was most apparent to me while eating a handmade blackberry ice cream at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. “It tastes like soap” I said, believing it must have been their failure to rinse their equipment properly. “That's the blackberries,” they explained, “they have a strange and surprising flavour”. It's like eating a piece of Thrills Gum: once someone assures you that it really is supposed to taste like that, you can revel in the exotic-ness of it.
I love this pie. Combining the blackberries with apples is like adding water to whiskey: diluting the flavours a little allows you to really taste them.

Blackberry Apple Pie

Use a deep pie plate for this recipe, it is a big pie!

10 C. Apple Slices
1 Pint Blackberries
1 C. Sugar
½ C. Flour
Juice of Half a Lemon
2 T. Butter, cut in little bits (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°. Combine everything but the butter in a large bowl.  Make the pastry:

Food Processor Pastry  (adapted from Canadian Living)


3 C. Flour
1 t. Salt
½ C. Butter
½ C. Lard
1 Egg
2 t. Lemon Juice
Ice Water

Combine the flour, salt, butter and lard in a food processor. Pulse about 25 times, until the mixture is crumbly. In a measuring cup, beat the egg and vinegar, then add enough water to measure 2/3 cup. With the machine running, pour the egg mixture in. Let the machine run for another 5-10 seconds, until mixture starts to clump, and then turn the contents out onto a lightly floured counter. Press the dough together, gathering up any straggly bits, and divide into two balls. You can chill the pastry for a half hour, making it easier to work with, or you can proceed straight to rolling out one ball into a circle 3 inches wider all around then your pie plate. Keep the surface underneath floured so it doesn't stick.

When it's the size you want, gently fold the pastry in quarters and place it in a quadrant of the pie plate. Unfold and ease the pastry into the pan, letting the extra pastry hang evenly over the edges. Tumble the filling into the pie crust (it will be very tall) and dot with the optional butter. Roll out the second ball, fold in quarters, and unfold over the pie. Fold the top and bottom crusts together all along the edge, trimming of there is too much pastry. Make sure you have a good seal so that the filling won't leak out (it will anyway, but do your best). Then you can make a decorative edge or not. Poke some holes in the top with a fork and brush the pie with beaten egg or cream and sprinkle all over with sugar (turbinado is pretty, I use Just Us! Of course).

Put the pie in the oven and slide a baking sheet onto the rack underneath. Bake the pie at 325° for about 2 hours, until the juices are bubbling thickly (most likely onto the baking sheet, that's why it's there) and the pastry is deep brown. Let it cool for at least a couple hours before devouring with ice cream.

Strawberries

I will admit it.  I've been known to buy strawberries in the winter.  I've even convinced myself that they taste good.  But they don't. 
Not compared to the lightly sugared local strawberries I ate last night on a pillowy little vanilla cupcake with whipped cream.  Not compared to the quart of strawberries I ate in the car on the way home to make the strawberry shortcake.  I love driving up the mountain from Morse's in Somerset, doling out one perfect berry at a time to the little strawberry lovers in the backseat.  By the time we get home, there are stems and stains everywhere, and we really don't care.  It helps that my car just reached the 300,000 kilometer milestone and that we live on a road so dusty that no one who lives there bothers to wash their vehicle.  Right about this week, strawberries will be everywhere in the Valley.  They will be lined up for sale from the back of pickup trucks and farmstands. They will be available, cheap, for those willing to spend the morning at one of the great U-Picks. But they may not be in your local grocery store.  All last season, our store had California berries for sale.  Wahhhhhhh.
I suggest totally pigging out on strawberries while they're at their best because frozen or imported just ain't the same. I love seeing the hand lettered posters advertising a "Strawberry Supper" at local church halls.  I imagined that it would be all-you-can-eat strawberry shortcake when I was little, but have since learned that a more sensible meal usually precedes the dessert.  That doesn't mean that I won't be making a meal out of it at home, though!  At the Cafe, we'll be offering them in fresh salads, in a beautiful little Strawberry Cream Pie, and in Strawberry Shortcake. 

Vanilla Cupcakes for Shortcake
Usually I make biscuits or scones for shortcake, but these are easy and delicious! 
1 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C. oil
1/2 C. water
1 1/4 C. flour (go ahead and use whole wheat if you like!)
1/4 t. salt
1 1/8 t. baking powder
1 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Beat sugar and eggs, than add remaining ingredients and beat for 1 minute. Evenly divide between 12 muffin cups. Bake about 15 minutes, until skewer inserted in middle comes out clean.
Split each cupcake in half and top with lightly sugared sliced strawberries (how many is completely your call) and a little whipped cream. Repeat the layers, lick the spoon and serve!


Strawberry Cream Pie
Once you've eaten your fill of strawberry shortcake, try this. It's a little more complicated, but it's worth it. It's inspired by a recipe from the now-defunct Gourmet magazine.

1 baked graham crust in a pie pan
2 lb strawberries, hulled
1/3 cup sugar (use Just Us!)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 C. whipping cream, lightly whipped

Select 20 large strawberries as close to same size as possible and set aside. Cut remaining berries into 1/4-inch dice and toss with sugar and lemon juice. Let stand, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes. Drain berries in a sieve set into a large glass measuring cup. Add enough water to measure 2 cups. Transfer liquid to a medium saucepan and reserve berries.
Sprinkle gelatin over strawberry liquid and let soften 1 minute. Bring to a bare simmer, stirring until gelatin has dissolved. Add diced berries, then transfer to a metal bowl set into an ice bath and stir frequently until mixture begins to mound, 20 to 30 minutes. Fold in the whipped cream.
Spoon 1/2 cup filling into piecrust and arrange reserved whole berries, stem ends down, on filling. Spoon remaining filling over and between berries. Chill pie until filling is set, at least 4 hours.