Tag Archives: Graham Cracker

Schadenfreude Pie (Insert Maniacal Laughter Here)

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Wikipedia defines Schadenfreude (pronounced shah-den-froy-da) as  a feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffer misfortune. It’s a dark and heavy emotion, which can come in quite handy when attending the 50th birthday celebration of a friend:) I’m not a jerk, I’m just not 50 yet (but almost).  This is more of a savory pie, both dark and bittersweet, with quite a bit of heft. It’s both dense and heavy.  Just like Schadenfreude. I attribute this pie to John Scalzi over at Whatever. The original posting is from 2006 and sent along to me by Alicia:) Thank you.

The crust:

Pre-made 9 or 10 inch graham cracker pie crust. I recommend 10 inch as you will have leftover filling if you choose the 9 inch crust.

Dark, heavy, bittersweet and tasty. Suffer, you!

Dark, heavy, bittersweet and tasty. Suffer, you!

The filling:

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup dark corn syrup

1/2 cup molasses

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

3 large eggs

2 tsp. cinnamon

1-2 splashes Kahlua or other coffee liqueur

Pre-heat oven to 375 F. In a large mixing bowl add melted butter, corn syrup, molasses, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix well. Melt chocolate and blend into syrup mixture. Add eggs and coffee liqueur; blend until mixture has smooth consistency. Pour mixture into your pie crust. Smile in sinister fashion.

Place on center rack in oven, bake for about 45-50 minutes. At 45 minutes, poke pie with butter knife. If it comes out clean, pie is ready; otherwise give it five more minutes.

Once pie is out of oven, let it set about 20 minutes if you are desiring to eat right away. When I took it out of the oven, it actually looked like it was breathing. It freaked me out a little.

John’s rec (and I agree) is that this be eaten in small slices. It’s really rich and very heavy, and you’ll regret eating a large slice. And this would make me happy:) Have with a scoop of ice cream or a large glass of cold milk for maximum joy.

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The worlds easiest cheesecake pie recipe…in the world

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A couple of weeks ago, I was in a Dollar General Store. Dollar General has all kinds of discounted stuff; housewares, furniture and (surprisingly good) food. While I was perusing snacks for the kid’s school lunches I found brand-name, pre-made graham cracker pie crusts. As I stared and thought about what I could do with them, an elderly woman approached me and said, “you could use those to make the worlds easiest cheesecake pie.” An easy cheesecake pie? Do tell!

The crust!:

1 pre-made graham cracker pie crust

The filling!:

1 and a half blocks of cream cheese (at room temperature)

1 cup of sugar

3 eggs

In a pinch on Thanksgiving Day? You're welcome!

Cheesecake pie, it’s what’s for breakfast.

Your prep time will be about 5 minutes and bake time is 30 minutes…

Pre-heat your oven to 350F. In a large mixing bowl and using a hand mixer, blend the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and don’t overblend. Pour cream cheese mixture into your pie crust. Bake for 30 minutes or until the top is slightly golden brown. The filling will be puffy and a bit jiggly but it will fall and settle as it cools. Allow to cool completely and refrigerate for a couple of hours. Serve plain or you can add any fruit, or even chocolate, topping.

I had a slice for breakfast and all I can say is, should you decide to make this, all will be right in your world:) And thank you, wise woman in Dollar General!

Bacon Cheesecake with an assist from The Bacon Goddess

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Bacon cheesecake is fleeting.

Bacon cheesecake is fleeting.

This is a recipe for a bacon cheesecake. If you like bacon, and you like cheesecake, you’re welcome…

This recipe is a combination of 2 different recipes with elements coming from the Bacon Goddess and other elements coming from the Baby Screamin its Head Off in the Middle of the Night and Ruinin my Life Pie, which is also posted on my blog.

This was created for a Friday afternoon gathering at my place of employment. It went over well. I’m not going to pull your leg, this is damn good.

The Bacon!:

10-12 strips (about 1 lb.) of thick-cut bacon, as lean as possible

Prep:

Pre-heat your oven to 400F. Cover a sheet pan in tin foil. Lay out the strips on your sheet and make sure they aren’t touching. They’ll stick together and won’t cook. Bake  it 15-20 minutes or until it looks crisp. Remove from oven and place on a plate with paper towels on it so it can cool and crisp. Once cooled, put it into a food processor and pulse it a couple of times so you have your crumble. Set aside.

Set your bacon grease aside. You’ll need it for your crust.

The crust!:

2c (about 2 packages) of graham crackers

2tbsp brown sugar

4tbsp butter, unsalted and melted

2tbsp bacon grease

About 3 tbsp bacon crumble (this isn’t science, you can use your judgement)

Prep:

Set oven to 350F. Liberally grease a 9 inch spring form pan. Break up your graham crackers into food processor and blend until fine. Add sugar and mix. Add melted butter and bacon grease and blend until it looks coarse. Add bacon crumble and pulse until blended. Dump your mix into spring form and press along bottom and up the sides a bit. Place on center rack of oven for 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it, you don’t want to burn it. Remove from oven and let cool completely. It should be cooled by the time you’re ready to pour the filling.

Keep your oven at 350F…

The filling!:

I'm cute AND delicious!

I’m cute AND delicious!

32oz. (4 8 ounce packages) cream cheese at room temperature

1 3/4c white sugar

2 tbsp vanilla extract

5 eggs

1 egg yolk

3/4 of your remaining bacon crumble

Prep:

In a large mixing bowl, blend your cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add bacon crumble and combine. Add one egg at a time to your mix and blend just until combined. Don’t over blend, you get too much air in your mix and the cheesecake will fall. Add yolk and blend until combined. Scrape the sided with a rubber spatula and blend to make sure your filling is mixed well.

Grease the side of your spring form above the crust line.

Pour your filling into the spring form.

On the bottom rack of your oven, place a pan with about an inch of water in the pan. This helps reduce the possibility of cracks in the side and top of your cheesecake.  Place your cheesecake on the rack above the water pan.

For the results I got, bake for 42 minutes at 350F. At 42 minutes, open your oven,  take your remaining bacon crumble, and spread evenly over the top of the cheesecake. Put back in oven and bake an additional 3 minutes.  By now, your cheesecake should be a golden brown around the edges.

Turn off oven and remove cheesecake. Run a thin knife around inner edge of spring form so cheesecake properly detaches from pan as it cools. Put it back in oven and leave the door cracked, about 40 minutes. This allows it to finish baking as its cooling. Remove and chill in fridge about 3 hours or until you are ready to eat one of the best desserts you’ll have in your life:)

Bacon Cheesecake2

Pie #13 – Banana Cream Pie

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NOT a Frito Pie

Today’s selection comes to you courtesy of “Loud” Jen Beck. It was more of a plan B than plan A though. Her original request was something called Frito Pie. It isn’t something I would consider pie. It’s more like nachos and I would call it a pie in name only. Of course she had to counter that Shepherd Pie is also only a pie in name only as it has no crust. She would classify it as more of a casserole. That’s fine, I wasn’t going to make one of those either:)

I’m not a huge fan of bananas, let alone bananas in custard topped with whipped cream. Doesn’t mean I won’t eat it though…

The crust:

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs, about 16 graham crackers destroyed in a food processor

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (I used 1/3 of a cup as the crumbs seemed dry, and I like butter)

1 tbsp. granulated sugar

1 tbsp. all-purpose flour

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all the ingredients until well blended. Press evenly into a 9 inch pie dish, starting at the center and working your way outward until the crust is even on bottom and sides of pie dish. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Transfer to wire rack or your oven top to cool.

The filling:

3 large egg yolks

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups of whole milk

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

2 tbsp. butter, softened

2 tsp. vanilla extract

4 large ripe bananas

1 tbsp. lemon juice

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Blend in a bowl. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan. Slowly whisk in the milk, vanilla extract and the whipping cream. Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat and blend half the custard into the egg yolks. Combine the mixture with the yolks and return to the saucepan. Return to a boil and cook until thickened which is about 6 minutes. Add the 2 tablespoons of butter and stir until melted. Transfer to a medium-sized bowl, cover the top with plastic wrap. Cool the mixture before chilling in refrigerator for 2 hours.

Cut the bananas into 1/2 inch slices and blend in with lemon juice, gently. Fill the pie crust with one cup of the chilled custard mix. Place a layer of bananas. Repeat the layers twice. The recipe at this point says to refrigerate for 6 hours. Forget that! Topping stat!

The topping:

1 1/4 cup whipping cream

2 tbsp. confectioner sugar

1 large ripe banana, sliced into 1/3 inch pieces to decorate the top

cinnamon to dust the top

Beat the chilled whipping cream and granulated sugar with an electric mixer until firm. Slather the mix over the top of the pie. Place the banana pieces decoratively in the whipped cream. Dust with cinnamon.

I whipped the topping earlier in the day, while the custard was chilling. We have friends visiting from Houston and San Francisco and this evenings event was Texas roller derby. So basically the topping is one of those “plan ahead” things you can do if you need to tend to other things in your life. I got home at 10 pm and assembled the pie and will be having this with Jen, and others, tomorrow morning with my coffee.