~Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie with Cinnamon Meringue

Dear Fans of Hounds Who Cook,

We are sorry dogs for not posting any of our good recipes since February. We could hardly believe it when we signed on to see that Blueberry Cobbler (the world's best) was our last electronic culinary exploit. Without further explanation of why dogs who discovered Facebook would dwindle in their blogging disciplines, we will announce our next great triumph: Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie.

You see, the girl and her Elder went over to the river (we could tell as dogs have extraordinary senses of smell and memories for smells and we have camped on that river with Our Girl more than once, so we know she was there) and picked strawberries. A box so long it hardly fits in the refrigerator.

In addition, the girl had received a whole gallon of milk free with other purchase at the store, so we had strawberries and milk aplenty and, then, three organic bananas which were in their absolute prime. From here on it would be downhill for them. What came to our small canine minds was homemade pudding filled up with bananas and strawberries. We found online a clever and delicious recipe for Banana Cream Pie and turned it into this wonder: STRAWberry Banana Cream Pie with CINNamon Meringue. Get out your pudding pot, you most assuredly want to make this recipe.

I, Elias, will do the telling as it is after 10 p.m. and Guthrie prefers to go to bed around the 7s. (7 p.m. to sleep for the night, to wake up at 6 for breakfast, and then 7 a.m. again to sleep off breakfast.)

Strawberry-Banana Cream Pie with Cinnamon Meringue

The Pudding Filling
 3/4 cup Sugar (+ scant stevia for herbal sweetness, or you can do without)
1/2 cup Unbleached Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 cups whole milk (Guthrie calls it "melk" since we moved to Wisconsin)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (we made our own at Christmas)
1 tablespoon real butter
4 egg yolks
1-2 perfectly ripe bananas
1 pint strawberries, washed and hulled and sliced
1 graham cracker crust pie shell

The Meringue Topping
4 egg whites, at room temperature
5 scant tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon cinnamon


Crafting the Pudding Filling
Combine the sugar, flour, and salt together and set aside.

Break up yolks in a small bowl and set aside. 

Pour the milk into a pot for the stovetop (hereafter called your pudding pot) and scald it over medium high heat. It is scalded when the surface forms a wrinkle - a bit of a skin. You can lift it (the bit of milk skin) off with a fork and let it cool upon a plate before giving it to your pup or, as a last resort, the cat.

Pour a little stream of the hot milk into the egg yolks while you stir the yolks briskly. About 1/3 or 1/2 cup will do. Then pour the egg mixture into the hot milk, stirring briskly again til blended. (This whole exercise is to keep bits of yolk from cooking into lumps as it hits the hot milk.) Now, while over medium heat, blend in the flour mixture little by little.

A whisk is our favorite tool for stirring pudding as its mission is to break up lumps and even out thicknesses. So we whisk nearly constantly while cooking the pudding. When it starts to thicken (it may come to a boil, ours did not, but if it does then turn down the heat), add the tablespoon of butter. (If you don't have butter just skip it, don't substitute margarine, and I don't just say that because we are from Wisconsin.)

While that's going on, hopefully you've already cleaned your strawberries and sliced them up. Slice your bananas right into the the graham cracker crust in a single layer. Cover with strawberries.

When the pudding has reached pudding consistency, pour it over the fruit in the pie pan.

Note: Our elder woman would say Not to pour hot pudding over the fruit because it cooks it and that is less pleasant. She says let it cool first. However, we let ours cool some first and felt it was an error. That the better Presentation of Pie would be for the yet-runny hot pudding to slather and fill between the fruits in the pan and be in position straightaway to set. If it sets first in the pudding pot and then is poured into in pie, it seems like one increment of smoothness of the pie is lost. So follow our radical example only upon personal reflection of these different outcomes.

Set the pie aside and make the meringue.

Embarking on The Meringue
Measure sugar, cream of tartar, and cinnamon into a small bowl.

Place egg whites in a medium-sized mixing bowl and whip them with an electric mixer. When they are frothy, slowly add the sugar mixture as you continue beating. Watch them thicken up and beat them until you have stiff peaks. This means when a spoon is dipped in to the meringue and pulled out, it leaves a peak like a mountain or an ocean wave. That's perfect.

Dollop meringue onto the pie in spoonfuls, swirling and peaking it to your artistic pleasure. Be sure the meringue is sealed to the crust all the way around. That's best.

Put the pie in a 375 degree oven (on broil if you can, without using a high heat) for about 15 minutes until meringue peaks are only lightly browned.

Remove from oven and serve. Leftovers needs be refrigerated and the bananas will look less appetizing the second day, but will still taste heavenly, so just close your eyes. We pups aren't as concerned with the looks of our food.  I, Elias, will eat nearly anything no matter how unappealing if it tastes good.


Notes from Elias:
Here is the tricky part. We are in a house where our pudding pot and every pot has been burnt more than once. So it is a bonafide art not to burn pudding. We have a second pot at the ready in case the bottom begins to stick in pudding pot #1. We Don't scrape the bottom with the whisk, lest a burnt lump of pudding should be dislodged. Instead, at the first sign of a browned bit surfacing, we Transfer it all to the pudding pot in waiting and thicken it up without further incident, since the new pan has no pudding residue at the bottom to begin to burn.