Banana Coffee Pie

I am not a pie person, let alone whipped cream and pie together - not my palette. However, Adam one day wanted something with banana and chocolate and I thought of the Banana Coffee Pie, or the Banoffee. I remember this dessert being really popular back home in the Philippines, it being almost always on the menus of restaurants and coffee shops. Even Starbucks had it on their limited pastry choices.

As always whenever I need a recipe, I go to Baking911. I remember Sarah has a recipe there of the pie and I decided to make it for Adam. It has a wonderful pie crust made of grahams, a layer of chocolate, bananas and espresso whipped cream. I don't like whipped creams, but this one is to die for. It's so light, and tasty. This recipe is also very easy to make, and is ready to serve in no time.

The pie was an awesome dessert to our wonderful steak and potatoes dinner.

Lemon Cream Tart

Even if the lighting is bad and all, I just had to take a photo of my little Lemon Cream Tart before I demolish it!

This is my first attempt at making my own pie crust/tart crust and I was pleasantly surprised that it stood up, tasted good and tender on the bite. I don't have the pie/tart pans so I made use of my 4-inch springform pan so it does not look like the traditional tart crusts with ridges (i.e. Goldilocks tarts).

The Lemon Cream recipe is an adaptation of Pierre Herme's recipe. It uses 4 Meyer lemons including the zest which infuses an aroma that will surely envelop your kitchen once you start preparing the cream. I found this recipe in one of the sites that I read (not sure exactly where, maybe from Dorie Greenspan's) and I got excited with it because it looks elegant yet the ingredients were pretty common to be readily available right out of your kitchen - sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs, butter and lemon. So while the crust is baking, I mixed all the cream ingredients except the butter and whisked it over a double broiler until it thickened and reached 180F. Once done, I transferred it to a mixing bowl where I beat it on high and combined the butter. After a few minutes of beating, the resulting cream was an emulsion that is so silky and smooth. After chilling it for a few minutes, I scooped the cream onto the prepared crust and voila, it's ready to eat! And the taste? Sinfully, melts in the mouth goodness!