October 28, 2005

pink/pineapple day

We had a pink breakfast at work this morning.
Everyone dressed in pink and we ate pink food – basically all baked goods were lathered in strawberry jam, and hell, bacon is pink right? Ate so much food (again). I’m currently going through a carb-comatose in front of my computer now.

I baked version 2 of the Pineapple Pie last night for the breakfast. (photo to be uploaded later) This time version 2 was made following a combination of Jpeg’s mum’s recipe and a basic sweet crust pastry recipe from some family circle basic cookbook that mum’s had since forever. It’s my all time fave book with step by step pictures and usually my first reference point for simple basic recipes such as pastry.

The last time I made pineapple pie it looked great (see previous entry further down) with the lattice, but the pastry was pre-made frozen shortcrust, which left a lot to be desired in terms of texture and richness. Snaps for presentation, but no snaps for taste. So I made one using the sweet crust and it came out like a biscuit base, crumbly and dense, not quite the puffy light goodness and as stylish as I had hoped, but definitely more satisfying in the mouth. The pineapple filling was thickened with custard powder (as required in jpeg’s mum’s recipe) instead of cornflour and it worked a treat. The pastry to filling ratio is almost 50-50 and the filling wasn’t as sweet as last time. Of course everything tastes better with some double cream too!

Recipe for Pineapple Pie


Pastry
1 cup plai
n flour
½ cup self raising flour
125gms butter chopped
1 egg separated
¼ cup custard powder
¼ cup water
½ cup sugar

Filling
1 can crushed pineapple
4 tablespoons of custard powder
sugar to taste (about a tablespoon)

Instructions
Pastry
Sift flours, custard and sugar in large bowl and rub in butter with fingers until just combined. Mix egg yolk with water and bind with flour mixture until just combined. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and gently knead until smooth. (Try not to knead too much. The less handling of pastry the better otherwise it will become tough).

Divide the pastry in half and roll into flat sheets between two sheets of gladwrap or greaseproof paper. Roll it out enough to cover the base of the pan. Try not to stretch the pastry as it will shrink back in the oven. Chill the two rolled sheets in the fridge for 30minutes.

Filling.
Mix custard powder with milk or water just to dissolve powder. Heat up pineapple in small saucepan over medium heat and add sugar to taste then mix in custard powder. Bring to boil for 1 minute and then cool to room temperature.

Baking.
Take pastry and drape into pie pan (shallow dish is best. The pastry is oily enough so that the pan doesn’t need greasing and should come out easily). Trim edges with sharp knife (not serrated) to fit pan. Spoon in pineapple mixture and drape other sheet of pastry over top, trim and seal. Cut air vents into top of pie and brush pastry with egg white (reserved from pastry) and sprinkle top with sugar.

Bake in Hot oven (200DegC fanforced) for first 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 160-170 for next 20 minutes.

Serve warm, or cold but definitely with vanilla icecream or double cream! YUM!



1 Comments:

Blogger Gregan said...

looks delicious!!!!

I want!

6:28 am  

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