I don’t see plums in baked goods as often as I see apples, peaches, pears and other fruits. This is a shame because plums are amazing fruits to bake with. They’re sweet and flavorful, hold their shape nicely after they’ve been baked, and they turn such a beautiful color that desserts that use them are often simply stunning to look at. One of my favorite desserts, aside from the Fresh Plum Cake in The Baking Bites Cookbook, is a double crust Plum Pie packed with juicy plums.
This pie is another plum pie, but it is very different from that double crust pie. This is a Plum Custard Pie with Almond Crust. The pie starts out with a flaky crust that incorporates ground almonds to give it more flavor and some extra crispness. It is filled with a creamy, yet firm, custard flavored with vanilla and a touch of almond extract. The filling has the surprise ingredient of Greek-style yogurt, which helps give it an almost cheesecake-like texture. If you don’t have Greek yogurt, opt for sour cream, not a thinner yogurt. The pie is finished off with lots of sliced, fresh plums and a generous sprinkle of sliced almonds, which toast up in the oven and complement the pie crust.
The finished pie is beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. The plums go into the pie unpeeled, and when they bake they take on a gorgeous purple-red color. They are a nice sweet contrast to the filling, and everything is tied together with the almond topping and the nutty almond crust. This pie can be eaten as soon as it has cooled to room temperature, but the flavors develop even more after it has been chilled for a couple of hours, so it can be made in advance and brought out just before serving.
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A baking stone is a large, usually thick, piece of stoneware that is often recommended for bread and pizza baking. The instructions usually say to put them on the bottom or middle rack of your oven, then preheat it for an extra-long time before baking. Using a stone is said to improve the crust of both bread and pizza, but often little explanation is given as to why this is the case.
The way that baking stones work is simple. Baking stones absorb and retain heat very well, so when you put them in the oven and allow the oven to run for a while, the stones heat up. They transfer heat directly to the bottom of your bread or other baked good, as baked goods can be placed directly on the stone (or on parchment, then on the stone) so the bread never starts out on a cold surface, as it would when baked on a baking sheet. This allows bread to bake more evenly all over, resulting in a much nicer crust – particularly for artisan-type breads. Since the stones retain so much heat, they also help keep the oven at a much more even temperature and make up for some of the heat that is lost when you open the door to put something in.
You can leave your baking stone in the oven when you’re not using it, especially if it’s on the bottom of your oven. If it’s on a rack, however, you may want to remove it when baking cakes and cookies. The extra heat from the baking stone directly underneath (say, if you’re setting a baking sheet right on the stone) can cause cakes to cook faster and cookies to overbrown on the bottom, so keep that in mind if you do decide to do your regular baking with the baking stone in your oven.
You can buy baking stones at many specialty grocers and kitchen stores, as well as online. I often see unfinished quarry tiles recommended as inexpensive alternatives to commercial baking stones, although an unfinished tile is a bit more likely to become brittle and break-able over time. The thickness of the tile should not have an impact on the results, so choose a stone that fits in your oven well and is light enough that you can handle it easily.
I hope that Nordicware never stops coming up with new designs for its bundt pans, because the holidays would be a lot less exciting if we never had new designs to look forward to. Take this Cornucopia Bundt Pan, for instance. A cornucopia is a horn-shaped basket that is typically depicted overflowing with food and grains, symbolizing a bountiful year. Also referred to as a horn of plenty, the symbol has been around for centuries, but is most often associated with autumn and the Thanksgiving season here in the US. This pan is a new release from Nordicware and features the horn of plenty in nonstick cast-aluminum, bursting with squash, corn and other goodies.
This pan is clearly a good choice for fall baking, and a spice cake, pumpkin cake or even gingerbread would be an excellent choice to bake in it. Williams Sonoma even sells the pan in a set with a Brown Sugar Cake Mix. But because the pan has a sort of vegetable theme to it, you could also opt for baking more savory breads in it, like a cornbread. If you grease the pan well with shortening or vegetable oil, you could even bake a regular yeast bread in this pan and come out with a very impressive loaf to act as a centerpiece – and an appetizer – at holiday dinners.
Banana cream pie and banana pudding are very similar desserts. Both have a vanilla custard base that is studded with slices of fresh bananas. Both have light whipped cream or meringue toppings. Both use some sort of cookie base – a graham cracker crust (although pastry is fine, too) for the pie and ‘Nilla wafer cookies (small, dry vanilla cookies) to give them some substance. The point here is that the recipe is adaptable, and if you tinker around with it a bit, you’ll end up with your own version of these creamy, banana desserts.
These Individual Banana Puddings start out with a no-bake graham cracker crust that is pushed into the bottom of a small ramekin. Banana slices are layered on top of the crust, then are topped off with a creamy vanilla custard and a layer of fluffy meringue. They’re easy to prep and easy to serve, and they look pretty darn cute as stand ins for a bigger banana cream pie. The pudding is made in a few minutes on the stovetop and starts with a mixture of milk and sweetened condensed milk that is thickened with flour and egg. The sweetened condensed milk gives the pudding a rich, caramelized flavor which goes well with all those bananas.
You can use any smallish dish to make these if you don’t have straight-sided ramekins. I would stick with an 8-oz ramekin because the banana slices get bulky and a 6-oz ramekin won’t give you much room for the custard (unless you don’t mind small servings!). I made 8 little puddings with this recipe, but a smaller or larger serving dish (or piling on extra bananas!) might change the number of finished puddings a bit. If you have leftover custard or simply don’t need eight mini pies, pour it into dessert glasses and just enjoy it as a nice vanilla pudding.
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