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Maraschino Cherry Cake

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July 18, 2018

In  September 2012, at a wine paring dinner at The Compound Restaurant in Santa Fe during the holy days of Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta, a group of us hatched an idea to start a dinner group.

After a lot of discussion and email exchanges, we decided to name the group Santa Fe Ate, both for what we do and for the (play on the words regarding the) number of people in the group.

From the “Things You Can Cook in a Wood-Burning Oven” dinner: Roasted Cauliflower with whipped Goat Cheese, Ricotta, and Olive Oil Dip and Cannellini alla Toscana

We had our first dinner in January 2013 and we’ve been going strong ever since.  We meet about once every three months, rotating houses.  At each dinner we decide the theme for the next dinner.  This may not be the best time to make such a consequential decision given the amount of alcohol typically consumed.  For example, one of our themes was French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s!

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Frank and Doug don’t really cook so their group assignment is always to come up with a signature cocktail and appropriate wine pairings for each course.  They have leeway to be creative in finding or creating a cocktail, which they have to do for even for cultures where drinking alcohol is not really common.  If the theme of the dinner relates to a wine producing region, the wines are generally from that region to the extent feasible.

From the French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s dinner: Cambodian Fish Amok (Fish and Coconut Milk Curry Baked in Banana Leaves)

The other six of us do successive rounds of emails refining the list of dishes to be prepared and organizing them into courses.  Our task is to be as authentic to the theme as possible.

French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s was probably our most narrow theme.  Others have included, for example, Summer in Provence, Winter in Friuli, Along the Silk Road, Persia (not Iran but Persia), Comfort Food, and Things You Can Cook in a Wood-Burning Oven (for which the entire meal was cooked in our outdoor wood-burning oven).

The only meal we’ve had which strayed from the basic plan was Timballo.  Timballo is a (typically large) pastry-encased and baked dish of layered pasta, hardboiled eggs, cheese, meatballs, and other meats, all moistened with tomato sauce.  Each of the cooks was assigned one or more components of the timballo to make at home.  We got together to assemble and bake the final dish.  This was a multi-hour process, even with all the prep work done in advance.

Unmolding the timballo

To help pass the time, Frank and Doug devised a blind wine-tasting in which we had to try to identify the varietal and provenance of each wine.  I believe the eight of us tasted six bottles of wine.  After we finished those, we opened some more.  This was the dinner at which we decided the theme of French Indo-China 1920s to 1930s.  You may notice a correlation between alcohol intake and unusual dinner themes!

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Earlier this year, our theme was Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, first edition, published in 1950.  Every dish had to come from the cookbook with no changes, substitutions or updating unless absolutely necessary.  One of the appetizers was anchovies rolled around cornichons!

Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, 1950, First Edition

The food was actually surprisingly good.  I suspect part of that was related to how each of us selected our dish or dishes (Becky, who did appetizers selected three!).  The wines were, undoubtedly, fabulous.  In the United States, if you were drinking wine in the 1950s you were likely drinking French wine, and good French wine, at that!  On that night, so were we!

I made a Maraschino Cherry Cake with Almond Crème Filling and Maraschino Boiled Frosting.  Though if I were making the cake again, I would probably substitute my recipe for Italian Pastry Cream for Betty’s Crème Filling, I really wouldn’t make any other changes.

Here’s the recipe directly from the first edition of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook with a few minor adaptions of the technique by me.  For you bakers out there, I’m providing the original sea-level measurements as published in the cookbook.  Since I baked this at nearly 8000 feet in elevation, I followed Betty’s recommendations for adjusting for high altitude.

Getting ready to make Maraschino Cherry Cake
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 Maraschino Cherry Cake
You can divide the work for this cake over several days. The filling can be made up to three days in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered. Stir in the toasted almonds just before using. The cake layers can be made a day in advance, wrapped tightly and refrigerated. The frosting should be made when you’re ready to frost the cake. The original recipe called for “rich milk” in the almond crème filling. Remember, this recipe was published before the advent of homogenized milk. Half-and-half is a good substitute. Except in professional recipes, it is rare to see egg whites measured in volume but it is a very good idea as the white, much more than the yolk, varies with the size of the egg.
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Course Desserts and Sweets, Sweet Sauces, Frostings, and Fillings
Cuisine American
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 1 1/2 hours
Passive Time 6 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Maraschino Cherry Cake
Almond Crème Filling
Maraschino Cherry Cooked Frosting
Course Desserts and Sweets, Sweet Sauces, Frostings, and Fillings
Cuisine American
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 1 1/2 hours
Passive Time 6 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Maraschino Cherry Cake
Almond Crème Filling
Maraschino Cherry Cooked Frosting
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Instructions
Maraschino Cherry Cake
  1. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Reserve.
  2. Combine milk and Maraschino cherry liquid. Reserve.
  3. Cream butter.
  4. Cream in sugar until fluffy.
  5. Add dry ingredients in four additions, alternating with milk-juice mixture in three additions. Mix lightly, but well, after each addition.
  6. Stir in nuts and Maraschino cherries.
  7. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.
  8. Fold beaten egg whites into batter, using about ¼ of the egg whites first to loosen the batter.
  9. Pour into two greased and floured 9” cake pans.
  10. Bake 350°F approximately 30-35 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
  11. Cool the pans on a rack approximately 10 minutes.
  12. Remove layers from pans and cool completely.
Almond Crème Filling
  1. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt and half-and-half in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
  2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
  3. Slowly pour about half of the boiling half-and-half mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, to temper the yolks.
  4. Put the saucepan with the remaining half-and-half mixture back on the heat.
  5. Pour the tempered yolks back into the saucepan, whisking constantly.
  6. Bring the mixture to a boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  7. Remove from the heat and stir in the almond and vanilla extracts.
  8. Pour the pastry cream into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, putting the wrap directly on the pastry cream to avoid a skin.
  9. Refrigerate until cold.
  10. Stir in chopped almonds just before using.
  11. Just before making the frosting, put one cake layer on a serving platter. Top with Almond Crème Filling.
  12. Top with second layer.
Maraschino Cherry Cooked Frosting
  1. Combine the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar and Maraschino cherry liquid in a double boiler.
  2. Cook over boiling water, beating constantly with an electric mixer until a spreadable consistency, approximately 5-7 minutes. The top of the double boiler should not touch the boiling water in the bottom.
  4. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts.
  5. Immediately frost sides and top of cake.
  6. Decorate the top with whole Maraschino cherries
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2018 by Villa Sentieri, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas

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May 9, 2018

This is the year of the Dog.

It may be old news, but Lunar New Year was Friday, February 16, 2018.  We celebrated with close friends and a dinner menu with an extensive array of Asian dishes.  There are many traditional dishes for Lunar New Year depending on the country.  I chose to do a pan-Asian menu rather than focus on strictly traditional recipes from a single country.

Kifune Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

We were in Palm Springs for Lunar New Year.  The plan was to escape winter weather in Santa Fe which, as it turned out, was not very wintery after all, unlike what the East Coast experienced.

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Sourcing Asian ingredients has become a real issue for me now that I don’t live in a major city.  The only Asian grocery store in Santa Fe, Talin Market, closed a few months ago though the original location is still open in Albuquerque.

Palm Springs only has two Asian markets that I can find.  Both are Filipino-owned and, although they stock an array of Asian goods, they really focus on Filipino foods.

Honen-in Temple, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

Amazon came to the rescue.  While I’d rather stand in the aisles of an Asian market reading and comparing packages of honest-to-goodness product, Amazon was a lifesaver.

There were eight of us for the Lunar New Year dinner.

The kitchen in our Palm Springs house is small, approximately 9 feet by 11 feet.  Turning out a multi-course meal requires a lot of planning and organization.   I divided the main part of the meal into four courses.  Each course included a complementary array of foods and different cooking methods.

We started with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails.  We ended with a simple, non-traditional dessert of gelato and fortune cookies, which I purchased.  I assumed nobody was going to be too into dessert after all the other food.

Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

Here’s the menu:

Hors d ’Oeuvres
Vegetable Dumplings with Soy-Vinegar Dipping Sauce
Steamed Edamame with Coarse Salt

First Course
Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas
Eggplant Hunan Style
Cambodian Fish with Bean Thread

Second Course
Korean Bulgogi
Indonesian Sweet Corn Patties
Szechuan Garlic Noodles

Third Course
Hot and Sour Soup

Fourth Course
Chinese Roast Pork
Japanese Carrot Salad
Mapo Tofu
Caramelized Tomatoes with Ginger and Vinegar

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I recently published my recipe for Chinese Roast Pork.  Hot and Sour Soup is coming up in a couple of weeks.  Today, however, we’re focusing on a Cantonese classic, Stir-Fried Chicken with Nuts and Vegetables, specifically cashews and snow peas.

This is a recipe that I started making during junior year in college.  It got tweaked a lot over that year.  By then I was comfortable with the end product and didn’t really do much with it… until this year.

I didn’t really change the recipe, though.  I changed the pan!

Shrine in Gion District, Kyoto, Japan (Photo by Avishek Kumar)

You’ve probably figured out that I’m prone to excess where kitchen equipment comes in.  I have four woks:  two carbon steel ones that date back to college and two that are a decade or so younger, one aluminum and one carbon steel.  Both of these are larger than the ones from my college days.

I always cook my stir-fries in a wok but this particular dish is always a problem due to the “velvet” coating on the chicken.  The coating always sticks to the wok.  I suspect I could eliminate that problem by using enough oil to deep fry the chicken but that wasn’t supposed to be the way to cook it.  So, I always just accepted the “sticking-chicken” problem.

Until now.

I used a large, non-stick skillet.

It worked like a charm!!!

I don’t think I’ll give up my woks any time soon but for this particular dish, non-stick is definitely the way to go.

Afterthought:  This recipe calls for MSG, though, of course, you can leave it out if you wish.  If you’re at all interested in the hype about the health effects of MSG, I suggest you read this article.

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 Stir-Fried Chicken with Cashews and Snow Peas
Walnuts and either broccoli or green beans can be used instead of cashews and snow peas. The chicken can be marinated several hours in advance and refrigerated, tightly covered. If you wish, you can reduce or eliminate the MSG.
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Course Mains, Poultry
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
people as part of a Chinese meal
Ingredients
Velvet Chicken
Sauce
Assembly
Course Mains, Poultry
Cuisine Chinese
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
people as part of a Chinese meal
Ingredients
Velvet Chicken
Sauce
Assembly
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Instructions
Velvet Chicken
  1. Cut the chicken into ½ inch cubes.
  2. Put the chicken in a non-reactive dish.
  3. Sprinkle the chicken with salt, pepper, five spice powder and MSG. Mix well then let stand 20 minutes.
  4. Sprinkle the chicken with cornstarch and 4 teaspoons of oil. Mix well and let stand 20 minutes.
  6. Fold the egg white into the chicken. Let stand 30 minutes. If not using immediately, the chicken can be refrigerated, covered, for several hours at this point.
Sauce
  1. Combine all sauce ingredients, stir well and reserve.
Assembly
  1. Deep fry the nuts until golden. Once they start to color, they will cook rapidly. Careful attention is required to avoid burning them.
  2. When golden, remove the nuts from the oil and spread them on a paper towel to drain.
  3. Cut the tips off the snow peas.
  4. Using a large non-stick skillet, stir-fry the snow peas in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil over high heat for about 30 seconds, until bright green. (You can use some of the oil used to fry the nuts if you wish.)
  5. Transfer the cooked snow peas to a plate to cool.
  6. In the same non-stick skillet, stir-fry the garlic and ginger over high heat, until fragrant, approximately 30 seconds, adding a few tablespoons more oil if needed.
  7. Add the chicken and stir-fry over high heat until just cooked through, approximately 2-3 minutes.
  8. Stir the sauce mixture to combine and add it to the chicken.
  9. Bring to a boil and cook until thickened, stirring constantly, approximately 1 minute.
  10. Stir in the cooked cashews and snow peas.
  11. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the sesame oil.
  12. Serve immediately with steamed rice.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2018 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Jim’s Hawaiian Guava Cake

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October 25, 2017

“Aloha Mr. Van Sant.”

So began a 2003 email from Simon Rusconi, the Hotel Manager of the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Resort on Oahu.

Mr. Van Sant, Jim to the rest of us, had complimented the resort on its guava cake and Mr. Rusconi was writing to share the recipe.

Jim printed out the email and affixed it to an index card and put it in his recipe box. Late in 2016, the subject of the guava cake came up somehow at a dinner party at Jim and Bill’s house. Jim offered to share the recipe with me if I was interested.

I was, and I said that I’d make it for him. Shortly thereafter, the original recipe arrived in the mail still affixed to the index card. Not wanting to keep his original, I scanned it into my recipe database and returned the hardcopy.

Since Jim and Bill rent a home in Palm Springs just steps from our house, and since baking cakes at nearly 8000 feet where I live in New Mexico is an iffy proposition, at best, I said I’d bake the cake in Palm Springs. Every winter they rent the Oscar Mayer House. Yes, that Oscar Mayer!

We had a delightful luncheon at tables set up around their pool with guava cake for dessert.

The back of the Oscar Mayer house in Palm Springs, California
Inside the Oscar Mayer House
The front of the Oscar Mayer House

But that’s jumping ahead.

Receiving the recipe from Jim was merely the beginning. I became fascinated by guava cake without having even made one. Almost any recipe with the degree of cultural significance that guava cake seemed to garner grabs my attention. I did internet searches and combed through my Hawaiian cookbooks (of which I have a goodly number).

It appears that there are basically three variations of guava cake in Hawaii: Guava Chiffon Cake, Guava Spice Cake, and (plain old) Guava Cake. Recipes for the last often start with a box of cake mix and use Cool Whip in the cream cheese frosting.

From what my research has revealed, the original was a Guava Chiffon Cake invented by Herbert Matsuba, owner of the Dee Lite Bakery, in the early 1960s.

The popularity of the cake no doubt led to multiple copycat recipes, including those using a box of cake mix and Cool Whip aimed at the home cook.

The recipe from the Moana Surfrider was a Guava Spice Cake. I followed the recipe closely the first time except that I needed to find a substitute for frozen concentrated guava nectar which I was unable to find after scouring 10 grocery stores in Palm Springs and nearby desert towns.

I ultimately was able to source pure guava puree at a market catering to Hispanic shoppers. It had no sweeteners so I thought I might need to add sugar to the batter in a subsequent trial but for the first round I used the guava puree as a direct substitute for concentrated guava nectar.

Frozen Guava Puree, a much easier to find substitute for frozen concentrated guava nectar

The cake was good but everyone who tasted it failed to taste any guava. It really just tasted like a spice cake. Certainly it was not worth hours of searching for guava concentrate only to have the flavor masked by spices.

Other than guava chiffon cake, which was definitely not the same genre as the cake that Jim had at the Moana Surfrider, I could not find a recipe for plain guava cake that did not start with a box of cake mix. I decided to make the original recipe without the spices.

That did it! The guava flavor came through but something told me that Herbert, a professional baker, might have used something to amp up the guava flavor.

That started me on a search for natural guava extract. I found a wonderful extract made by Amoretti.

You can do without the Amoretti Guava Extract but not the red food coloring.

The next time I made the cake, I added a tiny bit of guava extract to the batter. I believe it enhanced the flavor but if one is not going to make a lot of guava cakes I would consider omitting the guava extract as it is expensive and very concentrated so a little bottle will last a long, long time.

For an everyday cake, I suggest baking it in a 9” x 13” x 2” rectangular pan. For a more special presentation, make a layer cake by dividing the batter between two 9” round pans. If you are doing the latter, make a double batch of cream cheese frosting. You’ll have a little left over but a single batch will not be enough. You could always whip up half a batch of batter and make guava cupcakes to use the extra frosting!

In honor of Oscar Mayer, in whose house we all came together over Jim’s Hawaiian Guava Cake, I recommend the following tribute. Who knew there were so many variations on the Oscar Mayer Wiener theme?

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 Jim's Hawaiian Guava Cake
Because frozen, concentrated guava nectar is not readily available except in Hawaii, I standardized this recipe using frozen guava pulp which should be easy to find in large supermarkets or in markets catering to customers from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. It is important that the cream cheese frosting be level so that the guava gel forms an even layer. If you are making a rectangular cake this means there will be a bit more frosting at the edges than in the middle. If you are making a round two-layer cake, I suggest cutting off the tops of the cakes to achieve a perfectly level appearance. Put the cakes cut side down to avoid having lots of crumbs working their way into the cream cheese frosting. Guava nectar can be purchased in cans or refrigerated. Guava pulp is frozen.
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Course Desserts and Sweets
Cuisine American, Hawaiian
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Cake
Guava Gel
Cream Cheese Frosting (make a double batch for the round cake)
Course Desserts and Sweets
Cuisine American, Hawaiian
Prep Time 2 hours
Cook Time 1 hour
Passive Time 3 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Cake
Guava Gel
Cream Cheese Frosting (make a double batch for the round cake)
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Instructions
Cake
  1. Butter and flour a 9 x 13 x 2 inch metal cake pan or two 9 inch round cake pans.
  2. Combine flour and baking soda. Reserve.
  3. Combine guava puree, guava nectar, guava extract and red food coloring. Reserve.
  4. Cream butter until light. Add sugar and cream until light and fluffy.
  5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, creaming well after each addition.
  6. On low, add dry ingredients alternating with wet ingredients, starting and ending with dry ingredients.
  7. For the rectangular pan: pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top. Rap the pan on the counter to release any air bubbles.
  8. Bake 350°F 40-45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
  9. Cool the cake in the pan then refrigerate.
  10. Frost with cream cheese frosting being careful to make the top of the frosting level. Refrigerate several hours to firm up the frosting.
  11. Top with guava gel and smooth out to the edges. Refrigerate several hours to set the frosting and gel.
  12. Bring the cake to room temperature before serving.
  13. For the round pans: Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Smooth the tops. Rap the pans on the counter to release any air bubbles.
  14. Bake 350°F 30-35 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
  15. Cool the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes. Remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
  16. Wrap the cakes and refrigerate until cold, or up to one day.
  17. Slice the rounded tops of the cakes off to make them level.
  18. x
  19. Put one layer, cut-side-down on a platter.
  20. Put a layer of cream cheese frosting on the top of this layer.
  21. Pipe a rim of frosting around the edge to hold the guava gel. This does not need to be fancy as it will be smoothed out.
  22. Put just under ½ of the guava gel on top of the frosted bottom layer.
  23. Smooth the gel out to the piped edge.
  24. Top with the remaining cake, cut side down.
  25. Generously frost sides and top of the cake with cream cheese frosting.
  26. Pipe a decorative border around the edge of the top layer.
  27. Pour the remaining guava gel on top and smooth out to the edges.
  28. Refrigerate several hours to set the frosting and gel.
  29. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Guava Gel
  1. Put the cornstarch in a small heavy-bottomed sauce pan.
  2. Stir in the guava nectar, a little at a time, to dissolve the cornstarch without forming lumps.
  3. When dissolved, add the remaining guava nectar and sugar.
  4. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full boil.
  5. Remove from heat and stir in red food coloring.
  7. Put a cloth on top of pan before putting cover back on to keep moisture from dripping back into the gel.
  8. After the gel reaches room temperature, refrigerate until cold.
Cream Cheese Frosting (make a double batch for the round cake)
  1. Chill the bowl and beaters for the whipped cream.
  2. Cream the cream cheese until light.
  3. Sprinkle in 1/3 cup of sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
  4. Mix in vanilla.
  5. In chilled bowl, beat the whipping cream until thick.
  6. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and beat until the cream forms stiff peaks.
  7. Fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the cream cheese to lighten it.
  8. Carefully, but thoroughly fold in the remainder of the whipped cream.
Recipe Notes

Copyright © 2017 by VillaSentieri.com. All rights reserved.

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Recipes

Aunt Ann’s Pineapple Cream Cheese Pie

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June 30, 2017

I grew up at a time, and in a town, where people just dropped in, unannounced, to visit family and friends.

Some evenings we’d stay home.  Some evenings we’d go to town.  This was pretty much every Monday and Thursday when the stores were open until 9:00 PM.  And, mind you, we dressed to go to town!  Other evenings we’d visit family and friends.

Around the age of 5 or 6, when we went to Aunt Ann’s, I’d play with food.  Really.  And not at the table.  I don’t honestly know how this got started but Aunt Ann would spread out a vinyl tablecloth on the beige wall-to-wall carpet in her living room.  (Remember, this was around 1960!)  I would pull pots and pans and mixing bowls and other equipment (like box graters and spoons) out of her kitchen cabinets and haul my stash to the living room.

Aunt Ann circa 1965 at Grandma and Grandpa’s house

Then I’d raid the refrigerator for things like carrots, celery, and so forth.

I’d sit in the living room, on the tablecloth, grating vegetables and mixing things in the various pots and bowls.

My love of cooking has deep roots.

My love of peanut butter not so much.

For some reason, I despised peanut butter at that age.  (I know, that’s almost un-American!)  But just to keep things from being too quiet, Uncle Jano would sometimes walk towards me holding a jar of peanut butter and I would run like a vampire running from a wooden stake.

I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but I had to escape from the peanut butter.

The ordeal usually ended with me face down on the sofa until Uncle Jano retreated…sometimes only to start again after I pulled my face out of the pillow.

Aunt Ann and Uncle Jano were great fun.  But they were only Aunt Ann and Uncle Jano if you were related to them through Uncle Jano.  If you were related to them through Aunt Ann, they were Aunt Honey and Uncle John.

From left to right: Uncle Jano, my Grandfather, Uncle “Booty” and my Dad, circa 1965 on a Sunday at my Grandparent’s house

Aunt Ann was a great cook.  She was ethnically Russian and made lots of Russian and Eastern European food like mushroom soup, potato soup, kielbasa, chicken paprikash, pierogi, stuffed cabbage, and so forth.

She also made Italian food, which she learned from the wife of the local Mafia Boss who lived down the street.  (I had a colorful childhood.  What can I say?)

There were the occasional American dishes, like Rum Balls and Pineapple Cream Cheese Pie, too.

Years after those episodes of “cooking” on Aunt Ann’s living room floor, when I was in my teens and twenties, I was always on the lookout for pineapple cream cheese pie when we went to visit.

In an attempt to keep this manageable, I am not posting a recipe for pie crust just yet, but I will at a future date.  If you have a favorite pie crust recipe, by all means, make your own.  If not, buy prepared pie crust from the grocery store.  But whatever you do, give this recipe a try if it appeals to you.  It’s always a hit!

This one is just for fun: Aunt Ann (far left), Aunt Margie (in the back), my mom (far right), my sister and my cousin “Rocky” circa 1950

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 Aunt Ann's Pineapple Cream Cheese Pie
If you don’t have a favorite pie crust recipe, or if you aren’t comfortable making pie crust, buy prepared pie crust. Be sure to purchase NINE INCH DEEP DISH pie crust, however. If you are making your own pie crust, you can use a standard nine inch pie pan, deep dish is not necessary. The cream cheese filling is easier to make in a food processor though an electric mixer works, too. If you are using a mixer, the cream cheese will be much easier to mix if it is at room temperature. This is not critical if you are using a food processor.
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Course Desserts and Sweets
Cuisine American
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
pies
Ingredients
Course Desserts and Sweets
Cuisine American
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings
pies
Ingredients
Votes: 0
Rating: 0
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Instructions
  1. Chop the nuts and reserve.
  2. If making your own crust, prepare and line two nine-inch pie pans. Refrigerate the crust-lined pans until the fillings are prepared.
  3. In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the crushed pineapple, cornstarch, and 1/2 cup of sugar.
  4. Stir until the lumps are gone. The mixture will become cloudy from the cornstarch but will become clear once cooked.
  5. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly.
  6. Boil for approximately one minute, until thickened.
  7. Take the pan off the heat and allow the pineapple mixture to cool slightly.
  8. In a food processor or electric mixer, beat the cream cheese well.
  9. Add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix until the cream cheese is thoroughly combined, all the sugar is dissolved, and there are no lumps.
  10. Divide the pineapple filling between the two pie-crust-lined pie pans.
  11. Top each pie with half the cream cheese mixture.
  12. Scatter the chopped nuts on the pies.
  13. Bake at 350°F for approximately 60 to 65 minutes until the tops of the pies are just beginning to turn golden and the filling is set.
  14. Cool to room temperature before serving. The pies will sink somewhat as they cool.
Recipe Notes

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