July 23, 2004

• Repairman Jack is hosting a contest and this is my submission.

  
  

  Pineapple Cream Pie Disaster

  
  

  My husband Mike has always loved pineapple.  It can be in the form of breakfast rolls, desserts, cookies, cakes, salads . . . you name it, if it has pineapple in it he probably likes it.  My mother, who happens to be a very good cook, created a recipe for pineapple cream pie especially for Mike when he and I got engaged. 

  
  

  The first time I tried to make it was about a month after our wedding when we invited Mike’s sister and her husband over to our apartment for dinner.  The apartment was spotless and I like to cook so the cooking should be no problem. After all these years I can’t even remember what I served for dinner, but I do remember the dessert.  I was going to make that pineapple cream pie my mother created.  Nevermind that I failed to take inventory of the things I might possibly need in the process, like a rolling pin, a pie pan, an electric mixer.   Blissfully I started my task. 

  
  

  Mixing the pie dough was no problem.  I’d helped mom dozens of times as a young girl.  To substitute for a rolling pin, I simply used a pop bottle with a clean sock over it, and after flouring the sock, it worked nicely to roll out the dough.  The closest thing I had to a pie pan was a 9″ square Pyrex baking dish.  After a little trouble I finally got the pie dough to stay up on the straight sides and slipped the baking dish in the oven to brown the pie shell.  Ten minutes later when I took it out of the oven I was disappointed to see that the dough on the straight vertical sides had slowly slid down the sides into piles.  I could have salvaged it and used just the bottom crust and had no side crust on the pie, but that just wouldn’t do, so I started over. 

  
  

  This time I used several pair of glass salt and pepper shakers we had received as wedding gifts as props to hold up the sides of the new crust long enough for it to bake and therefore hold it’s shape.  It worked too.  Now I had my square baked pie shell. 

  
  

  The base of the pie is a cooked pudding which called for scalding the milk.  I wasn’t sure back then exactly at what point you could consider milk scalded so after it boiled for about two minutes I asked Mike, “What exactly does it mean to scald milk?”  He said he thought it was right before it starts to boil.  Too late!  So I just let it cool down a little before continuing with the recipe. 

  
  

  My next hurdle came when the recipe called for me to beat some whipping cream.  This was going to take a little bit more creativity.  I finally decided upon using a large mayonaise jar, which was unfortunately full of mayonaise.  I took it out and put it into a bowl and washed and dried the jar.  Then I put the whipping cream in it and started shaking the life out of it and Mike even took a turn at it.  At some point though, I noticed that the cream was not looking thick and creamy any more, but more like skim milk.   You guessed it, I had made butter and it was floating in the jar of skimmed milk.   At this point it was after 10PM and Mike offered to go to the 7-11 and get more whipping cream but it dawned on me that even if I somehow managed to get the whipping cream whipped I’d still have to figure out how to make meringue without a mixer.  I gave up; I threw in the towel.  We’d just not have dessert.  I’d serve a lovely meal, but without dessert. 

  
  

  Mike, my knight in shining armor, knew how badly I felt about messing up the pie, so he spent time at work the next day calling different bakeries in town to see if any of them offered pineapple cream pie.  When he finally found one that did, it was all the way across town so he left work a little early and drove as fast as he could to the bakery, picked up the pie, drove home faster than he should have, parked the car,  jumped out and headed for the back steps to our 2nd floor apartment.  In his haste he stumbled just as he reached the bottom step causing the pie box to do a back flip and land upside down.  Retrieving the sealed box he came up the stairs and presented it to me, wondering outloud if the pie could possibly still be intact.  It wasn’t of course, but our guests were never the wiser.  We served pineapple cream “pudding” that night as well as some pretty special butter for our rolls.

  
  

  Recipe for Pineapple Cream Pie

  
  

  1 envelope Knox Gelatin            3 Egg YOLKS (4 if small)
  1/4 Cup Cold Water                  1 Cup Crushed Pineapple
  1/2 Cup Sugar                                (well drained)
  1/2 tsp salt                               1 tsp vanilla
  1 Cup Milk                                2 half pts whipping cream
  1/2 Cup Pineapple Juice           Meringue (3 egg whites, 1/4 tsp
                                                     cream of tartar, 1/2 Cup Sugar)
  

  Soften gelatin in water. Mix sugar, milk, salt and juice in saucepan. Cook (low heat) stirring constantly till scalded. Remove from heat and stir some into the egg yolks that have been slightly beaten. Blend this back into the hot mixture and cook till it just begins to boil. Remove from heat and stir in the softened gelatin. COOL. When partially set, beat with mixer until smooth and then blend in the pineapple & vanilla. Gently fold in one of the half pints of whipped whipping cream and then the meringue. Pile in cooled baked pie shell. Chill till firm (preferably over night). Top with another half pint of sweetened whipping cream.
  NOTE: Egg whites whip better at room temperature.

  • 11:57 am
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