The Holidays bring requests from everyone for their fave cream pies and other ‘filled’ desserts. There are two ways to go about fulfilling the fillings – the hard way and the easy way. With Christmas and New Year’s banging on the door, it’s time for a recap…
Okay. I lied. There are actually 2 easy ways to slake your family’s cravings for gooey, silky ‘cream pie’ fillings… Whichever way you go, remember, there’s no shame in taking the easiest route to save time and reduce the danger of failure. Which with any of the methods I’m recapping today is minimal anyway…
Three routes – one destination
The hardest way – ‘Traditional ‘
This is the way we learned to make creamy pastry fillings at culinary school. And it’s a bit of a bother, both in terms of the time demanded and the technique required to handle the primary thickening agent: egg yolks.
The secret here is, you’re actually making a thick classic custard. And if you think of it that way, it sounds a lot less daunting. I’ve looked up a really good recipe from Serious Eats.
It not only provides an authentic formula and procedure, but offers intriguing explanations of how the chemistry and ingredients work together. You’ll come away with all the know-how you need to start tweaking custard ion any direction you may want to go, with any dish, in the future!
But, if you want the most elegant, silkiest product, this is the way to go. You’ll have to learn (or leverage your existing knowledge of) the ways of the double boiler – known to chefs as the ‘Bain Marie’… But that’s a classic technique you’ll want to master, so you can whip up amazing top-tier desserts such as Zabaglione and cannoli (see photo, top of page) with amazing grace and dexterity…
An easier way – ‘Quick Homemade’
I use this quick method to make most of my day-to-day gelled fruit pastry fillings, ‘clear’/glossy sauces and some soups, such as Asian Hot and Sour.
By substituting milk for water, fruit juice or stock, I get a creamy version that can be gently tweaked in a number of directions to produce slightly different results.
I found a recipe almost identical to my Mom’s at Allrecipes.com. Which might be why they’ve titled it ‘Old English’ Cream Pie Filling!
The hands-down easiest way- ‘Out-Of-The-Box’
The ads have already come down thick and fast online and in the last three months’ editions of the usual ‘homemaker’ magazines.
You’ll find both cooked and no-cook, ‘instant’ versions. But these products may contain additional ingredients ‘not found in nature’ to facilitate thickening. Remember: all such products (unless labelled otherwise) contain artificial preservatives, flavourings and colourings you might not want to put into your family’s bodies.
Let’s have a round of applause for the folks at Jello and the other boxed pie filling purveyors for coming up with this time-saving, inexpensive and virtually foolproof option!
Tip…
Whichever method you use to make your cream pie filling, DO add the requisite teaspoon of genuine Pure Vanilla Extract per litre of finished custard to enhance the sweetness and ‘deepen’ the ‘creamy’ dimension of the product. Even if using a no-cook pie filling from a box, you may want to ad a few drops or as much as 1/2 tsp. of Vanilla to elevate the flavour and overall satisfaction quotient of the product.
My take
You have nothing to fear from cream pie fillings. And you can take as much time, and put in as much effort and ‘craft’ as you want via any of the three methods outlined above.
If you’ve been avoiding making cream pies, you can go ahead and embrace the idea with confidence – and still ‘be of good cheer’ over the Holidays!
~ Maggie J.