Tomorrow’s post will be about the dessert I’m making for today’s 4th of July party. Our neighbors have an annual bash where the price of entry is one homemade pie. With forty people coming year and after year, the friendly competition is earnest. This group includes some people who really, truly grew up watching their moms bake pie. All you have to do is look at their crust, and you know.
My entry will be a meringe/whipped cream/gelatin- filled banana liqueur pie with a sprial of banana slices on top. My issue is simple: how to keep those banana slices yellow for hours and prevent that unsightly browning we all hate.
I’ve researched and the simplest method appears to be lemon juice. But the application of that juice comes is unclear. People advise:
- Sprinkle drops of lemon juice over the bananas
- Use a brush to make sure the entire bananas surface is covered
- Dip each banana slice into water laced with some lemon juice.
Well, the first option seems to leave protection to chance. I’m sure to get brown spots. The third option comes with no advice on how much lemon juice to use, plus I can’t think it would be fun to be dipping banana slices and then trying to lay them in a spiral on top of the pie – all without damaging the surface of the pie.
That leaves Option 2. Which I could do. But, I’m going with Option 4: brushing with warm jam. In this solution, I’ll use a quarter cup of jam and a quarter cup of rum. Whisk them together in a suace pan, then heat them on low and whisk until thoroughly dissolved and mixed. Then it’s just a matter of brushing the bananas, already in place in their spiral on top of the pie, with this very sweet goop.
What kind of jam? In the past I have used orange. You don’t want a jam that has long stringy pieces, a marmalade situation, that will make painting difficult. Orange and apricot seem to be the jams most often recommended.
Tomorrow? The pictures, the pie, and the verdict of 40 people!