peanut butter pie & roasted banana ice cream

Today is the Fourth of July.

In the wee hours of the morning, after 26hrs of travelling, Jonas and I will have arrived in Daytona Beach (Florida), ready to celebrate the day in the humidity and heat with my aunt, cousin and 90 year old grandfather.

Jonas is over the moon because it’s the first time he will visit mainland USA and we’re spending the day at the Daytona NASCAR . . . on Independence Day.

In preparation for this momentous day, I preblogged this WHB post with an American flavour.

What’s more American than peanut butter? And combining it with chocolate?
Genius! A salty-bittersweet symphony.

And add to this combination some banana? Even better!

Thus you have Maggie Beer’s peanut butter pie with David Lebovitz’s roasted banana ice cream. Delicious!

The ice cream has the most delectable flavour of sweet, caramelised banana but it's best eaten on the day of making as it can get a little icy if left too long in the freezer.

The pie is divine, but it's very rich and fudgy. The filling would be overwhelming but paired with the ganache topping it takes on a wonderful cheesecake salty-sweet-sourness.

Don't be tempted to use smooth peanut butter, the crunchy texture is necessary.

Peanut Butter Pie

Recipe by Maggie Beer in Delicious Magazine March 2009. Serves 16.
Ingredients:
Base
180g digestive biscuits
90g unsalted butter, melted
3 teaspoons caster sugar
Filling
1 cup (250ml) pouring cream
1/3 cup (75g) caster sugar
320g cream cheese, room temperature
375g crunchy, salt-free peanut butter
Topping
150ml thickened cream
150g 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped
20g unsalted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180’C (160’C for fan forced)

2. Process biscuits in a food processor until crumbled.

3. Add melted butter and sugar then pulse to combine. Press crumbs into the base of a 22cm spring form baking tin.

4. Bake base for 10 minutes then set aside to cool.

5. For the filling, place the cream and sugar in a saucepan and simmer on low for 3-4 minutes, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

6. Chop the cream cheese then blend with peanut butter, in a food processor, until combined.

7. Add the warm cream mixture, pulse to combine and then spoon filling onto the cooled cookie base. Set aside to cool.

8. To make the topping, combine the chopped chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl.

9. Bring the cream almost to the boil over high heat then pour over chocolate and butter.

10. Leave for 3 minutes without touching then gentle swirl the bowl to combine the cream, butter and chocolate.

11. Pour the combined topping over the filling then chill in the fridge, uncovered, for 4 hours until set.

12. Serve small slices with ice cream because it’s very, very rich!

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Recipe from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. Makes 750ml.
Ingredients:3 medium-sized ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 cup (70g), packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1½ cups (375ml) whole milk
2 tablespoons caster sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon coarse salt

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200’C.

2. Slice the bananas into 2cm pieces and toss them with the brown sugar and butter in a 2 litre baking dish.

3. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring just once during baking, until the bananas are browned and cooked through.

4. Scrape the bananas and the thick syrup into a blender or food processor.

5. Add the milk, granulated sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and salt, and purée until smooth.

6. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Note: If the chilled mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisking will thin it out.

Banana would be an all-too-simple choice of ingredients for WHB, so I’m going to focus on peanuts.

Did you know they aren’t actually nuts but legumes?

After pollination, the fruit changes into a legume

Yet another wonderful food gift from the abundant Americas, it’s amazing to think what our meals would like without this vast continent. The Americas gave the world pecan, avocado, cashew, passionfruit, turkey, pineapple, chocolate, pumpkin, quinoa, guava, papaya, strawberries, vanilla, allspice, potato, tomato, chilli and maple syrup.


Despite having come from South America, the peanut’s journey into the USA came from Africa through Portugal and Brazil.

Apparently our domesticated peanuts have two sets of chromosomes from two different species, leading scientists to believe domestication occurred in Argentina or Bolivia.

The oldest peanuts found by archaeologists are some 7,600 years old, making them a pretty old fashioned snack!

China leads world production of peanuts, followed by India and then Nigeria. The next largest producers of the top ten are the United States, Indonesia, Myanmar, Argentina, Vietnam, Sudan and Chad.

Peanuts are a rich source of protein, niacin (good for the brain) antioxidants, resveratrol (anti-aging), vitamin B3, vitamin E, magnesium, folate, dietary fibre and monounsaturated fats.

Interestingly, peanut allergies are exacerbated by roasting peanuts. The roasting process increases peanut allergens Ara h1 and Ara h2 and inhibits the necessary digestive enzymes. In other countries like India and China, where peanuts are not roasted before processing, allergies are very rare.

Studies are also showing that exposing children to peanuts much later in life decreases the chances of developing peanut allergies

Whatever the cause, peanut allergies are extremely dangerous and can cause immediate anaphylactic shock just by eating food processed by machines that touched peanuts or by breathing peanut dust.

So that's it from me. Head on over to our WHB host, the lovely Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska and Happy 4th of July!

Other peanut recipes:
African Peanut Soup Kalyn's Kitchen
Candied Peanuts David Lebovitz
Carrot & Peanut Muffins Chocolate & Zucchini
Chipotle-Maple Peanut Brittle Culinary in the Country
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake Smitten Kitchen
Chinese Fried Noodles w Spicy Peanut Sauce Morsels & Musings
Groundnut Chutney Mahanandi
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Baking Bites
Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter Joy The Baker
Lime & Peanut Coleslaw 101 Cookbooks
Peanut Butter & Banana Milkshake Morsels & Musings
Peanut Butter Marshmallow Crispy Brownies The Cooking Photographer
Toasted Peanut Bread 101 Cookbooks
Virginia Peanut Soup CookThink

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter