Raspberry Pie with Chocolate Crust

Last weekend, MM and I made a traditional Key Lime Pie using left over key limes that were mere hours from going bad. We consulted the Internet for recipes and

the results?

A fabulous, simple to make Key Lime Pie (although getting the juice out of key limes is equal to milking squirrels?)

and I think we were both surprised at how easy it was to make. Who knew eggs and a can of condensed milk could make such a great dessert?

And that got us thinking.......

what if we used fresh raspberries and changed the recipe,

just a little?

What if we made individual cakes (instead of a pie) and used a different crust? What would happen if we substituted mascarpone frosting over traditional whipped cream?

The results?

Genius!

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Here's what we did:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit) 


THE CRUST:


1- 1/4 cups of ground chocolate wafers (we used Nabisco Chocolate Wafers.)
5-6 Tablespoons of melted butter
2 Tablespoons of granulated sugar

1. Mix together ground chocolate wafers, melted butter, and granulated sugar with a wooden spoon until the mixture holds together.


2. Line twelve cupcakes with liners. Take one tablespoon of the chocolate mixture and press firmly it into the bottom of the pans. 


3. Bake for 6-8 minutes in the preheated oven until firm.


Cool. 


THE FILLING:


3 egg yolks
1 - 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup of raspberry juice. (We strained fresh through a sieve.)

There is nothing better than the taste of fresh berries.

1. Mix the egg yolks together with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes or until they are pale in color. 


2. Slowly mix in sweetened condensed milk until completely combined, mixing for an additional 3-5 minutes. 

3. Add raspberry juice and continue mixing until blended. 


4. Pour mixture into the cupcake tin with the chocolate crust. 

Bake 6-8 minutes

5. Take pies out of the oven and let cool. 

THE TOPPING: 

1 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 lb of mascarpone cheese
1/3 cup raspberry curd (this is an amazing recipe and blog.)


Beat the sugar and cream to soft peaks in your mixer.

Combine the mascarpone and raspberry curd in a separate bowl and mix. Add the cream to the mascarpone mixture. Carefully fold to combine, take your time and be gentle. Very, very gentle. No rushing! We mean it. If the mixture is overworked it can separate or look grainy. 


We put the topping into piping bags and let cool in freezer for approximately 10 minutes before decorating the pies. 

This recipe makes 12 mini pies or one 9" pie. 


Garnish with leftover ground up chocolate wafers:

My Oh My

Heaven called! Your dessert is ready.

We both agreed this recipe lands in our Top10 of things we've baked over the past few years during our Easy Bake Saturdays and I can only hope our next baking day yields such great results.

Until then,

Happy Baking!

~PNW Gal and M.M

Fourth of July - Dress Rehearsal

With my baking partner out of town this weekend I decided to test a recipe for chocolate cupcakes we expect to make for the upcoming 4th of July Holiday.

Or will we? 

My vision:  A very, very dense chocolate cupcake filled with raspberry curd and topped with the same amazing lemon (now raspberry) mascarpone cream frosting we used in the last post.

We'll finish with molded sugar decorations.

The cupcake recipe is a chocolate sour cream bundt cake recipe from William Sonoma.

Can cupcakes be made from a bundt cake recipe?

That's why I'm testing it because nothing says

FAIL,

more than a group of people biting into a brick of dough and trying to act like it's good.

For the cake recipe click here:  Lick The Bowl Good Blog

I picked Monica's recipe because it was the only one I found that combined several types of chocolate and it seemed to be dense enough to work with the curd filling and rich frosting. 

For making cupcakes from the receipe, here's what I learned:



First batch. I filled  the cups 2/3 of the way full
and let bake for 22 minutes.



They fell immediately coming out of the oven.
No big deal but the next batch I decided to fill the liners to
the brim.



these I let bake for 25-28 minutes. 
I cut the recipe in half and still yielded 18 large cupcakes.

Next, the raspberry curd filling.  Toay I used a recipe from Martha Stewart, but I wish I had used the recipe from the previous post.

It's nearly fail safe.  To make raspberry curd, puree one cup of raspberries, strain and fold into the lemon curd.  Because the puree is adding a liquid, I would add a little extra corn starch to the recipe.  Mine was slightly runny and did not set up as well as I wanted.  Boo. But that's ok, because this is only the dress rehearsal.

Click here for the lemon curd recipe: There Goes the Cupcake as well did the wonderful mascarpone frosting.

I added a small amount of red food coloring and finished with molded sugar decorations:

The results were a very intense, dense chocolate cupcake with  raspberry curd and equally rich mascarpone frosting. 

It. Is. Rich.  For reals. 

Will it make it to our 4th of July party in a few weeks?

I'm not sure. I need to confer with MM after he returns. These take some time to make and on a day when there are many things to do, it could be too complicated?  

 

Maybe we should make a pie?

Island Bakers

We finally found time to make this recipe found on Pinterest many months ago:

Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

And they were worth the wait!  We followed the recipe exactly and with only a few notes (see below) we were happy with the results:

Things we asked ourselves while baking this recipe:


1. Why do you coat the blueberries in flour before adding to cupcake mixture:


Answer: Here 


2. What is mascarpone and why do we want to use it?


Answer: Here

Our notes from this recipe:


*The lemon curd portion of this recipe needs to be doubled.  The yield of 24-26 cupcakes requires more curd than prescribed and this resulted in a trip to the store in order to make more for the frosting.


*Our cupcakes required more baking than the suggested 20 minutes and we believe they should stay in until golden brown on top.


*These cupcake don't rise as much as expected, so fill the cupcake liners almost to the top.


Four hours after starting, we were left with twenty-two fabulous cupcakes that were divided at the end of the day to be enjoyed between numerous families and friends.


The kitchen was covered in sugar, the floor sticky and the Saturday Bakers?


Happy!


Until next month.

Sugar Cookie Egg Bowls