Club Baked - Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Wow...it's been quite awhile since I have done any blogging and BLOGGER has gone through a facelift of some sort. 

It is my turn to bake and post and I selected Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie for this week's Club Baked installment.  I must say...this recipe is a bit cumbersome in that it required taking out the food processor, cooking and taking out the mixer as well cool down time so you have to wait at least 3 hours after the completion to taste your pie!  I am sort of an instant gratification type of girl!

Anyway....overall I love the crust made out of vanilla wafers and would definitely use that for my next pie recipe (whenever that may be).  I also like the cream as it's not super sweet.  I can see myself using the pie crust and cream for another pie.  As for the banana and peanut butter....I'll be honest....I am not a fan of peanut butter in my baked items (except maybe the occasional peanut butter cookie but that is the extent of it) nor banana other than banana nut bread.  I do like that the pie itself is not overly sweet so I don't feel too bad feeding a bit of this to my 14 month old. 

I wished I could take more pictures but these days, my baking usually happens at about 9 pm at night (after my kid goes off to bed) so the lighting is not at its best.

I took this picture in the morning when the pie had time to sit in the fridge.  

Is there a secret to cutting pies so that they come out a nice clean slice?  Look at my terrible work below.

I did make one modification to the recipe.  Instead of using vanilla bean (which I did not have on hand), I used two teaspoons of vanilla extract.  Thanks Karen for letting me bake this week's installment!

Club Baked -Devils Food Cake w/Angel Frosting

This week's baking was hosted by me!

I was on maternity leave when I initially joined this baking club and I thought I was going to have all this free time to bake and cook. Well....I went back to work in August and there holds the problem. Juggling a full-time career and coming home to an addition in the house has basically meant there is very little free time to do much (sleep included).

However...I did promise Karen that I would bake at this for the beginning of 2012! So here I am baking Devil's Food Cake with Angel Frosting. I did not have a candy thermometer (something I should really consider buying one of these days) so I decided to skip the angel frosting and just use confectioner's sugar.
I did an 8 inch one layer cake as well as these bite sized cupcakes. I must admit that the bite sized cupcakes are a lot easier to eat that I find myself popping more into my mouth than I really want to devour given all the caffeine that is in this recipe.
We do not have a coffee maker at our house nor do we have instant coffee, however, the husband occasionally drinks French-pressed coffee so I ended up having to make coffee that old-fashioned way using Vietnamese coffee. Anyone who knows Vietnamese coffee will know how strong it is...I've had about three of these cupcake bites. Gosh...I hope I can sleep tonight!

Verdict: The husband and I like devil's food cake. The cake was moist and not super sweet. I almost forgot the brown sugar and ended up adding it to the recipe all the way at the end! I did not use angel frosting so I cannot comment but I found confectioner's sugar to work wonderfully with the cake. I would make this recipe again and opt for all cupcakes rather than the 8 inch cake pan.