Dream Pie come to life?!

This backlog needs to get caught up! I will do my best to crank these out. In fact, I will stick two pies in this post (because one of them I have already sort of explained).

That would be Wednesday, June 29th's pie, Chocolate Strawberry Banana Pie. Don't get your metaphorical panties in a bunch; that Monday's will follow. I'm only getting out of order because that one actually has a whole recipe with it. This one is basically just the Chocolate Pie from a couple weeks earlier (whose meringue's failure you may remember inspired an egg imbalance), but with two kinds of fruit instead of the meringue. It was pretty tasty, but the extra moisture in the fruit made the custard set in a strange way.

Back to Monday the 27th for the remaining entry in Strawberry Banana Week(-and-a-bit), a Strawberry Banana Cheesecake. This was my first attempt at a Franken-recipe, using a banana cheesecake recipe and a strawberry cheesecake recipe. I think it turned out quite well, though next time I would use significantly less lemon juice in it. The tartness overpowered the banana flavor. I will do my best to reproduce the recipe that I created.

The crust was, as usual, graham cracker. I believe I used a slightly reduced recipe from the full size, 33 cracker squares version. I'm thinking I likely went with about two-thirds or three-quarter-ish, something like 22 cracker squares and 6 tablespoons of butter with 3/4 tablespoon of sugar. Bake that bad boy at 350F for ten minutes or so.

10 oz strawberries
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Prep this strawberry stuff first. Start out by slicing the strawberries up in little pieces, then toss them with the sugar. Let them sit in a strainer over a bowl for a couple hours or so to let the juices drain out. Squish the fruit to get as much of the juice out as possible, then take the juice over medium-high heat to reduce. Puree the solids, and mix them back into the reduced juice with the lemon juice. I think it's possible I used 2 tablespoons of lemon juice instead of 2 teaspoons, which would explain the overly tart result. Who knows.

16 oz cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream

As with any cheesecake, make sure that everything is room temp before you start. Beat the cream cheese for a bit then add the sugar. Beat those for a few minutes before adding the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Then add the bananas and beat, then half to two-thirds of the strawberry stuff and beat that. Add the vanilla and salt, beat, and finally add the sour cream and beat. Pour it into the springform over the crust, and drop little bits of the remaining strawberry stuff to make it beautiful. Pop that bad boy in the oven for about an hour, until the edges are set but the center still a little wiggly. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool in the oven.

Quite tasty. Other than reducing the lemon juice, I might also add a third banana. 'Cause bananas are delish, and the banana flavor was a little understated.