Paradise autumn pie
Pies
How do you make a pie that celebrates the fall season when you live in the tropics? This pie is my best answer. I scoured my favorite farmer’s market this past Saturday and instead of apples and pears, raspberries and peaches, I found a beautiful, nearly ripe Haden mango and apple bananas. Apple bananas are slightly tart with an unusually dry texture (even when ripe). I prefer them to regular Cavendish bananas. September in Hawai`i also marks the beginning of star fruit or carambola season and, lucky for me, I have a friend with a very productive tree and little interest in the yellow, slightly tart, subtly sweet star-shaped fruit. She had given me a bag bursting with star fruit on Friday. My initial idea was to do some slumping, star-fruit style this weekend, and make a mango-apple banana pie. However, since I could only find one nearly ripe mango at the farmer’s market, I quickly changed my plan, incorporated some Maui Gold rum, Saigon cinnamon, palm sugar, fresh grated ginger and toasted walnuts – all for warm, spicy notes to contrast the sweet, tropical flavors that are plentiful in paradise. Until now, I have always lamented the lack of true seasons here, especially when it came to eating. I am still sorry I cannot buy local apples, but making and eating this pie makes me feel a little better about it. Note: I am a fledgling baker and have to work on my pie crust skills. I used a combination butter and shortening crust from Simply Recipes and was very pleased with the flaky texture. I am including the recipe below. I found that rolling the dough out between two large pieces of parchment made the task much easier.
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