homemade cream pies

[coolJ]

Just a thought that popped into my head, If I'm making vanilla cream pie or banana,or whatever, and I freeze them, when the pies are thawed out, will I have problems with soggy crusts ?. pastries were not my area of expertise in school (I'm a salad boy), so if this seem's like a ' dumb' question, go easy on me.

[Katherine]

I don't know about your crusts, but you could very well have a problem with your filling breaking and turning to curds and whey...yuck! Also, it is highly unlikely that bananas will freeze well. I'd put money on that not working.

Test ONE before you take the big leap.

[W.DeBord]

Your defrosted cream pie will not resemble the fresh pie you froze. It can't be done sucessfully.

The pastry cream part doesn't freeze well regardless of the crust (which does freeze well). The only thing close that would work, is to make a bavarian cream filling for your pie, but they don't taste similar. Also cream pies are traditionally topped with whipped cream, which also doesn't freeze and defrost properly.

To simplify making a cream pie so theres less last minute work:
Pre-make, roll and freeze your unbaked pie shell.
Make your pastry cream filling ahead of time, lay a layer of plastic directly ontop to prevent a skin from forming.

Then the day of: bake off your crust, put you cream filling in with what-ever fruit your using. Top with your whipped cream.

Sorry, no real shortcuts on this item......

[m brown]

You could try to brush white chocolate onto the baked cooled crust, then top the firm chocolate with the filling and freeze.
The chocolate should keep the crust drier than without.