I am practicing the ULTIMATE in restraint right now. I made this gorgeous Coconut Cream Pie that a friend requested. It’s taking all I’ve got not to eat the whole thing while no one’s looking. Shoot, look if you want to. I just wanna eat it.
“Maybe you could just tell her it got messed up…”
was my husbands plea. He really wants to eat it, too. My daughter longingly touched the plastic lid when she saw the pie in the fridge.
Looks like I’m gonna be making another one very soon.
I started on the pie last night, because pretty much all cream pies are better if they sit in the fridge overnight. The recipes always say 3 hours OR overnight, but overnight means that the pie is more solid and the flavorings are usually stronger.
This recipe of coconut cream is made from coconut, coconut extract, vanilla extract, eggs, sugar, corn starch, and salt. You have to stand at the stove and whisk and whisk and whisky-whisk-whisk — for a while so that the custard gets hot enough. You can’t stop whisking, though, because then it will stick to the pot. I was very proud of this effort. In the past, I have either given up before it gets thick enough (for fear of it burning) or left it too long or turned my back on it.
But this time, the whisk and my usually-too-short attention span did their jobs. I learned from a great cook I know that the magic is in the corn starch. If it doesn’t get hot enough, it’s not gonna thicken properly. This time, it worked.
After the stuff gets thick, you remove it from the heat and add butter (because what’s not better with butter?) and stir some more.
I then dumped it into a graham cracker crust. The recipe gave the option of a pastry crust or graham cracker, and I decided on graham cracker because I had one already and I am lazy. Plus, my friend is going to have to travel a bit with the pie in a cooler, and I think the graham cracker will behave better in the long run.
Next, I had to put plastic wrap on the top so that there were no air bubbles. This keeps a skin from forming on top of the filling. Now, I ended up putting topping on the pie, but the thought of “skin forming” on anything grosses me out, so I obeyed the plastic wrap warning.
The pie cooled for a bit and sat in the fridge till after lunch today.
I got to do something new while I was preparing to top the pie–toasting coconut. It smells wonderful while it’s in the oven and man, I cannot believe how toasting brings out the flavor. On top of that, it gets this crispy texture that is just divine.
I waited for it to cool and piped whipped topping all over the pie.
I was very happy with how it turned out. After the pie was decorated and back in the fridge. I ate the rest of that toasted coconut. Yum.
I sure hope my friend has a great time on her girls’ trip. She deserves it. And everyone knows…
fortyandtwentyblackbirds 