There is this little diner not far from my fiance’s house. In fact, it’s just down the road. At this little diner, which we frequent, they serve Coconut Cream Pie and man alive, it’s delicious. It must be an old fashion recipe because they won’t share it with me. I’ve asked flat out - can I have your recipe? And they just started laughing. Then I started crying and a baby flip kicked me. T’was a bad night.

So since I didn’t get the fabled recipe I thought, heck I’ll make my own coconut cream pie and that’s exactly what we have here. Was it as good? It was different. I’ll give you that. It’s delicious in it’s own right but some spice or seasoning is still a mystery to me. My recipe below would be perfect to serve at any of your upcoming Christmas parties.

What you’ll need:

For the crust:
4-5 cups of crushed graham crackers
1 cup of butter, melted
1 tbsp cinnamon

For the filling:
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups coconut milk
2 x whole large eggs
2 x large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, lightly toasted in a pan (see pics)

For topping:
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut, lightly toasted in a pan (see pics)
1 tbsp cinnamon

How you’ll do it:
Crust:
- Preheat your oven to 350F
- Take your graham cracker crumbs, cinnamon and mix the melted butter, it should be moist. Now butter a 9 inch pie plate and press the crumbs into the pan. Form a crust and press to set it firmly. Bake without filling for 10 minutes or until golden.

Topping:
Place your coconut in a dry frying pan, cook on medium until toasted while constantly moving the coconut around the pan to prevent burning. Once toasted, remove and add cinnamon and mix.

Filling:
- Combine all filling ingredients, except the shredded coconut in a heavy bottom sauce pot. Whisk to combine and set over medium heat. Whisk constantly until custard thickens. Do not walk away, if you leave this to boil over you’ll probably need to buy a new kitchen.
- After the custard thickens, remove from the heat and fold in the coconut (1 cup). Let this filling cool for 15-30 minutes.
- Once a little cool, pour into your now golden pie shell. Place the pie in the fridge until completely cooled. About 4 hours.
- Just before serving, sprinkle the top of your pie with the remaining 2 cups of coconut and cut into wedges. Serve with whipped cream.

There you have it. It’s almost Christmas, so get baking!

- m

Tags: coconut, coconut cream pie, dessert, recipe

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 7:32 AM and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.