Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut....HOT FIX!

I am an organizer by nature, and admittedly, I tend to plan our weekly meals in advance, along with many of the other dishes and treats that I make. That being said, every once in awhile, something comes along that just has to be taken care of as quickly as I can get to my kitchen. In my work, we would call that a "Hot Fix". And since this week's crash course in sugar overdose came from a co-worker, that's what we're calling it.
Sitting in our group lab yesterday, one of the lovely ladies I work with asked me, "So, are you a 'baker' or more of a 'cooker'?" Being a loaded question, I replied that I do tend to gravitate more toward cooking than baking, but I do make my fair share of sweets as well.
She had been in a nearby town over the weekend, and had lunch with her sister at a local eatery. From the dessert menu, she had ordered a treat dubbed "Almond Joy Pie" and wanted to know if it could be re-created. After doing some research online, I found a recipe that sounded close to what she described and after making a few modifications, realized that I already had all the ingredients for it at home. Since the dinner I had planned last night involved allowing a coup to simmer for awhile, I decided I had time to try this one out.
The recipe I found and am including below, also had instructions for a homemade crust. However, one of the deciding factors enticing me to make it was the fact that I knew I had one lonely frozen pie shell tossing about in my freezer, begging to to be used up. So, I skipped the crust and moved on to the filling. As it turns out, this is going to be a dangerous addition to my repertoire, because it has only a few ingredients, none of which are perishable and can be kept in the pantry indefinitely, and it goes together in about five minutes. Seriously. The original recipe is below, but here are the instructions, including my changes. Here's how it goes.
Preheat the oven to 350.
If you are a slacker like me, break out a frozen pie shell. Pour a think layer of chocolate chips in the bottom of the shell.Top with about a cup and a half of shredded coconut.Pour a can of sweetened condensed milk over the top of the coconut. Then let the concoction rest for five minutes or so to let it soak in a little.Top with whole almonds. After tasting the pie, we decided it could have used more almonds.Cover with greased foil (I used my trusty Reynolds Release wrap), and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until the coconut is golden on top.Melt about a cup of chocolate chips with about a quarter cup of half and half and spread it over the top of the pie, then allow it to cool thoroughly.NOTE: the pie looked a little sloshy to me when I pulled it out of the oven, but I was afraid if I left it in any longer, the coconut might burn. I needn't have worried. The filling was firmly set when I cut into it this morning.
The original recipe says it can be stored at room temperature, but I put it in the fridge just to help it set up last night.If you have enough people around, it won't last long enough to worry about leftovers anyway. I brought the pie in this morning and it wasn't even 9:00 before we cut into it.
Aside from being slightly stickier than an Almond Joy bar, it tastes exactly like one. WARNING - this pie is extremely rich. You will want to make sure you have a large quantity of coffee or cold milk on standby when you are serving this one.Original recipe:

Almond Joy Pie
Most "Almond Joy Pie" recipes I see use the actual candy bar in the recipe. This one does not, but the finished product takes like an almond joy.

Crust:

2 egg whites

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups finely chopped almonds

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat egg whites until foamy; add cream of tartar. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until stiff and glossy. Fold in almonds. Spread mixture over bottom and sides of a greased 10-inch pie pan. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool.

Pie:

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups shredded coconut

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour chocolate chips into cooled pie crust; top with coconut. Drizzle sweetened condensed milk over the top. Set aside 3 to 5 minutes.

Spray a sheet of foil with cooking spray. Cover pie loosely (try to keep the foil from touching the pie) with greased foil and bake 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes, or until coconut is golden brown. Cool completely before cutting. Store at room temperature.

Then and Now

Recently, my husband and I went to a local consignment auction and as I was sifting through boxes of cookbooks, the hubs came across a tattered old cookbook whose cover read, “Chesterfield Science Club Cookbook 1913”. Now, Chesterfield being the small Illinois town that he grew up in, he was immediately interested. We know of two other Chesterfield cookbooks, one from the sesquicentennial year in the mid ‘80s, and the Y2K edition, both of which we own. This edition is a typical “contribution” cookbook, with the names of each contributor listed. As Matt’s step dad (among others) was born and raised in Chesterfield, we started looking for names we recognized.

We’ve been flipping through the book here and there (yep, that’s right, my husband was the high bidder and we now own it as well as the other two editions), and while my parents were out here visiting, I thought it would be fun to try a couple of the recipes from the book, just as a kind of throwback to days gone by. Many of the recipes have very little instruction, and even some questionable ingredients, so picking one was a challenge. One recipe jumped out at my mom as she was leafing through the pages. Amber Pie.
I ask you – what exactly makes a pie “amber”? Well, the ingredient list wasn’t much help. It called for 1 ½ cups jam (what kind, you may ask? I chose Strawberry, simply because I didn’t want to waste my jar of fig if the recipe went badly.), 1 ½ cups sour cream, 1 cup sugar, 2 TB flour and 2 eggs.
The directions go something like this.
Mix all together. Take one crock of cream and whip. Pour on top of pie in unbaked shell. Makes enough for two pies.

I. Kid. You. Not.

Do you bake it? If so, how long? At what temperature? You don’t really put the whipped cream on before baking, right?

So, using our common sense (we hoped), we mixed the four pie ingredients together (I halved the recipe to make one pie), poured it into an unbaked crust (yes, I cheated and used a frozen one from the store), and baked it in a moderate oven (350), hopefully until the filling “set”, and, we waited.

At about 30 minutes, the filling was still liquid.
At forty minutes, it was boiling. Spewing fat little bubbles up from the middle of the pie. But the crust was definitely not done. Hmmm....
Ten minutes later, it was a puffing and heaving mass of phlegmy looking curdles that reminded me of a festering cesspool. I was mildly disgusted and somewhat horrified.
Finally, at an hour and ten minutes, there was a distinct change that had taken place, the puffing had subsided and it appeared to be a consistently gelled mass, apart from a bit around the edges that was caramelizing aggressively.
We removed the pie from the oven and allowed it to cool. After lunch, we decided to brave the beast. Cutting small slices from the pie, we passed them around the table, daring each other to take a bite.
As it turns out, it was....not bad. It tasted only vaguely of strawberry, but held a strong resemblance to a curd, in texture. It was intensely sweet, and the whipped cream helped cut the sugar a bit. All in all, not a bad result, if a bit disturbing in the process. I hope to try a few more obscure choices over the next month or so, and bring a taste of historic Illinois to my blog!

Oh, and just to salvage our sense of the present, we also made the Snowball Cake featured on the cover of the last Kraft Foods magazine. It was easy to make and turned out great! A creamy, coconut-y confection that my co-workers were happy to help me get rid of yesterday.

Snowball Cake
1 pkg. (2-layer size) devil's food cake mix
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cold milk
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed
1 cup BAKER'S ANGEL FLAKE Coconut

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

PREPARE cake batter, in 2-1/2-qt. ovenproof bowl, as directed on package; scrape side of bowl. Beat cream cheese, egg and granulated sugar until well blended; spoon into center of batter in bowl.

BAKE 1 hour 5 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in bowl 10 min. Loosen cake from bowl with knife; invert onto wire rack. Remove bowl. Cool cake completely.

MEANWHILE, beat dry pudding mix, powdered sugar and milk in medium bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in COOL WHIP. Refrigerate until ready to use.

PLACE cake on plate; frost with pudding mixture. Cover with coconut. Keep refrigerated.

Coconut Spiced Pumpkin Pie

It is the holiday season, and for some reason my son has been asking for pumpkin pie (even though he has never had it before). I suspect it has something to do with an episode of Bob the Builder he watched (for the millionth time) recently. I do like pumpkin pie, but I’ll admit that it has never been a show stopper for me. I don’t eagerly anticipate it when Thanksgiving rolls around, but its good, and I’ll usually have a slice. So, when I agreed to make a pie for the boy (so he’d shut the heck up about it already), I didn’t want to go too traditional. I found this lovely recipe on Tastespotting, and they had me at “coconut milk”. I don’t know what it is about the coconut, but it really made all the difference. Also, I did not put the hazelnut paste in mine, because, well, I couldn’t find any hazelnuts in this po-dunk town. (it’s a conspiracy, I tell ya!) I took this pie to work for the boss’ birthday food table and it went over like hot cakes. Ironically, Ty discovered that Pumpkin Pie isn’t his favorite thing, either, but the poor kid is going to be seeing more of it in our house from now on!

I put the original recipe in here, with my notes in red.

Coconut Spiced Kissed Pumpkin Pie
1 graham crust (I just used the recipe on the side of the box of graham cracker crumbs)
1 1/2 C. hazelnuts – toasted
1/2 C. brown sugar
1 T. pumpkin pie spice blend
1 t. salt
1 T. arrowroot or cornstarch
1 1/2 C. roasted pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin (if you use canned pumpkin, its one 15 ounce can)
1 t. vanilla extract
3 extra large eggs – lightly beaten (really? Who uses extra large eggs? I converted to 4 large eggs)
1 C. coconut milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the middle.
Puree 1 1/2 cups of the toasted hazelnuts in a food processor until they turn into a hazelnut paste, past the ‘crumble’ stage. Set aside. Chop the remaining 1/2 cup of hazelnuts and set aside separately, these will be sprinkled on top after the pie is baked.
To make the pumpkin pie filling, whisk together the brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice blend, salt, and cornstarch. Stir in the pumpkin puree, and vanilla. Now stir in the eggs and coconut milk until just combined. Set aside.
Before filling the pie crust, crumble the hazelnut paste on top of the pie dough into the pie plate, quickly and gently press it into a thin layer across the bottom creating a layer of hazlenuts that will sit between the dough and the filling. Using the last egg gently brush the decorative edges of the pie dough. (Ok, I missed the part in the ingredient list where it said to save an egg for the crust. Because it didn’t say that….I was confused. All of mine went into the batter, and I used a graham crust anyway, so I didn’t need the extra egg. It turned out fine.) Use a fork to prick the pie dough a few times to prevent air bubbles. Fill the pie crust with the filling and bake for about 50 minutes – the center of the pie should just barely jiggle when you move the pie – the edges should be set. (I ended up cooking mine quite a bit longer, maybe by 20 extra minutes or more.)
Let the pie cool a bit, this makes slicing less messy. Serve straight or with a dollop of sweetenend whipped cream or ice cream.
Makes one 9 or 10-inch pie.