What’d You Do Last Weekend?

Make your own bitters.

Coconut Cream Pie

Posted by jenny on 05/03/2010

in

When I was a kid I spent many lunches walking through the Piccadilly Cafeteria line admiring their pies. Southern cafeterias were always well-stocked with good pies, even when the rest of the meal options were just on par. I remember marveling at the sugar beads forming on the tops of chocolate and lemon meringue pies, and loving the smell of nutmeg in their baked custard cups. But their coconut cream pie was something to behold. While the jello parfaits got Cool Whip, the Coconut Cream Pies got the real thing, or at least the real thing from a can. The crusts were always flakey and white and the filling sickeningly sweet - a typical Texas dessert.

Decades later when I moved to Seattle I tried the Coconut Cream Pie at the Dahlia Lounge. That one pie blew away my tasty memories of Piccadilly forever, and I knew that was the new standard for me.

Little did I know I'd become good friends with one of the original pastry chefs from the Palace Kitchen, the sibling restaurant that supplied Coco Cream Pies to the Dahlia, years before the Dahlia Bakery existed. By the time we met, she'd improved on the pie - and taught me how to make it. I made it over and over again, but in the intervening years I lost one of the essential recipes and I've been trying to get back to it ever since. It's no Piccadilly pie or even what's now at the Dahlia, but it is a darn fine pie and it will only get better with time.

Coconut Cream Pie
There's nothing magic to coconut cream pie. It's really just a good pastry cream that has coconut soaked in it, put into a nice pie crust and topped with unsweetened (or very lightly sweetened) whipped cream. I've included notes at the bottom of this recipe that might help you get a better result, too.

Coconut Pastry Cream (adapted from Rose Levy Berenbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible)
2 large eggs
3 T cornstarch
2-inch piece of vanilla bean, split
2 c large flake coconut, unsweetened
1/2 c sugar
1 c half and half
1 c heavy cream
pinch salt
1 T butter, unsalted

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and cornstarch.
Gradually add 1/4 c of the half and half until the cornstarch is dissolved. Whisk well.
In a medium heavy saucepan, rub the vanilla bean into the sugar.
Stir in the remaining half and half, cream, and salt.
Over medium heat, bring the mixture just to a gentle simmer and add the coconut. Steep the coconut on the heat for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat and steep for an additional 30 minutes.
Bring the cream mixture back to a full boil, stirring occasionally.
Temper the egg mixture with a few tablespoons of the hot cream and pass it through a strainer into a small bowl.
Make sure the cream is at a full boil, and remove the vanilla bean (you can reuse it).
Quickly add all of the egg mixture, whisking rapidly.
Whisk for an additional 20 - 30 seconds, making sure you whisk all the way to the bottom of the pan. It will get very thick.
Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the butter.
Immediately pour into a bowl and place a piece of buttered plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming.
Allow it to cool to room temperature before placing in in the fridge (or using it in the pie).

Assembly

Spoon the coconut pastry cream into a baked pie shell.
Top with whipped cream and toasted coconut flakes.

Notes

This pastry cream is a little on the grainy side. This may be an issue with the cornstarch or it might be the very dregs of the bag of coconut. There are other pastry cream recipes listed in the More Information section below, and these might be a good alternative.
Try this with large flake unsweetened coconut. You can usually buy this at Whole Foods or some other marginally healthy store. It really keeps the custard from getting overly sweet, I think. Fresh coconut would be a revelation too.
Top with whipped cream, but try to keep the sugar really low on the whipped cream, if you sweeten it at all. Alternately, you can mix in a spoon of plain yogurt before whipping the cream and it will give a really tangy flavor. Don't forget to put a little vanilla in the whipping cream too.
The Dahlia Lounge puts large curls of white chocolate on the whipped cream (along with toasted coconut), but I find this makes the pie oppressively sweet. It's nice for chocolate lovers, though.
One variation I learned was like a tropical mounds bar. To do this, brush melted dark chocolate onto the pie shell before filling it. Also, fold about 1 oz of passionfruit (or mango or pineapple) puree into the coconut pastry cream and then fill the crust. You'll never go back to plain coco pie again.