Coconut Cream Pie

How long is a piece of string? Or, in the case of this month’s Sweet Adventures Blog Hop (hosted by the dynamic Kitchen Crusader), how many types of pie can you bake? The possibilities are truly endless!

Initially I was leaning towards doing a classic cherry pie (if you aren’t put off by overseas imports, American cherries are plentiful at the moment) but then another American classic came to mind: Coconut Cream Pie.

So many times I have heard of the near mythical coconut cream pie. Fans of Gilligan’s Island reruns will remember Mary Ann effortlessly producing coconut cream pies sans electricity… It certainly seems to be a regular dessert fixture in the US along with Key Lime Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Shoofly Pie (I nearly made this too since I have a lot of molasses leftover from Molasses & Walnut Brownies).

The problem I find with many American dessert classics however is that there are soooo many recipe variations. It’s hard to know where to start! Interestingly, the actress who played Mary Ann in Gilligan’s Island brought out a themed cookbook which features a luscious recipe for coconut cream pie. I’d like to try that some time but I decided to keep things relatively simple for my first attempt.

I prepared a sweet pie crust based on a Gordon Ramsay recipe although the Thermomix ‘Everyday Cooking’ book has a good recipe also. Gordon’s recipe is easy to adapt for the Thermomix. In retrospect however, I would have preferred a Graham Cracker crust. Next time!

The filling was an easy coconut flavoured custard which I made up in the Thermomix also. There is an abundance of recipes for the coconut pie filling for whatever kitchen situation you have so please search around if you’re keen to try making a coconut cream pie. I chose to use some gelatine to help firm the filling up for the pie. Otherwise another egg or two should keep the filling stable on cutting.

For the topping, I decided to go with the whipped cream instead of doing an Italian meringue (most recipes seem to include cream as the topping) and sprinkle with toasted, shredded coconut (some people use untoasted…). I worried that the sweet meringue would be too much for the sweet filling but I think I’ll give it a go that way next time.

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