Make Ahead
Chocolate Coconut Pie
- Makes one deep ten-inch pie
Author Notes
One of the many wonderful things about being married has been learning about and taking forward the traditions of both of our families. For me, the most routinely appreciated of these is breakfast pie. I’m not sure how I went my whole life without realizing the magic of dessert for breakfast, but it almost out-ranks in magnitude the adjustment to my young world view that was breakfast for dinner, which I had to go a full ten years of my life without experiencing. You would think that someone as traumatized as I obviously was by this would be bitter, but no, instead I share with you what may be my favorite breakfast pie yet. By no means is this pie restricted to breakfast, though, as it can be (and has been) enjoyed at any time of day.
This pie uses a slow cooker as a bain-marie to make the pudding-like filling, which was modestly adapted from hardlikearmour’s Coconut Cajeta & Chocolate Fondue recipe. Using a slow cooker means that, even though this recipe takes a day to enjoy, little hands-on effort is required to yield a delicious and reasonably healthy pie. I like to start this pie on Saturday evening, so that we have pie to cope with the gravity that is Monday.
The pie can be made vegan by using a vegan butter substitute and vegan graham crackers to make the crust. I typically use either E. Guittard or Scharffen Berger chocolates because they are both tree nut allergy friendly, but your favorite classy chocolate will work great. I have even supplemented this recipe with Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips when running low on the good stuff; the filling cooked similarly, though it did lose some of that deep chocolate flavor. For the whipped topping, I have only ever had luck using Thai Kitchen full-fat organic coconut milk, as other brands seems to never fully separate between the coconut water and the cream, and you want a pretty dry cream. It is absolutely critical that both your canned coconut milk and mixing bowl be very cold, which is why our mixing bowl now lives in the freezer. —The Nutty Vegetarians
Ingredients
- For the Pie Filling
-
2
14 ounce cans Coconut Milk (full-fat)
-
5 ounces
Semi-sweet Chocolate, chopped
-
1/2 cup
Brown Sugar, packed
-
1 tablespoon
Espresso, Vanilla Extract, Bourbon, Rum, etc. (optional, to flavor)
- For the Crust and Whipped Topping
-
1
sleeve Graham Crackers (9 sheets)
-
4 tablespoons
Butter, melted
-
1 tablespoon
Brown Sugar, packed
-
1
14 ounce can Coconut Milk (full-fat)
-
1 tablespoon
Espresso, Vanilla Extract, Bourbon, Rum, etc. (optional, to flavor)
Directions
- Set up your slow cooker, and find a glass bowl that will sit steady inside the slow cooker and holds at least 6 cups (for reference, I used an 8-cup glass Pyrex bowl). You will want there to be a couple of inches or so of room at the top of the bowl to make transferring the bowl to the slow cooker easier and less likely to spill.
- Whisk both cans of coconut milk, brown sugar, and optional additives in glass bowl, then add in the chopped chocolate. Gently place bowl in the slow cooker, and add enough water to reach up the side of the glass bowl to the same level that the filling reaches inside the bowl.
- Cook on the low setting for ten hours. After cooking, the filling should have thickened to about the consistency of hot pudding (for reference, my filling had cooked down about an inch). Remove glass bowl from the slow cooker (carefully!), briefly whisk the filling, then cover and place in the refrigerator for at least eight hours to thicken.
- While the filling is cooling in the fridge, heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit to make the crust. Crumble graham crackers either by hand in a Ziploc bag, or by pulsing in a food processor. Mix brown sugar into graham crackers with a fork, then mix in melted butter. Press crust into pie dish, then bake in oven for ten minutes. Allow to completely cool, at least thirty minutes.
- Also while the filling is cooling, open chilled can of coconut milk and scrape separated solid coconut cream into chilled mixing bowl, reserving coconut water for another use. If using additional flavors, add in to coconut cream before whipping. Whip on medium speed for 3-5 minutes, until cream is thickened to the consistency of whipped cream, though it will likely be denser than standard dairy whipped cream. Store whipped cream in the refrigerator until ready to serve pie. The whipped cream should keep its thickness in the refrigerator for at least four days.
- Add cooled filling, which should now be a thick pudding consistency, to cooled pie crust, then refrigerate for at least an hour before serving to set.
- Add a dollop of whipped cream on top of a slice of the pie, as it can be difficult to spread over an entire pie, then enjoy! Mondays may be tough but they can only be so terrible when they begin with pie.
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