I won a contest with this pie.
No... really. It's true. I didn't believe that I would, but I did.
So I've already talked about how I've taken pies to the Radio From Hell group for X96. Back in 2008, they had their First Annual Tasty Pie contest. Now they had tasted my pies before and they said they liked them, so I figured I should enter and try my luck. But I thought that I would try something a little out of the ordinary and see if it would fly.
I created this veriation out of the blue and tried this recipe once to see how it turned out. I thought it was quite tasty, but my usual guinea pig, my wife, has never been a mint fan. So I was flying blind when I brought my pie to the station.
And after seeing some of the other entries, I was sure I wouldn't win. There were some absolutely beautiful entries. I even tried three different slices by contributing money to the Road Home shelter. Hey, pie can be breakfast food! Why do you think pop-tarts are so successful?
Anyway, there was an apple pie that made my mouth very happy and a tart Blueberry with an extremely flaky crust. So I went to work and resigned myself to losing. But they announced the winners at the end of the show, and I was SHOCKED to hear that I had won first prize: A concert flyaway to Chicago.
I took my older brother (my wife was pregnant, so she couldn't fly, no nasty comments about leaving her home) and it was the perfect weekend. It was two weeks after Obama was elected, so we experienced some of the hometown euphoria. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we saw the Holiday Parade roll down the Miracle Mile. And it was the weekend of the annual BYU/Utah football game, so we saw the game on a 108" screen at the ESPNZone in leather recliners with food and drink brought to us at regular intervals. Absolutely GREAT weekend.
Back to the pie... this pie is just another variation of the Cream pie recipe and works especially well around the holidays when candy canes are prevalent. I highly recommend using the best chocolate you can find for the hot fudge. It's definitely worth it.
1 package Oreos
8 tablespoons butter
Scrape the filling off of the cookies and place them in a gallon Ziploc bag. Eat the discarded centers, if you really want to...or just throw them away. Then using a rolling pin, rollover the cookies until they are at the desired consistency, somewhere between very small chucks to almost powdered. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Then add the cookies and stir the cookies in until they have soaked up the butter. Scoop the mixture into a pie plate and press the mixture flat until the plate is covered. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 7 minutes. As the pie crust has cooled, move onto the filling.
30 starlight mints or 15 candy canes
2 1/2 cups milk
3/4 heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
5 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
Before you start cooking the filling, crush the mints or candy canes in a Ziploc bag until they are crushed into very small pieces. Measure out 1 cup worth of the candies and set them in a bowl. Leave the remnants in the Ziploc bag for garnish later.
Separate out the three egg yolks, place them in a small container and mix them thoroughly. Hold onto them for later.
In a medium saucepan, thoroughly combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt to reduce the chance of lumps. Add the milk and cream to the mixture and whisk to ensure there are not any lumps present. Cook over medium heat and stir constantly to prevent any scorching. Once the mixture begins to thicken from the consistency of milk to that of warm pudding, scoop a small amount of the mixture into the egg yolks and immediately stir the yolks. This warms the yolks slowly so they don't curdle. (Tricky part is to keep stirring the filling and the yolks at the same time). Add more of the filling to the eggs two more times, then SLOWLY add the yolks back into the mixture. Once they are completely mixed, add the vanilla, butter and the peppermint candy. Remove from heat after another minute of cooking and stir the mixture until the candies are melted. Add the extract and food coloring until the color is thoroughly mixed and then pour into the Oreo crust. Place in the fridge for 3 hours.
Serve with whipped cream and garnish with the remaining crushed peppermints. And of course, drizzle or douse the slice with hot fudge. You could buy it from the store, but I have a homemade recipe that is much better than almost anything you would find on the shelves. And that is the next post...
No... really. It's true. I didn't believe that I would, but I did.
So I've already talked about how I've taken pies to the Radio From Hell group for X96. Back in 2008, they had their First Annual Tasty Pie contest. Now they had tasted my pies before and they said they liked them, so I figured I should enter and try my luck. But I thought that I would try something a little out of the ordinary and see if it would fly.
I created this veriation out of the blue and tried this recipe once to see how it turned out. I thought it was quite tasty, but my usual guinea pig, my wife, has never been a mint fan. So I was flying blind when I brought my pie to the station.
And after seeing some of the other entries, I was sure I wouldn't win. There were some absolutely beautiful entries. I even tried three different slices by contributing money to the Road Home shelter. Hey, pie can be breakfast food! Why do you think pop-tarts are so successful?
Anyway, there was an apple pie that made my mouth very happy and a tart Blueberry with an extremely flaky crust. So I went to work and resigned myself to losing. But they announced the winners at the end of the show, and I was SHOCKED to hear that I had won first prize: A concert flyaway to Chicago.
I took my older brother (my wife was pregnant, so she couldn't fly, no nasty comments about leaving her home) and it was the perfect weekend. It was two weeks after Obama was elected, so we experienced some of the hometown euphoria. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we saw the Holiday Parade roll down the Miracle Mile. And it was the weekend of the annual BYU/Utah football game, so we saw the game on a 108" screen at the ESPNZone in leather recliners with food and drink brought to us at regular intervals. Absolutely GREAT weekend.
Back to the pie... this pie is just another variation of the Cream pie recipe and works especially well around the holidays when candy canes are prevalent. I highly recommend using the best chocolate you can find for the hot fudge. It's definitely worth it.
Peppermint Fudge Pie
First the Oreo Cookie crust....1 package Oreos
8 tablespoons butter
Scrape the filling off of the cookies and place them in a gallon Ziploc bag. Eat the discarded centers, if you really want to...or just throw them away. Then using a rolling pin, rollover the cookies until they are at the desired consistency, somewhere between very small chucks to almost powdered. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. Then add the cookies and stir the cookies in until they have soaked up the butter. Scoop the mixture into a pie plate and press the mixture flat until the plate is covered. Cook in a 350 degree oven for 7 minutes. As the pie crust has cooled, move onto the filling.
30 starlight mints or 15 candy canes
2 1/2 cups milk
3/4 heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
5 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks
2 1/2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
Before you start cooking the filling, crush the mints or candy canes in a Ziploc bag until they are crushed into very small pieces. Measure out 1 cup worth of the candies and set them in a bowl. Leave the remnants in the Ziploc bag for garnish later.
Separate out the three egg yolks, place them in a small container and mix them thoroughly. Hold onto them for later.
In a medium saucepan, thoroughly combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt to reduce the chance of lumps. Add the milk and cream to the mixture and whisk to ensure there are not any lumps present. Cook over medium heat and stir constantly to prevent any scorching. Once the mixture begins to thicken from the consistency of milk to that of warm pudding, scoop a small amount of the mixture into the egg yolks and immediately stir the yolks. This warms the yolks slowly so they don't curdle. (Tricky part is to keep stirring the filling and the yolks at the same time). Add more of the filling to the eggs two more times, then SLOWLY add the yolks back into the mixture. Once they are completely mixed, add the vanilla, butter and the peppermint candy. Remove from heat after another minute of cooking and stir the mixture until the candies are melted. Add the extract and food coloring until the color is thoroughly mixed and then pour into the Oreo crust. Place in the fridge for 3 hours.
Serve with whipped cream and garnish with the remaining crushed peppermints. And of course, drizzle or douse the slice with hot fudge. You could buy it from the store, but I have a homemade recipe that is much better than almost anything you would find on the shelves. And that is the next post...
No comments:
Post a Comment