Cream Cocoa-nut Pie for Pi Day!
I was torn between two historic pies - cranberry and coca-nut. Both are still seasonal, cranberries starting to show up less frequently in my grocery stores of choice, and coconut being something I remember only appearing in the winter when I was a child. Because of the path of my errands, I went to a grocery that I frequent less often and that store's stock made the decision for me. No cranberries, either fresh or frozen. Coconut it is!
I had already selected my recipe: Cream Cocoa-nut Pudding from Miss Eliza Leslie's 1854 edition of New Receipts for Cooking (Philadelphia).
Since I planned on making this recipe as a pie, I decided to cut the quantity in half so I would wind up with only one pie.
Preparing the Coconut
In this part I was ably assisted by my husband. Using a screwdriver and a hammer, we punched two holes in the eyes of the coconut and then upended it over a glass liquid measuring cup small enough to suspend the coconut. When all the coconut juice drained, we drank the fresh juice and turned to the nut itself. Hitting it several times with the peen end of the hammer resulted in a nicely cracked nut. We then broke those parts into smaller pieces to make them easier to work with.
A small sharp knife (paring size) or a large serving spoon worked well to free the meat from the outer shell. At this point I quickly rinsed the meat to remove any shell bits still clinging to it. I was able to remove the inner brown coating very easily by using a vegetable peeler.
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| Coconut cleaned and ready to grate |
I debated how I wanted to grate the coconut. I had two options: the box grater and my mini-chopper. I did a test run with each and decided that I preferred the result from the box grater. The mini-chopper gave me something that reminded me of flaked coconut.
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| This is the size hole I used to grate the coconut |
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| Left side: box grater Right side: mini chopper |
Why a Fresh Coconut? I did debate purchasing unsweetened dry coconut but decided that the moisture of the fresh coconut could make a textural difference.
Making the Pie
Miss Leslie made me nervous. I planned on using a standard Pyrex pie pan, but since she specified "deep," I changed to a deep dish pie pan. I didn't need to - the standard pie pan would have been fine.
I had frozen puff pastry and chose to use that for the crust. Once the puff pastry was defrosted, I lined my pie pan. Since Miss Leslie did not give a temperature, as is common for the time, I opted for 350 degrees F.
I let the butter and eggs warm to room temperature.
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| Pie ready for the oven. I had forgotten the nutmeg and cinnamon at this point, so the pie filling looks rather anemic. |
Miss Leslie's Cream Cocoa-nut Pie
1 puff pastry pie crust, unbaked
1 puff pastry pie crust, unbaked
1 coconut, cleaned, grated (mine made about 3 c of grated fresh coconut)
4 T butter (1/8 lb)
1/8 lb granulated sugar (roughly 1/3 c)
1 c heavy cream
nutmeg
ground cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line the pie pan with the defrosted puff pastry crust.
Cream the butter and the sugar until light.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until thick. Gradually beat in the cup of heavy cream.
Alternate mixing the eggs and the coconut into the butter/sugar mixture.
Mix well.
Grate in some nutmeg and cinnamon.
Grate in some nutmeg and cinnamon.
Pour into prepared pie pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven until custard is loosely set,. 35-45 min. I start checking at 30 min, adding 5 min each time. This time the pie took 45 min.
Remove from oven, cool, then chill.
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| The crust really didn't stay in place. But one very yummy pie |
Evaluation of the Pie
I should have used a standard pie pan - there would have been less exposed crust and the filling would have been a bit deeper.
The filling is definitely less sweet than modern coconut pie. That's not a problem - in fact the flavor is very good. It DOES mean that your expectations have to adjust.
We both felt that there was a lot of coconut in proportion to the custard filling. Once again, this may be our modern expectations. We liked the coconut in a coarser grate, but I wonder how it would be with the custard increased by 1/3.
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