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Tag Archives: graham cracker

The Summer 2015 Ice Cream Pie Files: Grasshopper Ice Cream Pie

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Ice Cream Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

chocolate chips, graham cracker, ice cream, mint

I have a childhood memory of sitting at my Great-Aunt Sally and Great-Uncle Chris’s dining room table in Vermont. It was after dinnertime (I don’t recall what was for dinner, though I’m sure it was delicious) and Aunt Sally presented to us a very green, very WOWing pie made of mint ice cream. Now, mint chocolate chip was high on the list of my favorite ice cream flavors at the time, right after coconut almond and black raspberry, and I remember being so fascinated that ice cream could come in pie form. What a revelation.

The last ice cream pie in my summer series threw me right back to that special bright green pie I enjoyed so long ago. May I present to you, Grasshopper Ice Cream Pie.IMG_6858 (1)

Last summer, our friends invited us to their home for dinner and I brought over a Creamsicle Ice Cream Pie which was quite enjoyable, if I do say so myself. At some point during that dinner, I casually mentioned that there were many other ice cream pie recipes in my cookbook that I had yet to make, including a mint chocolate chip variety. Well, if you know kids, you know that they can grasp onto information pertinent to their lives and forget it never, and so when these same friends invited us over for dinner again, a very specific request was put in to please bring that mint pie I had previously name-dropped. I was impressed, and flattered. How could I say no?

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A few notes on this pie. Ken’s recipe suggests using vanilla ice cream as the base, but to me, the more mint the merrier, so I used an organic mint chocolate chip ice cream. He also suggests using a white crème de menthe but I wanted the pie to resemble the green delight from my childhood in at least some capacity, so I went for the super unnatural-looking green one.

The next layer is a medley of milk and melted marshmallows, combined with crème de menthe and crème de cacao and then beat into heavy cream and powdered sugar. Side note: If anyone knows what to do with a whoppingly huge bottle of crème de menthe minus three tablespoons, I’m open to suggestions.

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Green spongy-fluff layer goes over the frozen ice cream base, and the whole thing gets frozen again, until, as Ken puts it, the top layer is “firm but slightly yielding” and/or whenever you’re ready to consume. IMG_6862

I used sprigs of mint and pieces of a Lake Champlain Dark Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Bar to garnish. Or rather, Micah and Josiah garnished.

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You know how mint sprigs are usually used as a garnish in one to two-leaf pieces? Well, the boys were onto something revolutionary here. They decided that they agreed with my sentiment “the more mint, the merrier” and stuck what looked like an entire mint plant in each slice. I loved these “trees” (as Josiah called them) so much, I made the boys pose for several pictures with their handiwork.

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Thanks for sharing my love for ice cream pie, Wisniewski family!

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Holy Guacamole

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Cream Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

avocado, cream cheese, graham cracker

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This cute little list has been making the rounds due to this being an El Niño year here in Southern California. I did have a real moment with the rain last Tuesday where I woke up listening to it in the middle of the night and the sound was so foreign that I sleepily thought all of our sprinklers were broken and made Levi go outside to look. (It hasn’t rained again since then, but, by all means, bring it on! I’m so ready!)

Coincidentally I also went to In-N-Out today and I’m about to write about avocados, so, there you go. 

SWEET AVOCADO-CREAM CHEESE PIE!

Sounds like a joke, or a euphemism, but believe you me it is nothing but a wonderfully serious reality.

When a pie is unique, absolutely delicious, and can mostly be made in a blender, it deserves to be made several times in a row. I made this one for my school’s Pi Day celebration (following Pi Days past: Coconut Cream, Chewy Medjool Date-Nut, Butterscotch Banana Cream…) and then I made it again to eat on my birthday. As a birthday celebration.

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This pie is made by blending a very high-quality avocado with sweetened condensed milk, lemon and lime juice, powdered sugar, and of course, cream cheese. We ate it with some fresh unsweetened whipped cream. Wow. You’ve got to try it, whether you’re Californian or not.

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Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in No-Bake Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

coconut, cream cheese, graham cracker, pecans, pineapple, whipped cream

The question is on the table. For a million (imaginary) dollars, answer the following:

Which of the following is NOT found in Millionaire Pie?

A. Coconut

B. Pecans

C. Pineapple

D. Ice Cream

Oh never mind. I forgot to take away the sign.

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Although this no-bake pie does NOT contain ice cream, it does contain a goodly amount of cream cheese and whipped cream. Due to the simplicity of assembly, I made three of these for Sunday morning refreshments at church (one with a homemade graham cracker crust, the other with standard store-bought crusts. As Ken points out in the recipe notes for this pie, the intent here is to be quick and easy and sometimes I definitely see the wisdom in that.)

The above picture shows the crusts with just the main filling. Below you’ll see the finished pies, topped with whipped cream and pretty pecan halves. Voilà!

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For me, this pie absolutely fell into the category we refer to around here as “the weird ones”. I love to make fruit pies so much that when I have the opportunity to pick a new recipe from the cookbook for a particular occasion, Levi has started to tell me that I “really need to do one of the weird ones this time”. He’s right. This past year was perhaps the slowest yet in terms of my progression through Pie, but not the slowest in terms of overall pie production; I just need to remember to keep trying different things and moving forward. After all, with over 150 recipes left to choose from, it’s not like the pickins are all that slim. And really, I’m always delighted with the results of the “weird ones”. Millionaire Pie won’t make you wealthier, but it certainly has the potential to make you happier. (Unless of course you’re allergic to nuts or lactose intolerant, in which case obviously this is not the pie for you. Steeeer clear.) I loved the texture, the pineapple flavor, the whole delicious situation.

I’m very interested to hear if any of you have ever heard of/made/eaten Millionaire Pie before. I certainly hadn’t before being introduced to it in Pie. From what I’ve gathered, it probably hails from the convenience-food honeymoon period of the late 50’s or early 60’s, and maybe has Southern (Texan?) associations. To propose a reason for the name, Ken says, “perhaps it was fancied by some well-heeled Texas oilman”. (Or perhaps it’s Regis’ fave?) Please do leave a comment if you have any Millionaire pie encounters you can share!

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When Life Gives You Key Limes…

05 Monday May 2014

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Cream Pie

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

graham cracker, key lime

…it’s probably time to make some key lime pies.

(“Life” in this case takes the form of our friends Will and Renee, who have an overabundant key lime tree–thanks, guys!)

Here are the steps.

1. Realize that this big tree-carved bowl full of limes complements what you happen to be wearing. Take a series of artistic selfies entitled “Girl with Limes.”

photo 2

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Step Two: Juice roughly a thousand key limes (okay, probably forty) by hand with a press juicer. Be thankful you don’t currently have any paper cuts or hangnails, because the job would be a whole lot more painful if you did. This step will take you roughly forever (okay, probably half an hour.) If you have an electric juicer, by all means, please do that instead. It would be infinitely more logical.photo 1

Step Three: Freeze the extra juice, which you will end up with if you are gifted this many ripe key limes at once. I only made one key lime pie on this particular day, but the beauty was that I was able to freeze enough juice cubes to make two more exquisitely fresh tasting key lime pies about a month later. I like freezing citrus juice in ice cube trays because the smaller units are easier to defrost.
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Step Four: Make a homemade graham cracker crust. I think I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Homemade graham cracker crust is delicious; store-bought graham cracker crust is an edible container which isn’t necessarily bad but definitely would never be described as delicious. I wanted this Joe’s Stone Crab Key Lime Pie to be absolutely delicious, since I had already spent a good amount of my life squeezing the key lime juice that was to go into it. So, it had to have a homemade crust. The graham cracker crust recipe in Ken’s book is a quick mix of graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon with melted butter to bind it together. Once you’ve made one homemade crumb crust, you’ll never go back. Some things in life are a lot more work for a little payoff (aka hand squeezing a bunch of key limes instead of using already-squeezed key lime juice) and some are a little more work for a huge payoff (aka making a graham cracker crust by hand instead of buying one.) I think I’ve made my point, so I’ll move on.

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When making a graham cracker crust by hand, once you’ve got a bowlful of damp crumbs, you can just dump them into your pie plate and use your hand to pat it into shape. I usually try to make the crust go up the side of the plate just to the line I think the filling will go up to, though I often mess up and make the sides go nearly all the way to the very top of the plate. I mean, I don’t think it’s a super big deal either way. You just definitely want the crust to go at LEAST as high as the filling will. It definitely makes sense to err on the side of making the crust a bit too high. IMHO.photo 5

True to form, I left off taking step by step photos after forming the crust. So, Steps Five and Six, if I were to have included them, would have covered the blending together of the filling and the pouring of the filling into the gently hand-molded crust. We find ourselves now at Step Seven: Eat your delicious key lime pie. You’ll know it’s the real thing because it will have a serious tang to it. It will be creamy, even more so when freshly-whipped cream is dolloped on top. It will be so, so good.

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Step Eight: Put your scarf on your head and smile for one more selfie, cause you’re DONE and you’re thinking about how much key lime juice still awaits you in your freezer.

photo 3P.S. You guys caught me again. It’s not key lime season in California’s May. It’s key lime season in January. Shhh…don’t tell anyone how slow of a blogger I am, okay? 

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A Beautiful Mess

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Chocolate Pie, Cream Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

chocolate, coconut, cream, graham cracker, Jenny and Tyler, pecan

Okay…if Green Tomato Pie didn’t get you too excited…from the poll results it looked like about 30% of you had serious doubts…maybe this one will.

The Hammett House Famous German Chocolate Pie. I’ve never been to the Hammett House Restaurant (namely because it is in Oklahoma) but I get good feelings about it. Really good feelings.

First let’s just take a look at the way the coconut and pecans are being folded into the chocolate cream filling here…it’s a thing of beauty. Literally, this picture makes me drool.
IMG_1803As if the homemade graham cracker crust and luscious chocolately filling weren’t enough, the pie gets topped with chocolate whipped cream with more pecans and coconut mixed in. It’s almost too good to be true.

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IMG_1805The end result just looks like a mess. A beautiful mess. It’s also MONSTROUS in size. The hugest pie you will probably ever encounter.

It tastes even better than it looks.

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We got to share this pie with our friends Jenny and Tyler, who are not only lovely people but some of our favorite musicians. Check them out here if you haven’t listened to their music before. IMG_1809You may remember that J&T did a house show at our place back in March, so we felt pretty lucky to get them back for another one only about half a year later. I think it has something to do with the pies…

IMG_1814Thanks again, guys. It was a beautiful night. But no more pies unless you bring baby Jane next time. 😉

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