Crack pie

Photo by Benji Shirley

We had some friends over for a pre-thanksgiving dinner (we had to stretch our stomachs in preparation for the real day after all).  I was excited to bake the pie to complete the meal and had planned to make a salted chocolate ganache tart, the recipe for which I'd seen in Real Simple. 

I had gone so far as to buy all the ingredients for the tart and was literally about to begin to prepare it when I found myself skimming the archives of Bon Appetit Magazine online. I stopped skimming and started reading when I saw the words "Crack pie." This pie recipe was created by the pastry chef from Momofuku's Milk Bar in NYC.  The reviews were complete raves and let's just say that that apparently, this "Crack" pie was granted its name for a reason.  Anyways, long story short, I just couldn't resist trying out the recipe.

The filling for the pie is essentially a chess pie (which means that it contains every bad-for-you ingredient imaginable...heavy cream, egg yolks, butter, sugar...) And the crust--I love this--is made from crumbled oatmeal cookie that you pre-bake.

The pie was amazing and rich. It has that wonderful buttery sweet flavor of a sugar cookie, while maintaining a delicious soft, almost custard-like texture in the filling. The oatmeal crust has an almost nutty butter flavor and provides a nice textural contrast for the filling.

Overall the recipe was simple, although I had a little bit of trouble getting the crust to smush together into the pie dish. It worked out eventually, although as you can see from the picture it didn't necessarily fill my deep pie dish.

I'm definitely going to keep this recipe filed away although it is so decadent that I will reserve it for the most special of occasions.

Crack Pie
Recipe from Momofuku, published by Bon Appetit. This recipe can also be found here, at the LA Times, but it's important to note that the LA times recipe makes 2 pies. The recipe I've listed below is based on the one published by Bon Appetit and makes one 9 inch pie.


Ingredients:

For the oat cookie crust:
-9 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
-5 1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar
-2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
-1 large egg
-3/4 plus 2 tablespoons of old-fashioned oats
-1/2 cup all purpose flour
-1/8 teaspoon baking powder
-1/8 teaspoon baking soda
-1/4 teaspoon of salt

For the filling:
-3/4 cup sugar
-1/2 cup packed brown sugar
-1 tablespoon of nonfat dry milk powder
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
-6 1/2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
-4 large egg yolks
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-Powdered sugar for dusting pie before serving (I skipped this because I forgot!)

Preparation:

First prepare the oat cookie crust:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 13x9x2-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper or a sil pad. If not using sil pad, then oil the baking pan.

Combine 6 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat mixture until light and fluffy, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes.

Add egg; beat until pale and fluffy.

Add oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and beat until well blended.

Turn oat mixture out onto prepared baking pan; press out evenly to edges of pan.

Bake until light golden on top, 17 to 18 minutes. Transfer baking pan to rack and cool cookie completely.

In a food processor, pulse to crumble the oat cookie; add 3 tablespoons butter and 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar. Pulse further until butter and sugar are well distributed.

The mixture should be moist enough to stick together.

Transfer cookie crust mixture to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Using fingers, press mixture evenly onto bottom and up sides of pie dish. Place pie dish with crust on rimmed baking sheet.

Now prepare the filling: 

Position the rack in the center of your oven and preheat the oven to 350 F.

Whisk together both sugars, milk powder, and salt in medium bowl.

Add the melted butter and whisk until it is blended.

Add the cream, then egg yolks, and vanilla and whisk until well blended.

Pour filling into crust.

Bake pie 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 F. Continue to bake pie until filling is brown in spots and set around edges but center still moves a bit when the dish is shaken, about 20 minutes.

Cool pie 2 hours in pie dish on rack. Chill uncovered overnight.

Note: I made this a day in advance and it was nicely set and chilled. If you think of it, sprinkle powdered sugar on the pie before serving although its certainly not required!

Kale chips

I thought about titling this post "How to make your green vegetables taste like junk food" because really, that is what this is all about.

I must admit that until recently, the autumn kale and greens season was not very exciting to me vegetable-wise. In fact, it was a sad time because it represented the loss of tomatoes, summer squash, basil, and all of those other wondrous flavors of the summer.

But then along came this recipe which was, in and of itself, a game changer. This method of seasoning veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper and baking is just simply amazing. The veggies become crispy and crunchy--like potato chips! They're so tasty that you don't want to stop eating them, and you just might fight with your husband over who gets the last chip.

My only regret is not having learned about this idea earlier on in life. And I don't know--a nutritionist might tell me that this method of preparing greens actually extracts all of the vitamins that exist in the veggies before baking. But I'm quite content living in the bliss of my ignorance.

Kale* Chips, adapted from the Smitten Kitchen blog


Ingredients:
1 bunch of kale (I like dinosaur kale)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

To prepare:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Rinse the Kale, dry, and then chop coarsely & remove stems
3. Spread kale on a cookie sheet for baking (I put mine on a sil pad. If you don't have one of these you might want to use parchment paper, or to oil the pan before placing vegetables)

4. Sprinkle olive oil, salt, and pepper on the kale and mix until the seasonings are well distributed.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the kale looks crisp and delicious.

*Note: I tried using swiss chard once and this did not turn out well. The swiss chard did not become crispy and crunchy. Rather it remained a soggy limp mess. It was a huge disappointment. Perhaps spinach would work... I can't say for sure. I'd be interested to try. I'm also interested to try this recipe using other vegetables, such as carrots. I'm interested to hear about other people's experiences using this idea but with different veggies.