Coconut Custard Pie

Coconut Custard Pie

While I was walking through the grocery store a few days ago, I noticed that the produce section offered coconuts. For whatever reason, it sort of amazed me that coconuts were kinda small. As a kid, I had always imagined coconuts as bowling ball-sized missiles that could kill you if you walked under a coconut tree. I guess it would still hurt if you got hit by one, but the ones at the grocery store were pretty weeny and unimpressive. 

After mentioning this observation to a relative, they pulled out an old Coconut Custard Pie recipe that they said was a keeper and worked out really well. I really like coconut flavors and foods with coconut in them, but I've never really made anything with coconut. I've never cracked open a coconut, either. One day I will, but for this recipe I just used the pre-shredded stuff.

The original recipe:

5 eggs

1 stick margarine or butter at room temp

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup coconut (Baker's)

1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

2 9-inch pie shells

Mix all ingredients together.

Pour into two regular 9-inch shells

Bake at 300 degrees F for 40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. 

My relative had made slight alterations to the recipe, so I just went along with what they did. 

Instead of 1 stick of margarine or butter, I used 2/3 stick, and I only used 1.5 cups of granulated sugar.

 To start the mixing process, I creamed the sugar and the butter together. It will still be kind of lumpy, but it makes the rest of the mixing a lot easier.

 To make buttermilk, I put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice into 1 cup of milk and let it sit for 10 minutes to thicken.

 After the buttermilk thickened, I put the eggs and the buttermilk along with the vanilla into the sugar-butter mixture.

 After mixing all of the ingredients together, I put in the coconut shreds. When you mix the ingredients, you will notice that the coconut will rise to the top because the coconut is lighter than the rest of the mixture.

 I wasn't sure if I needed the deeper or the thinner pie shells, so I just played it safe and got the deeper ones. The pies don't rise much at all, so it would be perfectly fine just to use the more shallow pie shells.

 Much to my amazement, the pies actually took around 80 minutes to bake. I have no idea why it took double the time because that never happened when my relative made it. If you check the pies after 40 minutes of baking and it looks like it didn't bake at all, it's fine to let it bake longer. I'm not sure if the oven just never came to temperature, but I was pretty bemused.

After it does bake, it should be golden brown on top. When you cut into it, the custard will be at the bottom and the top will be coconut. Just don't indulge too much. Custard is traditionally very fattening.