blue artichoke

The pie, it's awesome. The sugar high that results from a decent-sized piece of this pie surely makes me feel like a million bucks, until the inevitable sugar-high crash, which makes me feel like I just paid my taxes. Another piece, and I'm feeling generous again. So generous, in fact, that I sent half a millionaire's pie to work with Gentleman Caller this morning. Chartreuse BLT, wish granted! The pie is a glorified pecan pie. It has pecans, and the sugary pecan pie filling, but also dark chocolate chips and coconut. And those additions make all the difference. I'm not such a huge fan of pecan pie. I've nothing against it; I just think that it isn't worth the kajillions of calories I'd ingest along with the flavor. All I'm saying is that it better well be worth the time I'll have to spend on the beastly elliptical to work off the calories. And regular pecan pie isn't worth it. But, add some chocolate chips and coconut, and it's totally worth it. Plus seconds. If I ever have to make a pecan pie for Thanksgiving, I'm making this one. Other pecan pies are only fit for throwing. Here's the recipe. I'm not even afraid of giving it to you. If we show up at the same Thanksgiving potluck with this pie, we'll both be hoisted up on shoulders and paraded around with cheers. It'll be nice to share the glory

Millionaire’s Pie

Pastry for 9-inch single-crust pie
3 eggs
1 cup light-colored corn syrup
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces (I used dark chocolate chips)
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup pecan or walnut pieces
Whipped cream (optional)
Toasted coconut (optional)

Crust: Prepare the pastry and transfer to a 9-inch pie plate. Ease the pastry onto the pie plate. Trim to ½ inch beyond the edge of the plate. Fold under extra pastry. Crimp edge. Do not prick the crust.

Filling: In a medium bowl, combine eggs, corn syrup, granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt. Layer the semisweet chocolate, coconut and walnuts in piecrust. Pour egg mixture over all, spreading evenly. To prevent over-browning, cover the edge of the pastry shell with some foil.

Bake in 350 oven 30 minutes. Remove foil, bake 20-25 minutes more or until filling appears set when you shake the pie gently. Cool on wire rack. Cover and store in refrigerator within 2 hours. If you like, serve with whipped cream and toasted coconut.

The recipe was printed in my local newspaper a few years ago, but is originally from Midwest Living magazine. I'm not including a pie pastry recipe, because I haven't found a great one yet. The one from cooking school is pretty good, but I haven't translated it from weighing all the ingredients to using measuring cups and spoons. I used a recipe from Real Simple, which is actually really simple, but tends to shrink and bubble when blind baked. Oh, yeah, I half-blind-baked the pie crust for this pie because I was afraid it would be kind of soggy if it baked with the filling. Until I work out a good all-purpose go-to pie crust recipe, use your own favorite recipe or use a store-bought crust. Actually, if you have a good all-purpose pie crust recipe, send it my way, please. I think this recipe would work best in a deep-dish pie plate, because I had enough filling mixture to make two pies. (I also made a millionaire's pie for my neighbor).

Note: I just read through the Midwest Living recipe (linked above) and see that they provide a crust recipe that the newspaper reprint left out.