It seems like this is the year of the coconut…….. well for me it is! I’ve literally eaten more coconut this year than I have in my entire life. It started when we went to Hawaii in February; I had coconut drinks and coconut pancakes and coconut pancake syrup!

Then once we got back, I started using Silk’s Coconut Milk and began making our favorite coconut curry more and worked on creating tropical cocktails and mocktails with the coconut milk. Now I’ve moved onto desserts with Coconut and Coconut Milk!

This coconut pie is slightly adapted from the recipe that my friend Nikki uses for her coconut pies! She’s been using a recipe that she found in an old cookbook for a few years and it’s become a favorite of hers!

I’ve been putting off making this even though she claimed it was the best thing ever because I’m normally not a fan of the texture of shredded coconut. I like the flavor of coconut but the texture of plain, shredded coconut use to give me the heebeejeebees haha. (Well and sometimes it still does)

But I gave in and decided to give her legendary coconut pie a try! However, I made just a few changes to the recipe (because you KNOW I just can’t leave something alone haha) . For example, I use Silk Coconut Milk in this pie instead of regular milk. It baked up just as nice but also added more Coconut flavor without having to use coconut extract.

I also made a graham cracker crust for mine.  I didn’t mean to have a graham cracker crust but I didn’t pay good enough attention when she was telling me about this pie and I totally missed the part about buying a crust. I didn’t remember that I needed a crust until I had already made my coconut pie filling one afternoon! OOPS! So I improvised.  I crushed a few graham crackers in the blender and mixed them with some melted butter to make a quick homemade graham cracker crust! Lucky me, BigBear actually prefers graham cracker crusts over regular haha. Score!Another Score for this Coconut pie? My mom loved it! She was at my house when I was working on this pie and when it came out of the oven she looked over at it and said “Oh my, that’s exactly how my grandma’s coconut pie’s use to look”! Awwww! YAY! I must have made it right! 😉

Normally, (so says my mom and Nikki) you’d just leave the coconut pie as is once it comes out of the oven. But we know I can’t just leave it alone, so I toasted up some coconut to go on top of the pie! I think it looks much better with the toasted coconut anyways! (hey! I wanted to put meringue on it but both of them turned their noses up at that idea haha)

Toasted Coconut is super easy to make. All you need is shredded coconut and a skillet. I laid out a single layer of coconut in my cast iron skillet and turned the heat onto medium. After a few minutes I started to toss the coconut around with a spatula and kept doing that until it was as brown as I wanted it!

 

So what do you think? Coconut Pie with a Graham Cracker Crust or Coconut Pie with a regular pie dough crust? Toasted Coconut on top or just plain? How do you take your Coconut Pie?

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