Coconut custard pie is one of Camille’s absolute favorites. They love eating it in the morning with a cup of natural coffee or some (oat)milky black tea. This recipe is inspired by the Minimalist Baker (one of Camille’s favorite food blogs). If you want to make their version of the pie you can find it here: minimalist baker’s coconut cream pie.
Makes: 1 pie
Time: 30 minutes active time, 3 hours (or overnight) resting time
Ingredients
For the crust:
1 cup gluten-free rolled oats (optionally sub gluten-free oat flour)
1 cup almond flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp coconut sugar
5 tbsp vegan butter, soy-free option
For the filling:
6 tbsp cornstarch
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1 pinch sea salt
2 cans full fat coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut, plus more for garnish
Pre-heat oven to 350 F and grease a standard size pie dish. If you don’t own one of these, you can use any 8X8 pan, or if you use multiple smaller pans adjust cooking time for crust.
Pulse oats in a high speed blender or food processor until it is the texture of fine flour. If you are using oat flour, you can skip this step. Mix this oat flour with the almond flour, sea salt, and coconut sugar in a bowl. Cut the 5 tbsp of butter into the dry mixture until it the butter is pea sized and you have dough that holds up when you squeeze it between your fingers. The dough may look crumbly. If it crumbles apart completely when you squeeze it, you can work in a bit more butter. Using your hands, press this dough into the pre-greased pie dish until it is an even thickness on all sides. If you find it’s very thick or it seems like you have extra, you can pull this toward the top edge to create thicker edge around the rim. Bake the crust for 15-25 minutes until it is starting to brown and smells cooked. Note, sometimes the crust doesn’t look very much browner to me even when it is fully cooked. Remove and set aside to cool.
When the pie crust is done cooking, or is only 10 minutes away from being done, add the cornstarch, canned coconut milk, coconut sugar, and sea salt to a sauce pan and stir to as smooth a texture as possible (you may not be able to break up all the lumps before you heat it). Add this to medium heat and continue stirring focusing on removing all lumps. Once this starts to boil, cook for about 6 more minutes stirring constantly. The mixture should be bubbling and getting thicker. Use a rubber spatula to keep scraping the bottom and sides to keep the custard from burning. Once the mixture is thicker and looks jiggly, remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of shredded coconut and the vanilla extract. Stir this, and then pour it into the pre-cooked pie crust. Garnish with coconut shreds.
Let the pie cool on the countertop until it is room temperature, and then place it in the fridge at least 2-3 hours, ideally overnight, to set up. Note: if you your pie dish is made of glass, be especially careful not to put it in the fridge while still hot. Hot ceramic or glass cookware will break if you move it from cold to hot or hot to cold too quickly. Slice and enjoy!
