Crisp Coconut and Chocolate pie (grain free)

When I saw a Martha Stewart recipe for coconut and chocolate pie I loved the idea, a simple ganache in a coconut crust. And it’s grain free!

I’m not sure I’ve made many Martha Stewart recipes, but I had the impression there wasn’t much room for fudging ingredients or steps. With this recipe, I unintentionally ended up having to fudge and although the results were still good they were different and I had to play things by ear.

Here’s the original recipe; I love this uncomplicated list of ingredients!

Ingredients
For the crust

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 11 ounces (about 6 cups) sweetened shredded coconut

For the filling

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 61 percent cacao), finely chopped

Directions
1 Make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a food processor, process butter and one-third of coconut until mixture forms a ball, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl. Sprinkle remaining two-thirds coconut over mixture and combine with your fingers.

2 Place a 9-inch pie plate on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet. Press coconut mixture into bottom and up sides of pan to form crust, leaving top edges loose and fluffy. Place a foil ring over edge to prevent burning. Bake until center begins to brown, 10 to 15 minutes; remove foil and bake until edges are browned, 4 to 5 minutes more. Transfer crust to a wire rack to cool completely.

3 Make the filling: Bring cream just to a boil in a small saucepan; pour over chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. Let sit 10 minutes, then stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is combined. Pour into coconut crust. Refrigerate until filling is set, 1 hour or up to 1 day.

I thought I had shredded coconut;  really. I was so confident I had shredded coconut that I didn’t even check. I was already fudging a little because the recipe called for sweetened coconut and I wanted to add my own sweetener. When I was all set to make it I discovered I had flaked coconut, not shredded. So I ended up having to use less coconut and add more butter and the crust didn’t come together as well as I’d hoped. It was more like a graham cracker crust and not fluffy so It didn’t look as pretty, but still tasted good. But I baked it and let it cool. To cool it faster, I popped it in the fridge.

Next time I make this, I’d like to chop up the chocolate before I process the crust in the food processor. Chopping the chocolate by hand was a little more time consuming, but still pretty manageable since I did it while the crust cooled.

I made the ganache according to the recipe. A pie made with raw cream would have more nutritional enzymes but I didn’t stress about boiling this recipe since I’d bought cream from the store. This method for making ganache is much easier than melting baking chocolate in a pyrex cup set in a sauce pan of simmering water. The finished chocolate had a velvety smooth texture, you have to try it for that alone! This was the first time I’d ever made ganache. I could see this popping up all over our house. How fun would it be to pour into fancy glasses, let set in the fridge and serve topped with fresh raspberries, yum!

Here’s how the pie could look if you know how to follow directions. This is not how mine looked.

But we enjoyed the homely version too!

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