Home made coconut milk for an old-school coconut cream pie

April 15, 6:38 PMBerkeley Cooking ExaminerKaren Yencich

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Old school coconut cream pie

If you’ve recently butchered a fresh coconut to make superior fur for your Easter bunny cookies, there’s a good chance (unless you had quite the herd of bunny cookies) that you still have a fair amount of fresh coconut on hand.

Making your own coconut milk is a good way to use it up.

There’s a good recipe for coconut milk at

 http://homecooking.about.com/od/fruitrecipes/r/blfruit17.htm  It only requires 2.5 ounces of fresh coconut and uses, in addition to milk, the coconut water you drained from the nut. The only adjustment I made was to blend the coconut water, milk and fresh coconut in the blender before heating and steeping it.

Now, you’re ready for pie.

This is my mother’s recipe for coconut cream pie, and among the North Berkeley/Kensington pie cognoscenti, it is the standard by which all other coconut cream pies are judged.

The recipe dates to the late 1940’s or perhaps the early 1950s. It may have been copied out of a magazine at one time, but by the time it came to my mother, it was handwritten, as is hers and my own. The person who developed the recipe has almost certainly gone on to meet her Maker, where she was undoubtedly warmly welcomed.

The original recipe probably used store-bought sweetened coconut, so if you’re using fresh coconut, this pie may be less sweet than you expect. Taste for sweetness as you go along to make sure you get the balance you want.

My Mother’s Coconut Cream Pie

One 9-inch pre-baked pie shell

Blend together:
    3 tablespoons sugar
    6 tablespoons flour
    1/4 teaspoon salt

Gradually add:
    2 cups milk (or fresh coconut milk, if you just happened to make it))
    2 eggs, lightly beaten
    1 cup grated coconut
        ...and pour into the top of a double boiler.

Place over boiling water and cook for 5 minutes, or until thick. (Be sure the filling has FULLY thickened, or your pie won’t set up properly and you’ll have to default to pudding.)

Take off the heat and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Stir in:
    1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
    1 tablespoon butter

Beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually add:
    4 tablespoons sugar
    and beat until stiff.

    Cool. Spoon into baked pie shell

    Sprinkle with 1/2 cup toasted coconut