My Taste of Humble Pie…and a Coconut Cream Pie recipe too!

 

Four months now, I’ve been calling this little blog home.  I remember the day I bought the domain I choose brave.  I was so excited.  I thought it a bit glamorous even. I own a spot on the internet!  

You know when you suck up the courage, put some real money on it and commit to chasing your dream a little?  The moment where you stopping just thinking about something and take the first step toward doing it?  Buying the domain was the culmination of all of that for me.

I finally did it. I jumped.  And I was certain it was going to be smooth sailing from there.  Except, brave doesn’t really work that way.  It’s never just one small step, it’s a journey of steps.  It’s learning to keep stepping.

 

 

I’ve quickly learned that blogging looks a little less glamorous and more like, well, work.  It looks more like 5am, 6 days a week.  Weather I was up with kiddos or stayed up too late the night before, my alarm tells me to get up and work on the blog.

It looks like googling tech terms like widgets and learning basic code because there is way more to this blogging gig than I realized.  Far more than tapping out a string of sentences and putting a picture with them.

How quickly I’m learning how much I don’t know.

Choosing brave, while still exciting, feels at times, vulnerable…and humbling.

And personally, life has been throwing blows as well.  Of course, we had the adventurous vacation.  And my husband had quite a health scare that is less of a scare now, yet we are still sorting the details out.  We had some family drama, as most families tend to have on occasion.   And most recently, my daughter came down with a bizarre and contagious rashy sickness that involved the entire family slathering on prescriptive cream as a preventative measure.  Seriously.

Each of theses events, while not very traumatic in and of themselves, becomes more weighted as they are compounded.  One bizarre event after another.  I keep thinking this isn’t my normal life.  Except, it is.  And it’s humbling.

 

Life has a way of reminding us that our drama could always be far worse though.  A sweet family in my church has been dealing with some serious health issues with their 3 year old boy.  Health issues that landed in them in the children’s hospital while on vacation.  And another children’s hospital when they returned.  And a third after that because sometimes life just gets messier, I guess.

My heart was breaking for this mama friend and as I prayed for her I wondered what I might be able to do to make her feel loved.  Not the ordinary, can I make you dinner? or a little gift for her son. But the out of the ordinary, something special for the mama when the weight of it all feels like just too much.

I’ve been through my own hard, not the same hard, but still hard, and I felt like I should have some inside track on making someone feel special in hard times, but I came up empty.  I couldn’t think of a single thing.  So I prayed about it, God, help that mama feel loved like never before, right now.  Help me show her, in some little way, that You see her in all of this hard she is going through right now. And then I forgot about it.

Funny how God remembers prayers even when we do not.

A day or two later as I was perusing Pinterest and I pinned a recipe for a gorgeous Triple Coconut Cream Pie.  A pie that I would never make, mind you, because I don’t make pie.  But my husband loves coconut so when I saw the pin my brain went all “oh, my husband would love this pie so I’ll pin it, because I love him, but I’ll never make it and he’ll never know I pinned it, so this isn’t really showing him love, but I’ll just pin it anyhow and pretend it is.” All that in a one second pin, friends.

Anyhow, the very next day, that sweet mama friend that I had prayed for a few days earlier, a friend who I did not even realize used Pinterest, a friend who later told me she never comments on pins, that friend saw the Triple Coconut Cream Pie recipe I pinned and commented “This looks so good!”

And I remembered my prayer.

I which I could tell you my reflex was more honorable, but my very first thought was, Oh, God, no.  Not pie.  I will bake that mama a cake, I can do cake.  Or cupcakes, I’m good at those.  But not pie.  I’m terrible at pie!  My pies are always ugly.  My crust is embarrassing.  I’ve tried, God, you know I’ve tried and I thought we came to an agreement that pie is just really not something I need in my life…

And so I argued a bit.  And fretted a bit.  And knew that I had to make this pie.  I knew that God was and is constantly humbling me.  Because I prefer to show the world the few things I can do really well, but that doesn’t really serve anyone well in the end.  That serves me, when I’m trying to serve Him. 

I don’t think God just wants our Sunday best, our awesome cakes.  I think He wants to use us on Mondays, when it’s messy.  On Thursdays when we’re tired.  I think sometimes, He prefers to use our humble pie.

So in the spirit of four months of blogging and me continually learning lessons in humility I thought I’d share the recipe with you because it really was a very good, if not beautiful, pie.  And that’s what friends do, they share recipes…and humility.

Triple Coconut Cream Pie

adapted from Vanilla and Bean

So I tried to channel my inner Pioneer Woman and take a few pictures for you, except that I am no Ree Drummond.  I don’t live on a ranch or know how to style a photo or bake a pretty pie, even.  But I do know how to work an iPhone, so I got a few humble photos to go with my humble story of my humble pie, that really does taste fabulous.  So there.

The first fabulous thing about this recipe is the crust.  It has coconut right in it.  That does change the texture just a little bit, but it’s worth it for the taste.

 

I loved the tip from the original recipe of using beans instead of pie weights to hold the crust down while baking.  It worked like a charm and is quite practical for non-pie bakers who don’t have pie weights sitting around.

 

 

I buy eggs straight out of the chickens down the road.  That may very well be the secret to what made this pie so delicious and I’m not sure I can guarantee the results with eggs straight out of different chickens.

 

 

Here is what my kitchen went through to produce this pie.  You may not be as messy as I am when you cook and this may explain why my crusts are always ugly.  I’m not really sure yet.

I made two pies because my husband really does love coconut so if I’m making Triple Coconut Cream Pie, then I though I should definitely make one for him too.  Somehow that shows more love than pinning recipes does.

I also had the brilliant idea that if I made two pies I would have better odds of one coming out pretty so I would keep the ugly one and give the prettier one away.

 

 

God never stops teaching me lessons in humility because while the “prettier” pie on the left was cooling on the counter, my own sweet 3 year old hopped on a stool to look at it and sneezed RIGHT ON TO MY PRETTIEST PIE, which still isn’t even all that pretty.  And so now I had to give the uglier pie away and I kept the sneezy pie for my family.  Awesome.

In the end, I learned that you can hide a whole lot of ugly with homemade whipping cream, toasted coconut, and white chocolate shavings.

When I delivered this pie, you know what that mama told me?  Her birthday was two months ago and she really wanted a coconut cream pie.  She drove the family to the local grocery store to buy one and they were all out, so she never got one.

I never knew that.  But, God did.

Sometimes this is what honoring God looks like.  Offering up even our ugly pie crust, to be used by Him.

So that is the moral of the story.  And be careful what you go about pinning.  Because I have a feeling God knows about Pinterest.  And one day, He might just ask you to bake that thing you pinned!

 

Triple Coconut Cream Pie

 

Crust

4 Tbs Cold Whole Milk

1 1/2 Tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

1C plus 2Tbs All Purpose Flour

1/2C Unsweetened Coconut

1 Tbs Granulated Sugar

1/4 Tsp Salt

1/2 C Cold Butter, cubed

 

Coconut Cream Filling

2C Whole Milk

1/2 C plus 2 Tbs Granulated Sugar

2C Unsweetened Coconut

1 Tsp vanilla

2 Large Eggs

2 Tbs All Purpose Flour

1/4C Room Temp Butter, cubed

 

Whipped Cream

2C Heavy Cream, chilled

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

1/2 Coconut Flavoring

1/4C Powdered Sugar

 

Garnish

3/4 C Coconut, toasted

1/3C White Chocolate shavings

 

For the Crust:

Whisk together milk and cider and set aside. In a large bowl add flour, coconut, sugar, salt and butter.  Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter in until mixture begins to come together and is the about the size of peas.  Pour in the milk and cider and gently mix.  The dough will be a bit loose and dry.  Dump the mixture onto a floured work surface and fold a few times.  Don’t worry if the dough isn’t coming together all that well, just shape it in a round, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

An hour or more later you can roll out your dough and lay it in a 9” pie pan.  Flute the edges so it looks pretty. If you totally stink at this part you will have a humble pie.  And that’s okay too.  We can be friends.

Pierce the crust a few times with a fork so it can breathe and then chill for at least an hour before baking. Did I tell you this is an all day humble pie project?

When you are ready to bake, just line the crust with parchment paper and pour in some beans to hold the crust down while baking.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Toss the beans and parchment and bake for another 15 minutes or so until golden brown.  Cool completely before assembling pie.

 

For the Cream:

Combine the milk, half the sugar, coconut and vanilla into a medium saucepan.  Cook on medium high, stirring occasionally until it start getting bubbly, not boiling, just slightly bubbly.  If you don’t know what that means, it okay.  Neither do I, really.  Just do your best and it’ll be fine.  Or, humble.

Whisk the eggs, the other half of the sugar and the flour in a large Pyrex measuring cup and slowly add to the milk mixture.  Whisk over medium high heat until the cream mixture begins to thicken and keep whisking until it reaches 212F for 4-5 minutes.  This takes a while!  Remove from heat.

Pour the cream mixture into your stand mixer and mix on low for 15 minutes, while adding the butter one cube at a time.  This helps the cream cool.

When the cream reaches room temp, you are ready to get this pie assembled.

 

But first the Whipped Cream:

And the heavy cream, vanilla and coconut flavoring a large bowl.  Whip with your mixer on medium speed until it begins to thicken.  Slowly add powdered sugar and continue whipping until it is thick enough to pipe.

Now, just pour your coconut cream into your crust, pipe or spread the whipped cream on top (piping helps distract from an ugly crust!) and cover with the toasted coconut and shaved chocolate and voila!  You have a beautifully humble, Triple Coconut Cream Pie.

This recipe was adapted from Vanilla and Bean.  If you’d like the original recipe you can find it here.  She has fabulous pictures and uses fancy ingredients like vanilla paste, large flake coconut and vanilla beans, the likes of which we don’t have easy access to in small town America.  But if your grocery store carries them feel free to follow her recipe.  I’m sure they’d make this recipe far less humble! 😉