Carina's Coconut Cream Pie

This is the recipe that people are always asking me for, especially around the holidays. I worked on the recipe for years, tinkering until it was the most perfect coconut cream pie anywhere. 

It's not stringy, or soupy, or--horror of horrors--full of almond extract (almond extract in a coconut cream pie is like putting mud in chocolate cake--don't put that in, that's a horrible thing to do.) 

When I was baking the empty pie shell I took a conference call. The conference call won. Oops.

I ran out of time to make another pie crust and I was under a serious time crunch. I had to take EG to piano right in the middle of the process and didn't have time to change. When I dropped him off I realized that I could just run to the store and buy a pie crust! People do that! Except the only store nearby was Walmart (which hurts my feelings.) And, oh yeah, I was wearing leggings as pants, slippers, a messy shirt, hadn't done my hair, had on no makeup. I was a People of Walmart, my friends.

But it was worth it...

I cooled the filling in a flash by going outside, sticking the pot in the three feet of snow on my back deck, and stirring as it thickened. It cut more than an hour off the chill time--awesome.

I use the Cook's Illustrated vodka pie crust because it never fails me. One tip that I'll tell you guys: I sometimes put 1/4 cup of the finely shredded coconut into the pie pastry. Just another level of awesome.

Full recipe for the Best Coconut Cream Pie Ever over at TodaysMama.com