Recipe for success: Crack pie

I love, love, love baking requests. You want homemade fruit and chocolate tarts for a family dinner tomorrow? No problem. Anytime you see me I should have an offering of sour lemon sorbet for you? I will try (I actually got this request from my precocious 'tween cousin). To me these requests are the ultimate compliment. So when Daniel forwarded me a recipe with a simple request to make Crack Pie sometime, I cleared my schedule to make it immediately. Who am I kidding? My schedule is always clear so I made it the next day.


Created and made famous by NYC bakery, Momofuku, Crack pie is supposed to be as addictive as its namesake. Imbibing in this decadent pie shouldn't land you in rehab (eat in moderation, people), but may be a gateway pie to the harder stuff. The good news is the recipe yields 2 pies so one for you and one for a friend, because who likes to eat alone? Taken from L.A. Times food section - I kept the recipe in 3 parts, but made some extra notes on the recipe based on my experience. Basically you make a big cookie, then crumble it up and it becomes part of the crust and lastly the filling goes in and you bake it up.


Cookie for the crust:

1. Assemble the ingredients:
   

   2/3 c. plus 1 Tbs. flour Scant 1/8 tsp. baking powder Scant 1/8 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp. salt 1/2 c. (1 stick) softened butter

   1/3 c. light brown sugar 3 tables sugar 1 egg Scant 2 c. rolled oats

2. Preheat the oven to 375 F.


3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a bowl and set aside.


4. Cream together the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy using an electric mixer at medium speed.


5. Beat the egg into the butter mixture.
   
6. With the mixer running, add the flour mixture gradually until incorporated. Then stir in the oats.
   
7. Spread the mixture onto a 9x13 inch backing sheet and bake until brown, about 20 minutes. Let cool and crumble the big cookie to use in the crust (next section).

Crust:

1. Assemble the ingredients:

   Crumbled cookie for crust 1/4 c. (1/2 stick) butter 2 10-inch pie tins

   1 1/2 Tbs. brown sugar 1/8 tsp. salt

2. Put all the ingredients a food processor and pulse until the contents resemble brown sugar. If you press some of the mixture between your fingers it should clump and loosely hold together.


3. Divide the mixture between the 2 (10-inch) pie tins. Press the crust into each tin along the bottom and sides.

Filling:

1. Assemble the ingredients:
   

   1 1/2 c. sugar 3/4 c. plus a scant 3 Tbs. light brown sugar 1/4 tsp. salt 1/3 c. plus 1 tsp. milk powder 1 c. (2 sticks) butter, melted

   3/4 c. plus a scant 2 Tbs. heavy cream 1 tsp. vanilla extract 8 egg yolks 2 prepared crusts (done in previous section) Powdered sugar (optional)

2. Heat the oven to 350 F.


3. In a large bowl, bring together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter and the whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
   
4. Whisk in the egg yolks gently, be careful not to over whisk and add too much air. The mix will look like butterscotch pudding (in my opinion).


5. Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.
   
6. Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes.
   
7. Reduce the heat to 325 F and bake the pies until the filling is slightly jiggly in the center and golden brown. I finally achieved the description after 25-35 minutes. Let cool on a rack. The recipe I followed said this step would take about 10 minutes, but when I took it out, it was liquidy. So I popped them back in for 35+ minutes and they were a bit overbaked...so I am deducing that 25-35 minutes will be juuuust right.
   
8. Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The center will be ooey-gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving, if desired.