Salted Carmel & Coconut Chocolate Chip Cream Pie

Just from the name I'm sure you are thinking "that sounds decadent"! Well, it kind of is. But it's also leaves you with a light feeling from the coconut so not overly so. I made this last Thanksgiving to bring for dessert along with a traditional pumpkin pie. My sister doesn't like the pumpkin, and my mother usually tries to pass on dessert (but then gets caught in the kitchen later with a fork eating out the inside of the pie). However she loves chocolate covered salted caramels. So I decided to try and make a pie version to tempt both of them. I researched a lot of different recipes to get a feel for where to even begin and came out with the following. I added the coconut and only a light dusting of chocolate to lighten it up.  It was so good my mother went back for seconds!

Ingredients:

1Graham Cracker Pie Crust Ready Made (Light variety)

1 14 oz cans Low Fat Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 Tbsp. Fleur de sel (or sea salt)

1 small tub Cool Whip Light Topping

1/2 cup Sweetened Coconut Flakes

1/2 tsp. Coconut Extract

2 Tbsp. Dark Chocolate Chips finely chopped

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees (F). 

• Empty the Sweetened Condensed Milk into a 9x13 glass pan and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp. of the fleur de sel.  Cover with aluminum foil and place in a high sided larger pan.  Add water until it reaches 1/3 of the way up the glass dish.  Bake until the mixture thickens and turns a light golden brown, stirring occasionally.  If too much water evaporates, add more as needed.  This should take about 2 hours. 

• Once golden, scrape the Carmel into the pie crust and let it cool.  Cover with plastic and set in the refrigerator over night.  (Tip- spray your plastic wrap with cooking stray so it doesn't stick) 

• Just before serving- In a bowl mix the Cool Whip topping with 1/2 tsp. coconut extract, 1/2 cup Coconut flakes, and Tbsp. dark chocolate chip flakes.  (I put my chips in a food processor- I just wanted a light chocolate hint, but if you like chocolate you can add more or larger pieces.)

• Remove pie base from refrigerator and top with whip cream mixture.  Sprinkle with remaining fleur de sel. 

• Tip- if you need to travel with and can't do the last step on the spot,  freeze the completed pie and move it to the fridge about an hour before serving.

Serving tip- run your knife under hot water before cutting to avoid the Carmel sticking.

Serves 12.

Nutrition: Based on Weight Watchers 2012 Flex Point- 1 Slice = 9 points.

Yellow Cake : Strawberry Frosting

I found this recipe at Bakerella.com. Normally I am not a cake person, but in my mind when I saw the pink frosting I immediately filled in the flavor as strawberry. I LOVE strawberry. The rest of the day I was craving what my mind imagined this cake would taste like. So I did something totally out of character and went ahead and made this that very night.

Since I didn't change the recipe I won't rewrite it. But here are my notes for those who want to try and attempt this.

Flour: I couldn't find White Lily brand flour and ended up buying Softasilk brand which I thought was self rising. I was wrong. I was frustrated as I couldn't find anything that said "self rising" so I thought this was my best bet as it says on the box "cake flour". It turns out I was looking in the wrong area. I thought this would be in with the special, expensive flours, but it was in a 5 lbs. bag next to the generic cheap flour. So that was my first mistake.

Sifting the flour: This was my second mistake. The Softasilk says it's pre-sifted, but in hind sight it had settled down too much in the box. Make sure you really sift the flour otherwise the texture will not be right.

Cake Texture: The cake actually came out like a pound cake. I believe this is due to mistakes #1 and 2 above rather than the actual intention of the recipe. It still tasted good, but it was not the light and fluffy cake I was expecting.

Adding Moisture: I didn't do the spray bottle trick suggested, however I did wrap the cakes in plastic warp while they were still quite warm.  This seemed to do the trick as the cake was nice and moist even a couple days later.

Icing flavoring: I couldn't find strawberry extract so I bought frozen strawberries that came in a sugary juice. The liquid from the defrosted strawberries worked perfect for adding flavoring. I also used a food processor and added some tiny strawberry bits to the frosting which turned out great!

Icing consistency: This is a butter cream frosting. Not sure what I was expecting because I KNEW it was butter cream, but it was a bit too buttery for my taste. Also, taking from other recipes I've seen since then, I would definitely sift the powdered sugar should I ever decide to make this again. This was very thick and not fluffy.

Overall I did really enjoy the cake when it was finished. So much so I did something yet again completely out of character for me and ate a piece at breakfast the next morning! Yikes. There went being good that day. I tried to give the cake away to people, but they all said it was so rich they would only take one or two pieces. They all raved about the taste- and I don't think they were doing that to appease me. They were all people who haven't had problems telling me I made a cooking blunder in the past. Plus people could tell there was a LOT of butter so everyone was weary of what it would do to their waste line. To that ends I did end up throwing about a third of the cake out. I had to stop myself from eating any more. I would try this again if I had the right occasion, but definitely not unless I had a large enough crowd to help polish it off.