You, too, can replicate this scrumptious pie at residence.
Courtesy of Firestone CC
Welcome to Clubhouse Eats, the place we have fun the sport’s most delectable food and drinks. Hope you introduced your appetites.
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If you happen to’ve ever been to Firestone Nation Membership, we hope you had the instinct — or have been in any other case explicitly instructed — to order the Crunchy Cream Pie when you have been there. The dessert has amassed a cult-like fan membership {of professional} golfers over time, together with notable main champions akin to Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw, and Jack Nicklaus.
In line with Firestone’s longstanding member providers supervisor, Dick Robbins, the Golden Bear all the time took two or three pies residence with him after a go to to the membership. In actual fact, a number of years in the past, Nicklaus as soon as despatched a personal jet to Akron to select up 30 Crunchy Cream Pies for a particular dinner that he was internet hosting at his personal membership in Muirfield Village.
“It was like what we name an icebox pie,” says Crenshaw, a local Texan who remembers first visiting Firestone Nation Membership (and sure consuming the pie) in 1974. “God, it was good.” Sure, Crenshaw acknowledges that he’s a person with a candy tooth, although he’s fast so as to add, “I don’t fully put on it out.” Nonetheless, he remembers the beneficiant servings of Crunchy Cream Pie at Firestone and the straightforward proven fact that every time he ordered a slice, “I simply couldn’t go away something left on the plate.”
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Proof that generally the best issues in life are greatest, the Crunchy Cream Pie is easy. Primarily, it’s a vanilla custard pie topped with whipped cream and a crunchy topping comprised of toasted coconut, crumbled pie crust, chopped nuts, cinnamon, and sugar. The pie’s backstory is not any much less humble. Through the early Nineteen Seventies, Victor Pallotta, then Firestone’s resident baker, was trying to find methods to make use of the additional custard that remained after he completed making batches of his sought-after eclairs. However he stopped looking out as soon as he concocted this pie.
“It was a kind of issues that we rolled out to the members, and it simply took off straight away,” says Robbins. “The subsequent factor you knew, he was making extra crunchy cream pies than anything. It was simply the suitable concoction that everybody cherished.”
After getting back from a go to to Firestone a few years in the past — the place multiple slice of pie was ordered and loved — I reached out to the membership to see if they’d share the pie’s recipe, solely to be informed that it’s not for public data. A fast Google search, nonetheless, introduced me to a narrative printed by a neighborhood Cleveland information station in 2018, one which went contained in the Firestone kitchen and documented one of many membership’s cooks making the dessert. With that video tutorial (and a printed copy of the information station’s acquired recipe in hand), I got down to give it my greatest shot and was inspired by the outcomes. The recipe is spot-on for taste. My solely miscue was not letting the custard simmer lengthy sufficient on the stovetop — it wasn’t fairly as agency when chilled within the crust — however that’s a blunder that’s simply corrected the second time round.
Courtesy of Firestone CC
It’s unclear if within the subsequent years after that information story was printed the membership modified its protocol about sharing the pie’s recipe. All I do know is that the recipe that when was shared is alive and nicely out on the World Large Net. Right here, we share the recipe first printed by Cleveland 19 Information. Joyful baking — and God bless the Web!
Custard Elements:
3 cups half-and-half or complete milk
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp vanilla extract
Sprint of salt
1 baked graham cracker pie crust
6 oz. whipped cream (you’ll be able to’t go mistaken with Alton Brown’s recipe)
Topping Elements:
1 cup toasted coconut
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup chopped pecans** toasted
1 store-bought, flour-based piecrust, baked and chopped positive
Floor cinnamon, to style
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*For toasted coconut, unfold 1 cup of unsweetened coconut flakes evenly onto a baking sheet, and bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 levels for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often.
*For toasted pecans, add nuts to a medium skillet and cook dinner over medium warmth, stirring usually till barely darker in coloration and aromatic (about 10 minutes).
**It’s price noting that Robbins specified that the topping combination options toasted peanuts; nonetheless, each the printed recipe and the video phase that aired on Cleveland 19 requires pecans.
Preparation:
In a medium bowl, mix 1/2 cup of sugar and the cornstarch and blend nicely.
Add the eggs, vanilla extract, and a touch of salt and mix till clean.
In a medium saucepan, mix half-and-half and 1/2 cup of sugar and produce to a simmer over medium warmth.
Add the egg combination to the saucepan and whisk till the combination is thick and begins to bubble.
Take away from the warmth and stir within the butter.
Pour immediately right into a graham cracker pie crust and refrigerate for at the very least six hours.
Whereas pie is chilling, mix all topping components in a medium bowl and blend nicely (cowl till prepared to make use of).
When pie has totally set, prime it with the whipped cream and canopy it with a beneficiant layer of the topping combination. (You could have some further topping left over.)
