PIE-A-DAY #19
Lindsay Landis likes cookie dough so much that she added it to pie. (And to all kinds of other things, like candies and pizza. Check out her Cookie Dough Lovers’ Cookbook for more.)
Back to the pie. Landis starts with a cookie crumb crust. She presses cookie dough into it, and she fills the pie with a brown sugar cream.
Keep reading for the recipe, and for more of Landis’ cookie dough ideas. Click here to enter YOUR delicious pie (or pies) in the 4th Annual Good Food Pie Contest on Saturday, September 8th at LACMA.
Why cookie dough?
Why not? I know I grew up baking cookies alongside my mom, where licking the beaters was always the ultimate prize. As an adult I’ve been known to have serious cookie cravings, but quickly realized that by the time the cookies were in the oven, my craving had already been satisfied with the dough. And perhaps that’s what I’d been craving all along?
The raw-egg factor is the only thing preventing us from really indulging in raw cookie dough. Not that that stopped us before, but removing the raw eggs gets rid of any worry of getting sick from eating it. It may taste slightly different from the dough you grew up eating, but it’s just as good.
I’ve thought of just about everything, from your typical cookie dough ice cream, to towering three-layer cakes, and even to breakfast items like waffles and pancakes. The dough, in various forms, makes a great frosting for cupcakes or brownies or filling for sandwich cookies. Put it between two baked chocolate chip cookies. It’s unreal.
Cookie Dough Cream Pie
(From Lindsay Landis’ The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook: Cookies, Cakes, and More)
Two of my all-time favorite desserts together in one immaculate pie; it’s a miraculous mash-up, a captivating convergence. Chocolate wafer crust. Chocolate chip cookie dough. Brown sugar cream filling. Whipped cream. And (if you’re really ambitious) itty-bitty chocolate chip cookies to top it off.
MAKES: one 9-inch round pie (8 to 10 servings) ACTIVE TIME: 45 minutes TOTAL TIME: 4 hours
For crust:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons almond meal (optional,
for added flavor)
1½ cups chocolate wafer cookie crumbs
(about 7 ounces of cookies, finely ground in a food processor)
For cookie dough:
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter,
room temperature
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons milk or cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
For cream filling:
¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
¹⁄³ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups whole milk, divided
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For whipped topping:
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350ºF. To make the crust, mix together melted butter, almond meal (if using), and cookie crumbs with a fork until uniformly moistened. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake 8 minutes, or until set. Cool completely.
To prepare cookie dough, beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer on medium speed 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Add flour and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Press cookie dough into cooled crust. You want an even layer of dough approximately ½ inch thick. (You will have leftover dough, to eat or to bake into mini cookies; see Serving Suggestion, below.) Refrigerate pan while you prepare the cream filling.
Whisk together brown sugar, flour, and salt in a saucepan. Add 1 cup of the milk and whisk until smooth. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue to stir until mixture is smooth and thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a heatproof bowl, beat egg yolks with the remaining 1 cup milk. Temper the yolks by adding the warm milk mixture to the eggs, a little bit at a time, stirring after each addition. Repeat until about half of the milk mixture has been added and egg mixture is warm to the touch. Pour into saucepan and stir to combine.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly; reduce heat to low and simmer until mixture has the consistency of thick pudding, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Let cool about 5 minutes or until warm—not hot—to the touch.
Pour filling over chilled cookie dough, leveling the top with an offset spatula. Filling should reach about ½ inch from the top of the crust. Refrigerate until set, at least 3 hours.
To make the topping, whip heavy cream with an electric mixer until it begins to form soft folds. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until cream holds stiff peaks. With an offset spatula, gently spread all but ¹⁄³ cup of the whipped topping over chilled filling. Pipe or dollop remaining topping evenly around the pie.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.