Oreo Pie

Welcome to October! It's Halloween season - I started seeing costumes and Halloween candy in stores right after labor day actually, so I guess it's STILL Halloween season! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because I love dressing up and as a kid, I had a lot of DIY costumes because my parents weren't huge fans of spending a bunch of money on an outfit I'd only wear once. But I still have lots of fond memories and I still love DIY-ing my costumes. Anyway, Halloween makes my teeny tiny sweet tooth grow quite a bit.

Back in March, Oreo celebrated its 100th anniversary and since then, my local grocery store has been having Oreo specials pretty much every week, though now, they're all filled with orange creme. I'm not usually one to purchase sweets because 1) my sweet tooth is v. small and 2) I prefer my desserts homemade to avoid putting too many preservatives in my body but I made an exception for my Halloween-bloated sweet tooth and bought a package of Oreo cookies.

I might shock some people with this next statement but I despise the creme in the cookie so usually, I peel it off and eat the naked cookies by themselves. Well, after eating 3 creme-less cookies, I felt sick from all the sugar, and abandoned the cookies for about a week. I realized nothing was going to happen with those cookies unless I re-purposed them somehow so I decided to make an Oreo pie. There are several Oreo pie recipes out there in the world, but I think mine's the best because I use vanilla bean and vanilla beans push any dessert over the top. It's pretty similar to my coconut pie recipe except there's no coconut.

Ingredients:
16 oreos + extra for decoration (optional)
3tbsp + 1 tbsp butter
4 egg yolks
1-1/2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 pint whipping cream
1 tbsp powdered sugar

Start by separating the cookies and scraping off the creme. Save the creme in a bowl and put the cookies in a zip-top bag.

Crush cookies and mix crumbs with 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Press cookie crumb mixture into a pie dish and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Heat the milk with the scraped cookie creme and whisk to combine. The creme should melt/dissolve and leave a buttery looking sheen in the milk.

While the milk is heating, combine egg yolks, sugar, salt, and cornstarch in a bowl and whisk together.

Once milk is scalding, remove from the heat and scrape in the seeds of one vanilla bean. Whisk to distribute the seeds and vanilla flavor into the milk.

Slowly add milk to the yolk mixture, whisking to prevent the yolks from curdling. Once the ingredients are combined, return the custard to the saucepan.

Heat the custard over a low heat, whisking continuously. The mixture will slowly start to thicken up and as soon as it hits a boil, it will almost look curdled. At this point, remove the pot from the heat and whisk furiously until the custard is smooth.

Once smooth, add in 1 tablespoon of butter and whisk until combined. The custard should be smooth and velvety. Allow custard to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. I usually wait until the pot is no longer hot enough to burn my fingers.

Spread the custard into the Oreo cookie pie crust. Smooth out the top to create an even surface. Refrigerate for 4 hours, at least, until chilled. If you are in a time crunch, keep the pie in the freezer for 1 hour.

Once the pie is chilled, whip the heavy cream and powdered sugar together until the cream is stiff enough to spread. Do not overmix.

Spread the whipped cream over the top of the pie. Decorate with chopped Oreo cookies, if you want. Chill until you're ready to serve.

Slice pie with carefully, making sure to cut through the cookie crust.

Clean plate is the sign of a successful dish.

And here's the recipe page for your convenience: