Saturday, July 16, 2011

#22: Louisiana Mud Pie

I CHEATED! ... again. I'm getting amazing at cutting corners. Not only did I buy a pre-made pie crust for this particular project, but I also didn't even bake! Considering the weather has been in the mid-90's since I can remember, I finally decided I had had enough of sticking my head in an oven for an afternoon of baking and wanted to opt for something a little cooler... enter in this DELICIOUS ice cream cake.

This seriously might be the best dessert I have made to this date, and it was so easy... if not a little time consuming. Full of chocolate and swirls of caramel, this one is DEFINITELY going in the family cookbook. Although Stephen and I could have easily eaten the whole pie on our own, I was BEGGING people to come and take some away, the CALORIE count of this pie is ASTRONOMICAL. So be forewarned... delish and deadly.

#22: Louisiana Mud Pie (as found in Sandra Lee's Bake Sale Cookbook)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup caramel topping
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 9-inch chocolate pie crust
2 pints coffee ice cream
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, stir together caramel topping and vanilla extract. Cook and stir over a medium heat just until boiling; reduce heat to low. Simmer for 8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Spoon 1/4 cup of the cooled caramel mixture into pie crust; freeze about 15 minutes, or until caramel is firm. Remove pie crust from freezer. Using a rubber spatula, spread one pint of the softened ice cream over caramel. Sprinkle half the chocolate chips and half the pecans over the ice cream. Freeze for 1 hour more.
     - All right, confession- I didn't use the coffee ice cream the recipe calls for. I'm in PROVO, UTAH for the summer, folks. What I used instead was a brilliant move on my part- Stephen suggested I use chocolate in place of coffee. I thought that would be WAY too chocolatey, so I opted instead to buy one pint of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream (chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips in it) and DULCE DE LECHE ice cream (rich caramel ice cream with swirls of caramel throughout it... UH, YUM!). I went ahead and put the chocolate chip ice cream on the bottom, since I figured putting caramel ice cream on top of the caramel layer at the bottom of the pie might be too much.

3. Remove the pie from the freezer. Spread the remaining pint of softened ice cream into the pie (the dulce de leche). Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips and the remaining pecans. Top with the remaining caramel mixture. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving.
    - PS- It is SOOO much easier to spread the ice cream if you soften it in the microwave for 20 seconds prior to spreading it on the pie. I know a lot of people turn up their noses at putting ice cream in a microwave because they claim it refreezes funny, but it works! Also, by the time I got to this step, I had to reheat my caramel for a little bit in order to get it a little runnier to drizzle on the pie.

Best dessert I've tried so far, hands down. Make this pie. You'll want to make a miniature version of yourself to climb into the pie and nuzzle down into that layer of caramel at the bottom, I'M NOT KIDDING.

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