Coconut Cream Mini Pies with a Lemon Oreo Crust + a Reveal!

I mentioned last week one of my favorite things about finding about the sex of the baby is to make reveal desserts to tell people.   It is a lot more fun to have people bite into something and find out rather than just telling them.  It also drives them nuts that you make them wait until they see you to get a dessert.  My goal every time is to try and come up with different ways to tell people though instead of the traditional cake or cupcake.  My mind begins to spin on what sort of treat can I sneak a pink or blue center into.

I had a few ideas in my head which you will see in the next post or two but this one was my last minute idea that popped into my head thanks to Pi Day.  If you saw my last post - White Chocolate Peanut Butter Pies - I was part of a group of bloggers who got together to celebrate Pi day.  One of the pies in the collection was a Coconut Cream Pie from Rachel @ I love my disorganized life.   This gave me an idea, why not sneak in something pink or blue at the bottom of a little tart and then top it with the coconut filling.   Perfect.

I couldn't use Rachel's recipe exactly because the eggs are not cooked and knowing I would like to eat it myself I wanted to make sure they were heated so I used a slightly different method.  I also was dying to use up some lemon oreos sitting in my cupboard and lemon and coconut is such a great combination I had to try mixing them in somehow.

Coconut Cream Mini Pies with a Lemon Oreo Crust

INGREDIENTS:

• 10-12 Lemon oreos
• 3/4 sleeve of graham crackers
• 2 tbsp corn syrup
• 2/3 cup butter

Filling

• 1 cup unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup 2% milk
• Pink and Blue sprinkles (more of what you need to reveal)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. 

2.In a small sauce pan , melt together the butter and corn syrup on med-low.  Set aside. 

2. In a food processor, blend lemon oreos and graham crackers until processed and fine with no chunks remaining.

3.  Mix together wet and dry mixture until crumbs are all moistened.  Divide evenly between 12 muffin cups, lightly greased or using silicone molds.  Press to shape into cups.   Bake for 8-10 minutes, remove from oven and press down any puffing with the back of a spoon.

4.  While the cups are baking,  put the coconut into a small bowl and cover with the boiling water.  Let stand. 

5. In another bowl combine sugar, cornstarch, flour, salt and egg yolks, whisk together. 

6. In a medium sauce pan heat milk just to a boil.  Remove from heat and slowly whisk in some of the milk to the egg mixture, whisking constantly as you pour.   Slowly whisk in about half to two thirds of the milk. 

Pour the combined mixture back into the sauce pan with the remaining milk and return to medium heat,  whisking constantly until mixture begins to thicken.  Remove from heat and continue to whisk out any lumps. 

7.  Stir in coconut, cover with saran wrap and let cool in the refrigerator.  

8.  Remove the shells from the pan or silicone molds.  Place a teaspoon of pink or blue sprinkles in the center of the pie shell, cover with a large scoop of the coconut filling.  Top with a few more mixed sprinkles, store in the refrigerator until ready to eat. 

P.S.   IT'S A GIRL!!  My husband is feeling quite out numbered now with a 3:1 ratio but he will survive, as long as he knows who's boss.  hehe

Gender Reveal Cream Puffs

I will eventually stop complaining about my crazy work load but that is probably only when it has actually stopped and getting out even one post a week is not a struggle.   Exhausted!  I apologize now for any spelling mistakes.   I am off to put some cucumbers on my eyes.

Anyway.....

So I obviously took the opportunity to tell people what the sex of the baby is by using desserts.  This seemed the only logical step for a mostly dessert food blogger like myself.   The fun thing as well is that I didn't have one single function where I was telling everyone so I was able to make several different desserts to spread the word.
All my reveals have been staggered over the last several weeks so I have been unable to post any of the desserts until the last reveal was done.   The real trick is to come up with a dessert than involves hiding something inside a dessert.  It has been lots of fun!!
This was the first dessert I did for the In-laws,  I also think one of my favorite.

Gender Reveal Cream Puffs

(adapted from Cooks Illustrated)

INGREDIENTS:

Cream Puffs

• 5 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp milk
• 6 tbsp water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 large eggs + 1 large egg white

Pastry Cream

• 1/2 cup 18% cream
• 1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large egg yolks
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• coloured food paste

Dark Chocolate for Dipping - sorry I forget how much now. 

INSTRUCTIONS: 

1) In a medium sauce pan combine milk, water butter, salt and sugar.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring only a few times.

2) Preheat the oven to 425F. Combine eggs in a measuring cup and whisk together.

3) Once the mixture in the saucepan comes to a boil and butter is fully melted,  remove from heat right away and stir in the flour with a wooden spoon or spatula.  Mixture should be well combined and coming clear from the sides of the pan.

4) Return the sauce pan to low heat, stirring and smearing constantly until the mixture becomes slightly shiny. It will sort of look like wet sand and you will see some tiny fat beads on the bottom of the pan.   Just a few minutes - paste should measure 175-180F.

5) Once the paste is ready add this to a food processor and run for a few seconds to cool the paste.   With the machine running add in the eggs in a steady slow stream.    Scrape down the sides then process for another 30 seconds until paste is thick and sticky.

6) Place the mixture into a large piping bag with a circle tip.   Pipe 1 1/2 inch rounds about 1 inch apart.  Using the back of a spoon or your finger dipped in cold water to even out the top and peaks of the mounds.
Bake 15 minutes, do not open door, then reduce to 375F and continue to bake about 8-10 more minutes.  Puffs should be golden and firm.

7) Remove from the oven, using a small pairing knife cut a small slit in each, return to then oven and turn off heat.   Let puffs dry out for 30-45 minutes.   Remove from oven and let cool completely, store in an air tight container until ready to fill. 

8) Make the pastry cream :  Heat the cream, milk, 1/4 cup sugar and salt in a medium sauce pan, (heavy bottomed is best) over medium heat until simmering, stirring off and on to dissolve sugar. 

9) While waiting for the simmering whisk the egg yolks together in a medium bowl, with remaining sugar and salt until mixture is creamy and sugar dissolved. Whisk in the cornstarch until pale and thick.

10) When the milk/cream mixture is simmering, slowly whisk about 1/2-3/4 cup into the eggs to temper them.   Return the mixture to the sauce pan and return the mixture to a simmer, scraping down the pan and stirring with a spatula.   Mixture will become thickened and glossy, about 30 secs to a 1 minute.

13) Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, butter and needed food paste colour.  Strain the cream through a fine mesh strainer.    Cover the mixture with saran wrap, directly to the cream to prevent any film from developing and refrigerate until cold and set.

14) When ready fill a small piping bag in a small circle tip with the pasty cream.   Gently open up the cream puffs using the small slight created early fill the cream puff with the cream. Repeat with all puffs.

14) Melt chocolate over a double boiler on low heat.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Dip the cream puffs into the chocolate, covering any showing of the coloured pastry cream.   Let dry completely.
15) Serve and SURPRISE

These are a great idea for a gender reveal dessert.  Pretty easy to hide the cream.   I made all of the participants bite at the same time so that they were all surprised together.   Unfortunately one bite for someone led to some reveal cream ending up on her shirt but it was very exciting.   It was fun to have everyone make their predictions, even our niece and nephew were quite excited to see what was inside.

So as you can see we are having a GIRL! Very exciting and I am now looking forward to decorating and buying cute little dresses and outfits.  

This was another gender reveal dessert we did for some friends as a last minute meeting.   I had some cookie mix that came with a mini cast iron pan so I made the dough and hid in some pink chocolate pieces and then covered it so the pink baked inside and they had to cut in to find out.    This could also be done with brownies or other cookies as well.   I like my cute questions mark on top.

I also did two more gender reveal desserts so watch for the next post for some more ideas.