A Coconut Kind of Day

Having made coconut cupcakes today, I had things leftover and no real plans on how to use them. The great thing about coconut cupcakes is that I used a white cake recipe and simply substituted coconut milk for moo milk in the recipe. White cakes also uses egg whites. Lots of egg whites. In fact, it's the egg whites sans yolks that keeps a cake white rather than yellow.

So, in addition to half of a can of coconut milk, I also had five egg yolks just sitting in a bowl.

I decided this was the ideal day to make a coconut cream pie.

While the cupcakes cooled, I blind baked a pie crust. I used to make the best pie crust in the world, but being gluten-free means I've moved away from baking with wheat. This is sad, because gluten-free alternatives lead to a much more delicate pie crust, and I rarely have any interest in fighting with it. Thank the good Lord for frozen gf pie crusts!

For the filling:

1 2/3 cup whole milk
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp kosher salt
5 egg yolks
1 Tbls butter
1 tsp coconut extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Mix the milks together.

Mix the sugar, cornstarch and salt in a medium saucepan. Add the milks and whisk to thoroughly combine. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until thick and bubbling.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks until lightened in color. Slowly whisk in the hot milk mixture.

Return the milk and egg mixture to the saucepan. Return to medium heat and continue whisking until mixture begins to boil again, whisking constantly.

Remove from heat and stir in butter and extracts. Fold in the coconut.

Cover the surface of the coconut custard with plastic wrap and chill.

When throroughly chilled, transfer custard to pie crust. Feel free to top with whipped topping and toasted coconut. Refrigerate overnight. It's delicious.


Once the cupcakes were cooled, I poked holes in them and then infused them with a coconut simple syrup. I frosted them with a coconut buttercream and rolled them in toasted coconut.