Coconut Cream Pie

Aaron recently asked me to make a Coconut Cream pie. I didn't know he even liked that kind of pie and I'd never made it. But what my man wants! I set out to find a recipe and very quickly realized that it wasn't going to be as simple as I thought. Not impossible, just a little more involved, like tempering the eggs and such. I finally managed to find one that seemed do-able and it was delish. Let's just say, we both had 2 pieces for dessert. I made one minor modification, which I do think improved the quality.

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Coconut Cream Pie
Adapted from: All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cups milk
4 eggs
3 Tbsp. butter
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup flaked coconut
1 9-inch pie shell, baked

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, flour and salt over a medium heat; gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture is thick and bubbly. Reduce heat to low and cook 2 minutes more. Remove the pan from heat.

Separate the egg yolks from whites. Beat the egg yolks slightly. Gradually stir 1 cup of the hot mixture into yolks. Return the egg mixture to the saucepan and bring the entire mixture to a gentle boil. Cook and stir 2 minutes before removing the pan from heat.

Stir butter, vanilla, and coconut into the hot mixture. Pour the hot filling into the baked pie crust. Cool. Cover and chill to store the pie if not serving immediately.

My Modifications:
The recipe calls for 3 cups of milk, so I used 2 cups (1 can) of coconut milk and 1 cup of regular 1%. I think using the coconut milk enhances the coconut taste, but it's still pretty mild. I use whole-cane sugar for baking & cooking, but it's a 1:1 ratio with your average granulated white sugar. I also chilled for a couple of hours and sprinkled flaked coconut on each slice before serving.