Triple Treat Pie
This recipe is attributed to Peg Pitsenbarger. I grew up calling her Aunt although she is not a blood relative. She and her husband were friends with my parents in the early years of their marriage. I think they were neighbors of my great aunt before they met my parents.
Of course I used my favorite pie crust recipe in my Pyrex glass pie plate. I find this pie plate to be very large and use an altered version of the pie crust recipe in order to cover the entire pie plate all the way up the sides. Even so - I thought there was WAY TOO MUCH filling for this crust.
I wasn't sure to get the big or small box because the original recipe didn't specify. Small boxes say to use 2 cups of milk so I figured that was the right amount (although I have seen recipes that use a box of pudding with less liquid to get a different consistency). I was really excited to find sugar-free that didn't say INSTANT on it so I figured why not save a bit of the sugar (aka calories). I used to make Cook 'n' Serve pudding on a regular basis but haven't in a long while so I was actually excited to make it again.
I put the milk in a pot and looked at the box to refresh my memory on the directions and realized it WAS instant. One little word, way down in the corner of the box (see my finger pointing to it in the picture above) instead of bold labeling like on the non-sugar free boxes. Ugh! Well, no help for it now - I'm not running back to the store. I set my mixer up and poured the pudding mix into my Tupperware mix 'n' pour. Then I read the directions again - whisk...alrighty, put mixer away, get whisk, pour in milk, set timer for 2 minutes. Go!
I haven't made instant pudding by hand in a long time - I always use a mixer or am using the powder as part of a recipe that uses a mixer. I wasn't sure it would work because one time I tried to make something like pudding without a mixer and use a whisk by hand and I got so tired of stirring my husband had to take over. But that was over 15 years ago - so maybe instant-ing has improved. So in two minutes it was nice and thick and I set the timer for 5 minutes to set.
I thought it had to "set" in the fridge but apparently not because leaving it on the counter it was very set. I poured out the blob, scraped the bowl, and spread the pudding around the pie crust.
The pie already seemed really full so I took out some of the chocolate. I wound up only using 1/2 of each flavor and putting the other half away to enjoy as pudding.
Rinsed the bowl, spatula and whisk and started again with the vanilla. This time I took out ~1 cup of vanilla before I let it set for 5 minutes.
I blobbed it all over and spread it around gently.
It was easier to spread than I thought it would be. I made this on a Monday morning (President's day - no work) and put it in the fridge all day.
After dinner I made the Cocoa Fluff Topping. I have never used Dream Whip before! I used the small glass mixing bowl from my OLD Mixmaster figuring it was narrow and deep. Not quite deep enough, I had lots of splatter around the sink. (Mom taught me always to mix in the sink for just that reason - much easier to clean up.) But I really can't think of a deeper bowl so I guess splatter is just a side effect unless you have one of those newish-fangled mix 'n' pours with the cover that has the hole you can stick the beaters down in.
I got my peaks and then started the stopwatch on my phone to measure two minutes.
It was pretty stiff when time was up. Smooth yes; not sure if I'd call it "fluffy" because I'm not sure it can be stiff and fluffy at the same time - ?
Took the pie out of the fridge - not sure why there's a yellow spot in the vanilla pudding - like a clump of pudding powder didn't get mixed? Didn't notice that before...
Whatever...the Cocoa Fluff spread nicely. I worried that I had over-vanilla-ed it because I used an adjustable measuring spoon, not thinking that it was not a solid connection at the bottom and I worried that some of the vanilla had run into the "blocked off" section. There was enough Dream Whip that I could get a fingerfull off of the spatula when I was done spreading - the flavor balance was great!
Back in the fridge until tomorrow night! Due to the band practice schedule we won't be able to have a family dinner so we will have a family dessert when the kid gets home.
I really was not wowed by this. And I'm surprised that I didn't love it because I really love pudding.
The family hated the pie crust with pudding. I was okay with it (notice under my slice is my kid's crust that he didn't eat). But the flavor itself was not exciting. And the vanilla got lost between the two layers of chocolate - hard to see, hard to taste. Maybe that was my fault for cutting the pudding amount in half but I doubt it since the proportions stayed the same. Maybe 1/2 the chocolate pudding and all of the vanilla would've kept it from getting lost - but I still don't think it would've wowed me any more.
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