Crack Pie

 

It is a bit past 3 am and I am wide awake. Apparently, my bladder has shrunk down to the size of a thimble and I have to wake up 12 times every night to rush to the bathroom.* Ahhh, the beauty of aging. Scientists invent everything to undo the signs of aging – miracle wrinkle creams, tone repair, facelifts, liposuction – everything except the most annoying one – interrupting precious beauty sleep with the incessant urge to rush to the bathroom at various ungodly hours. It gets worse when our new pup Ozzie wakes up and wiggles his fuzzy little butt after me. So, I have to scoop him up and carry him outside to do his own business. Then, just as I slip my flip-flops off and pull the covers over me, Milou wants to go outside. Does he need to pee? Does he want to find lizards? Who knows? After a decent 20 minutes of this ridiculousness, everyone’s back inside the house and tucked in. I finally get back to bed, but I can no longer fall sleep.
This is usually when I get myself into trouble, wandering the WWW for all sorts of unnecessary, but extremely tempting things like waterproof, washable seat covers for food-stained dining room chairs. Sounds great, right? Sure, except they do not fit our dining room chairs. Evidently, it is just safer to stay offline and grab a magazine.

Bon Appétit is like Playboy for foodies. Sure, the writing is really good, but, in all honesty, it’s the photos that grab and hold my attention, like the sight of something crackly, crumbly, giving way to the prongs of a fork. This temptation hails from a hip bakery in the Big Apple called Milk Bar featured in the very issue of the magazine I happened to be reading. One bite, perhaps sniff even, of this stuff and you will know how it rightfully earned the name Crack Pie. Unfortunately, it is a two-step process to make, first one big oat cookie, then a pie with a luscious sugar pie filling and the oat cookie as the crust. The cooling process is also lengthy. Crack Pie will test your patience, but prove well worth the wait, if you can wait.

The first time I made it, I was faithful to the original instructions. I made the big oatmeal cookie from scratch. Then I crushed it and pound the crumbs into the crust, which was blind baked. After the crust cooled, I whipped up the filling and tossed it into the oven for the final baking. It seemed like an eternity by the time we were finally able to taste the thing. So, I have a quicker version that I know you are going to love.

Instructions
Butter a shallow 9-inch round pie or cake pan.
Blitz rolled oats in a food processor to a fine powder consistency.
Add butter, sugar and salt.
Pulse a few times until a dough forms.
Gently press dough evenly into the pie/cake pan.Preheat oven to 350*F.

Blitz filling ingredients in the food processor until smooth.
Pour over crust and transfer to the hot oven.

Bake 15-20 minutes.

Cool to room temperature (about 2 hours), then transfer to the fridge and chill, uncovered, preferably overnight, if you can wait that long.

If you can’t wait (neither could I), just let the pie rest at room temp for 15 minutes, then pop it into the freezer for another 15 minutes. We have the technology, after all. Why not use it?

It was another one of my favorite lazy weekend mornings spent over coffee in our breakfast nook. The Beatles crooned in the background while Shawn worked diligently on one of those rubber-band loom bracelets that he had hoped would keep our li’l blue-eyed beauty occupied. I was focused on making a cotton-blossom wreath for my friend’s birthday while Daisy played doctor to Lucy, her sniffly toy puppy.
I can’t remember whether it was Saturday or Sunday. The only thing that remains sharp in my memory is the aroma of sweet vanilla sugar, the softness of the gooey filling with the crackly top and the toasty crunch of that cookie crust. Thank goodness baking Crack Pie is perfectly legal, because it sure tastes like home.