Happy Pi(e) Day!

It's Pi(e) day! You know, 3.14... March 14th. We aren't math people, but we are pie people, so this is one concept we can really get behind. We love this "holiday" and every year we celebrate happily. This year we chose to celebrate with a peanut butter variety, and since it's one of my favorites I thought I would share the recipe. And since it is quite seriously one of the easiest pies I have ever made, all the better!

You start out with a chocolate graham cracker crust. I usually make my own - crushed chocolate grahams and a little butter - perfection. But we've had one of those store bought ones rolling around the pantry for months now, so I decided to use it up. That makes this pie even easier!

So now, for the filling:

1- 8oz package of cream cheese, softened.
1 Cup cream peanut butter. (I'm normally a fan of the chunky, but for this recipe creamy gets you much                   better results.
1/2 C sugar
1teaspoon vanilla
8 oz whipped cream

In a mixer combine the first four ingredients and mix well. It will seem grainy, and not so good, but that's okay, the magic comes next. Once those are mixed, add the whipped cream and gently fold it in with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. As you fold, the peanut butter mixture gradually becomes more like a yummy mousse. Once you're done with that scoop it into the crust, spread it out, and top with garnish. We have tried whipped cream and chocolate shavings before, but this time we used some hot fudge ice cream topping drizzled over the top - just do what you feel.

It's best when cold, but it's good at any temp. It's really rich, so you might want to pair it with some cold milk. One thing we've also done is make individual servings in muffin tins. This takes a little more work, but if you pipe the filling in with a pretty icing tip it looks super nice and it is the perfect portion size.

Cake

 Something you should know about me is I notice nice people. To me, nice people are like little angels walking around on earth sent to make our lives a little easier and our days a little brighter. I especially love anyone who is nice to Ethan. It doesn't matter what they look like, what mistakes they might have made, who likes them, whatever, if they are nice to Ethan none of that matters. My friend Stacy's dad is one of those people. He tries to come across as a big gruff man, but in my eyes he's just a big teddy bear. He is really kind to all of us and doesn't matter that we are all kind of a wreck. So the other day he did yet another kind thing for me and I decided that it was time to do something nice for him. Stacy let me know that he liked German Chocolate Cake, so I decided that's what I needed to do. The only problem? I had never successfully made one before. I have made it a couple of times, but they always turned out dry. So what do you do when you need answers fast? Go to Facebook, of course! But other than "you start by finely grating a dark german..." nothing really helped. But one friend suggested that I look on the Taste of Home website so I did, and I found a regular chocolate cake that sounded pretty good and I mostly stuck with it.

You start with real German's Choclolate, (Fun side note, while I was trying to find the perfect recipe I learned that it isn't actually a cake from Germany, The reason for the name is because it is made with German's sweet chocolate, the recipe was developed by the company and put on the wrapper of the chocolate. Funny, huh? I never knew. Log that away in your useless info file...) and add butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. 

I added buttermilk instead of regular milk. It adds to the flavor and makes the cake much more moist. If you don't have buttermilk in your kitchen (which I'm not sure why you wouldn't:) you should really go out and buy some, it makes all the difference.

And the light fluffiness is achieved by folding in beaten egg whites.

And they turn out beautiful!

Let them rest in the pans for 10 minutes and then turn them out on a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way.

While you are doing that you make the coconut pecan filling. I didn't love any of the recipes that I found for this part, so I changed it up a little bit. The most significant addition I made was the use of coconut milk. I have just fallen in love with this stuff, and I thought it would make a beautiful addition. If you don't have any or don't want to use it you can always substitute canned milk. (But don't do that because the coconut milk gives it amazing flavor and a really good consistency.)

You mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook on the stove until it thickens up. Then you add coconut and pecans and let it cool

Once the cake and the filling are cooled start stacking. Cake then filling then cake... as high as you want. This recipe will make three layers, but I was making two cakes, so I made the recipe for one and a half and just did them two layers each. Did that make sense?

Then all of the recipes I found said to just layer them and you were done, but I thought it needed frosting, so I pulled out my favorite fudge buttercream frosting recipe and went to town. This recipe is a product of years of trial and error on my part, so the fact that I'm sharing it with you should be considered a huge gift, and you should all love me forever and name your kids in my honor. It's that good. I use it all the time as my go-to frosting. It's light and fluffy, but you can vary the thickness depending on what you use it for. I have used it on cakes, cupcakes, cookies, graham crackers, eating it out of the bowl by the spoonful... anything I can think of. It's a good one to keep around. Plus it's easy. And it has a secret ingredient, which I think makes it mysterious and special. :)

That's it, the secret ingredient is hot fudge. Sometimes I make my own hot fudge when I'm feeling ambitious, but I use the kind in the jar a lot too, and it turns out fine. (as long as you don't mind feeling like a cheater:)

And there you have it. No, it isn't the most beautiful cake, I'm not a very good decorator, but it tasted wonderful, and that's the point. Would I make this cake again? For any Joe on the street, absolutely not, it takes quite a bit of work, but for super sweet and kind Papa Joe, absolutely! It was divine! It's a great special occasion cake.

So here's the recipe:

CAKE

• 4 ounces German sweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• • Grease three 9-in. round baking pans. In small saucepan, melt chocolate with water over low heat; cool.
• • In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in 4 egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in melted chocolate and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; add to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.
  • In a small bowl and with clean beaters, beat the 4 egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the creamed mixture.
  • Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 24-28 minutes or until done. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

FILLING

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup coconut milk (mix well in can before adding)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 1-1/3 cups flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• In a small saucepan, heat the sugar, milk, butter and egg yolks over medium-low heat until mixture is thickened and golden brown, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat. Stir in the coconut, pecans and vanilla extract. Cool until thick enough to spread. Spread a third of the frosting over each cake layer and stack the layers.

FROSTING

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk (More or less until reaching desired consistency)
• 1 cup hot fudge topping
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Cream together the butter with the shortening. Sift the cocoa with the confectioners' sugar and add to the creamed mixture. Mix together adding 1 tablespoon at a time of milk to keep mixture smooth. Add the hot fudge topping and the vanilla extract. Blend until smooth and creamy. Spread around sides of cake and pipe around edges for desired look.