A little bite of Hawaii. An incredibly fattening, totally awesome, nothing quite like it bite.

A friend of a friend recently moved to Hawaii and raved about her discovery of Chocolate Haupia pie, making me crave one of my hometown favorites. Also, making me simultaneously want to kiss and kick her.



I'm not the prettiest pie maker. But, it's darn tasty.

Haupia is described as coconut pudding, but it's really more of a jello usually. In this pie, though...all pudding. Alllll good.

I found a Chocolate Haupia Pie recipe here. Actually, I found a ton of them all over the web, and all exactly the same with the minor exception of the inclusion of coconut extract in some but not others. Weird. There cannot only be one way to make this, but apparently no one has published anything different. Which is a bummer, because frankly I would commit a lot of unconscionable crimes for Ted's Bakery's recipe.

I made a pie without the extract just before leaving for Berlin. It was good, but could stand to be more coconut-y. And the semisweet chocolate was kind of gross. Most of that pie went in the garbage. Not because it was terrible, but it just wasn't good enough to snarf the whole thing before we left.

Yesterday, I made the pie with the extract and with The Most Incredible Chocolate In The Universe in place of semi-sweet. I also added a little coconut extract when I was whipping the cream topping. It's pretty awesome. The only drawback is that - on the first go round - the filling almost overflowed the crust, so I reserved some of the chocolate mixture before adding the haupia layer. I reserved waaaay too much. As you can see.



Still awesome.

I find it's more coconut-y on Day 2, so make ahead and refrigerate overnight.


Chocolate Haupia Pie

♥ Ingredients:

1 9-in. unbaked pie crust
1 cup milk
1 can coconut milk (14 oz.)
1 tbsp. coconut extract
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/2 cup cornstarch
7/8 cup The Most Incredible Chocolate in The Universe
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
more coconut extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Bake crust for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Set aside to cool.

3. In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, coconut milk, coconut extract and 1 cup sugar.

4. In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornstarch in water.

5. After bringing coconut milk mixture to a boil, reduce to simmer and slowly whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Continue stirring over low heat until thickened—about three minutes. Divide evenly into two bowls.

6. In another bowl, microwave chocolate until melted.

7. Mix chocolate into one of the bowls of coconut pudding, then pour mixture into the pie crust, spread and let sit.

8. Spoon the remaining bowl of coconut pudding on top of the chocolate-coconut pudding mixture and spread smooth being careful nut to mix the two layers. (Don't pour in the middle or the chocolate layer will part like the red seas and you're Moses.) Refrigerate the pie for an hour or more.

9. Whip the heavy cream with 1/4 cup of sugar and some coconut extract until stiff. Layer the whipped cream on the pie surface.