Hawaiian Haupia Chocolate Pie - An Alphabakes Challenge!

This is the first Alphabakes challenge where I have baked something especially for it.  The past few times I just happened to bake things earlier in the month and then found that they fit in with the random letter selected! This month I knew that wasn't going to happen since the letter was H! The only ingredients that came to mind was honey or hazelnuts and I don't like either of those.  I flicked through my recipe books and came across hibiscus cupcakes from Martha Stewart but I have a general rule that you will never find me baking with anything that should be found in my bath e.g rose or lavender so that ruled out hibiscus. 

I decided to turn to geography! and decided I could either bake something up from Haiti or Hawaii and pass it off as an 'H' bake! Fortunately it didn't take me long to stumble upon the fabulous sounding Haupia Chocolate Pie.  Of course with my love for coconut, it was a given that this was going to be my selected bake! Haupia is a traditional Hawaiian dessert - it is a coconut flavoured cube of gelatin and apparently no luau is complete without it! In more recent times the traditional dessert has been incorporated into a pie.  Go to any Mcdonald's in Hawaii and you won't be greeted with the apple pies we know but instead you can buy Haupia pie!

The idea for a Haupia Chocolate Pie originates from Ted's Bakery so if you ever find yourself in Hawaii and want to try the real deal that's the first place you should head to! Failing that, you could use the recipe below and bake up a very tasty pie yourself! 

The Haupia Chocolate Pie consists of a sweet pastry crust, a layer of chocolate and coconut Haupia, a layer of original Haupia finished off with some sweetened whipped cream on top. 

I decided to finish mine off with some toasted shredded coconut and some chopped up Lindt coconut creation milk chocolate - currently my favourite ever chocolate, but more about that in a future post! 

I decided since most of you have probably never heard of Haupia Chocolate Pie before that I would stop being lazy and take a few pictures of how to make one! 

I discovered during this bake that pastry and I don't get along.  I had to literally fight with my pastry.  I bought the ready to roll out stuff as the day before I baked this I'd baked an Apple Pie for my dad's birthday and made the pastry from scratch so I was all pastried out by then (and for those curious to know you can send Apple Pies in the post and they do reach the recipient in perfect condition - how cool!)

Anyway back to the pastry...everytime I rolled it out, it just pinged back into the smaller size pastry sheet I had started with, it was a pain and a half - hence why I didn't take any pictures at this point, it was too stressful! 

So after you've baked your pie crust, mix your milk, coconut milk and sugar in a saucepan until they start to boil....

meanwhile dissolve your cornflour in some water in a separate bowl.  

Add the cornstarch slowly, whisking it in until the mixture starts to thicken.  When it's thick enough to not drip off your spoon it's ready.

Divide the mixture into two bowls.  I decided you can never have enough coconut and so I whisked some desiccated coconut into the plain coconut half.

Melt some chocolate in a heatproof bowl above boiling water.

Stir it into the other half of the Haupia filling.

First, layer your pie crust with the chocolate filling.

Then, add the coconut filling.

Whip up your cream and spread that over the top. (I forgot to take a pic of that!)

Take this amazing chocolate...

and chop it into small chunks - look at that delightful coconut filling in there! 

Finish by sprinkling toasted coconut and chopped up chocolate on top of your pie.

  Devour your pie, and as you do so wonder why you don't live in Hawaii because if you did you could be enjoying desserts like this every day whilst basking in sunshine...instead of eating them in North Wales with the rain pouring down outside! 

Haupia Chocolate Pie:

Serves 12-14

From All Recipes

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust (I used ready to roll sweet shortcrust pastry)

225ml semi skimmed milk

400g (1 tin) coconut milk

175g caster sugar

215g water

60g cornflour

25g desiccated coconut

225g plain chocolate, broken into chunks

325g double cream

55g caster Sugar

To decorate:

toasted shredded coconut

Lindt creation coconut milk chocolate, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Bake crust for 15 minutes or until golden brown.  Set aside to cool.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together milk, coconut milk and sugar.  In a separate bowl, dissolve the cornflour into the water.  Bring coconut mixture to a boil.  Reduce to simmer and slowly whisk in the cornflour.  Continue stirring mixture over low heat until it thickens, about 3 minutes.

In a heatproof bowl set above a pan of simmering water, melt chocolate chunks.  Divide the coconut pudding evenly between two bowls (I even got out my electronic scales to do this only to find out halfway through the process that my battery had run out! so eyeballing it is fine if you have to!) Mix the melted chocolate into one half, and the desiccated coconut into the other half.  

Spread the chocolate filling onto the bottom of the pie crust, and the coconut filling on top of that.  Refrigerate for one hour.

Whip the cream with the sugar using the whisk attachment of a free standing electric mixer until stiff peaks form.  Toast shredded coconut in the oven under the grill for 3-4 minutes watching closely so as not to burn it.  Chop up chocolate chunks into very small pieces.  

Remove the pie from the fridge and layer the cream on top of the pie.  Sprinkle with the shredded coconut and chocolate chunks if you so desire.

I am entering this into the Alphabakes challenge this month being hosted by Caroline Makes.  If you want to join in check The More Than Occasional Baker's blog next month to see what the random letter will be.