It's Passover. It's Easter. And it looks like my daughter might be celiac.  What to do?

Using a toasted coconut crust presents a beautiful and delicious dessert -- so pretty on either an Easter or Passover holiday table. And no wheat used whatsoever!

I filled it first with a sweet layer of blackberry jam then covered that with a rich key lime custard with flecks of lime zest, plenty of schlagg on top and then just pile on the blackberries!

To make our days a little brighter, as the sun is not cooperating, I reached back into my childhood, remembering the jelly rolls my mother often kept on her pantry shelf. Using a combination of buttermilk and yogurt, I made a light yellow cake with flecks of lemon zest, then slathered it with Bev's jam, rolled it up and let it rest for just a bit. Perfect with a spot of tea while we watch Spring arrive.

I read recipes. I read recipes a lot. I don't often follow recipes, except for cakes and things that are more scientifically combined to get the right rise and/or crumb.
Pies tend to be more forgiving in nature. That's probably why I like them so much. Butter, flour and water for the dough that never fails me -- for that one I read Julia Childs' master recipes eons ago, modified it a bit, and then just stuck with it. Really! What is all the to-do about dough? It's pretty easy, and you never have enough no matter what kind it is! (And yes, I'm making a pun.) Then you just fill that crust with whatever looks good.
As I've rolled and rolled dough over the last few years, I happened upon a lovely group of fellow rollers on Facebook, an eclectic lot of folks from all across the nation -- all across Pie Nation, that is what they call this online pie parade where we post our latest creation, ask questions, post funny pie puns, and generally commune over the love of pie. It's a great place to discover new ideas. And it's always a reliable place to get a good cheer for your latest creation.

So when I posted a pic of my Chocolate Espresso and received too many requests for the recipe, how could I decline? As my new year's gift to Pie Nation, following is my recipe, as it currently exists. But also please know that I've already been modifying the recipe in my head ... it might not be the same next time. And Pie Nation folk, if you come up with some new twists on this, please do share!

Recipe for Chocolate Espresso Pie


Dough:
Use your regular recipe. But to your flour add 1/4 cup cocoa and 2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar. Now, instead of adding water, add cold coffee in whatever amount you'd use the water. (I drink a delicious French/Italian espresso mix. If you drink American coffee, then make a small pot of espresso and let it cool.)

Filling:
16 ounces mascarpone, at room temperature
2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 cups heavy cream
3 cups dark chocolate bits
1 tablespoon instant espresso
2 teaspoons vanilla

Roll out the dough and fit it into a pretty pan. I use a square one with a removable bottom, really a French tart tin. Blind bake the crust at 400-420 for about 20 minutes with pie weights. Remove the weights and bake for another 5 minutes or so. Let it cool.

While it's cooling, make the ganache. In a heavy saucepan, bring the heavy cream to just a good simmer, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. (Some people add a tablespoon or two of butter to make the ganache glossy, that's up to you.) Keep stirring until everything is dissolved and smooth. Let cool. Place in fridge for about an hour or two until it thickens but doesn't harden. Place in a decorating bag with a big star tip.

Mix the mascarpone and the cinnamon together. Then gently spread the cheese evenly in the cocoa-espresso crust.

Then start pushing out the ganache in about 1" or so plops (or whatever you want to call them) in as even rows as you can. I don't do very well with this, they always come out crooked, so I just go back and fill in the spaces with more plops of the ganache.

Sprinkle it with little silver balls and/or confectioner's sugar or whatever you can think of to make it even prettier!

Keep it in the fridge if you have to or serve it right away.

Now, isn't that easy?

I really could not understand the incredible passion for Nesselrode Pie until today. I think I have perfected the Nesselrode.
Three years ago I had never even heard of Nesselrode Pie until my rabbi asked me to make it for her partner's birthday. Then Florence Fabricant mentioned that I make Nesselrode Pie in her article about Pie Country last October in The New York Times. People have been calling me from all over the country. Can I ship? Nope. We actually did try that once. It was a soupy disaster! Never again.

But while I was making this pie over the last few years, I never knew for sure if it tasted as it should. And as I tasted it, I just could not understand what created such demand. It is with a very fine blend of chestnuts, cream, dark rum and a little vanilla. Plus just a hint of cocoa and orange - wow! That's a lovely pie.

My mother had a special dessert for each of her eleven children's birthdays. So every year we would look forward to particular birthdays when we would be sure to savor certain of her specialties. On October 23, there would be coconut cake for Ciro; October 28 brought butterscotch pie in celebration of Elena. For my birthday, it was a dense chocolate walnut brownie topped with a scoop of coffee ice cream, her homemade fudge sauce (which is the real star here) and whipped cream.

Two of my five brothers were born in July, a day and several years apart. Mom always made the same birthday pies on July 26 & 27, at least two of each. We would always debate which one was better. Yes, they were different, but not nearly so different as to encourage yearly heated debates over whether a Chocolate Cream Pie with Fresh Whipped Cream slathered on top was better than a plain Chocolate Cream Pie alone with no further adornment required. 

Believe me, in my family, these heated debates drew virtual lines down the dinner table (and through the pies!) There were the purists amongst us, those who valued precision and simplicity, and then there were our embellishers who liked to add on and laugh without reserve.

My mom's Chocolate Cream Pie was the best. It was the highlight of those hot July nights in Rhode Island, with all the windows open, sheer linen curtains billowing with the faint breeze, lights dimmed to reduce the heat and welcome the birthday pies loaded with birthday candles. My family was always big on belting out a lively chorus of an off-key happy birthday, as the pies with their bright flames were placed in front of my brothers. Neither would take but a moment to blow out the candles because pie was at hand. On this, there was never a dispute. Let's get to it!

My mother did not make her pudding from scratch, but rather relied on a very expensive and delicious pudding mix from Droste's, an European company that was family-owned until fairly recently. Mom always used Droste's cocoa to make hot chocolate for us in the winter, of course. But in the summer, she would search for the Droste's chocolate pudding mix; they were hard to find even then, this Dutch imported chocolate pudding mix. I can still remember the red boxes they came in. There was a store up on Hope Street near Rochambeau Avenue called Miller's. They usually stocked it, as they were a sort of gourmet shop, "Miller's International Specialties" was on the sign outside. It was really a fine Jewish deli, sort of like Zabar's in New York. They had a smoked fish counter, some other deli things, pastrami, pickles. These things looked so exotic to me, as we'd walk past them to the packaged foods. Fancy jams, sardines in olive oil, capers, all sorts of cans and jars and boxes filled with all sorts of thing, hearts of palms! What is that? As a young girl who was taught not to ask many questions, I was always happily bewildered when I got to go with my father to Miller's. (I was also usually guaranteed a fancy lollipop or a cherished Perugina chocolate bar if I was very very good, which of course I always tried to be!)

I loved watching my mother make the pudding using a big double boiler. She would stir it slowly and patiently with a long wooden spoon while standing by the stove in her high heels and silk stockings. It seemed to take forever to me because I was waiting for that spoon she was stirring with. That spoon was mine before it hit the sink or one of my other siblings would run in and snag it! The spoon was the best, coated with warm thick chocolate. My sister Barbara could have the bowl, the spoon was for me!

By the time she had made the pudding, her pie shells were always nicely cooled and sitting by the windowsill just waiting to be filled. She'd make four pies at once. Two and two. Two with the whipped cream I'd help her beat and two plain. The plain ones would always have that thin "skin" that happens to pudding if you don't cover its surface directly. That was part of the attraction of the plain one, I think, or perhaps just a need to be different somehow.

However it's sliced, embellished or not, I cannot resist a good Chocolate Cream Pie! And there is something quite wonderful to be said about Birthday Pie ... or perhaps Birthday Pies. Really, why just have one?

Tonight at a Catholic rectory in the Northeast section of the Bronx known locally as Wakefield, a pastor and presumably some cohorts will be enjoying the RWS Mincemeat pie I dropped off earlier today. (RWS - my mother's initials, and her recipe, for the most part.)

On the Upper East Side in a modern high rise a young family will be slicing into BillyPaul's Ultimate Coffee Cream pie some time this weekend along with a classic coconut layer cake.  In the warmest of homes, winter weekends call for a good stash of handmade goodies, don't you think?

On Thanksgiving, my pies were part of 60 different celebrations. Pie Country hand-made, hand-rolled, and hand-delivered over 100 pies in a dozen different flavors, 300 pie babies and an assortment of other baked goodies. Then I took a break to catch my breath and restock.

Tomorrow we'll be dropping off at a benefit for the Rockaways, and spreading more pie bliss. Pie just makes people happy. It's that simple. Pie is love.

Don't forget that you can spread pie love too simply by giving the Gift of Pie to your friends and family. From one pie to an assortment of pie babies to the true gift of guaranteed happiness - a subscription to our new Pie of the Month Club! Just email me at baker@piecountry.com. 

I'm from Rhode Island. And when you're from RI, you don't drink plain milk. And though you might drink chocolate milk, it's not what you're weaned on. For Rhode Islanders like myself, it's the State's official drink that we love -- coffee milk!
No, it's not a cup of coffee with lots of milk.
It's a tall glass of milk with a good dose of coffee syrup -- just like you rest of the U.S. squeeze chocolate syrup into your milk, we Rhode Islanders add coffee syrup to ours. 
In fact, I always have a big half gallon of syrup in my fridge. And when I run low, I call my old sister Maria and ask her to bring some with her on her next visit via Amtrak. She always says the same thing. "You really want your poor old sister to lug that big thing on the train?" 
What a question! Absolutely!

So it seemed fitting when I recently received an email from a customer on the Upper East Side. The email was entitled "What do you think?" and all the email contained was a photo of a coffee cream pie. 
Of course, I would give it a shot.
In following emails, my customer explained that he and an old girlfriend some 40 years back used to enjoy their friend Peggy's coffee cream pie. Peggy now lives in Florida and doesn't bake anymore. However, my customer is still in touch with Peggy as well as many of his girlfriends from 40 years back. (He sounds like quite the dude!)

Now, being a Rhode Islander and being Italian with a love for a truly delicious espresso, I knew I wanted to try a combination of coffee syrup and Italian espresso. 
To my flaky pie dough I added some cocoa and espresso. Then I tackled the coffee cream. All pudding pies have to have a good dollop of fresh whipped cream on top, but I also happened to have some extra chocolate ganache on hand, so I made little dots of those on top of the whipped cream.

How does it look?

I'm pretty happy with it, but I am going to change the crust to a chocolate cookie crust. Stay tuned for round 2!