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'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!