While I am not always a dessert person — who has room when you fill up on all the delicious dinner? — it is nice to have a few good recipes in your archive for when you need them.
For me, I always like to make dessert for a special occasion. Holidays, birthdays, celebratory dinners, for examples.
I recently had a good reason to celebrate – close friends got engaged. We decided to make them a nice dinner. I kept the dinner pretty simple – grilled tuna, mashed potatoes and broccolini – so that I could save time to make dessert.
I don’t like to do a ton of technical baking (measuring, using thermometers, etc. is not my thing). This recipe, though, is pretty simple. The pie tasted fancy due to the salty caramel layer, but it was pretty easy to prepare and hard to mess up.
The only instruction that is really important to follow closely is making the caramel, which if you don’t cook it long enough could be a little runny, and if you overcook it could be a little chewier than it should be. Without much effort, mine turned out perfectly. It was soft enough to spread but not too soft to be runny. It set up nicely and was like a soft caramel layer in the middle of the pie.
No one can mess up an Oreo crust, so make it yourself for sure. The store-bought versions you can buy are thin and not as moist and flavorful as they should be so don’t try to skip this step.
The salt flavor will be better if you use high-quality salt. Fleur de sel is a great choice. The flakes will melt right into your tongue giving you just the right amount of salty pop that you need. Himalayan sea salt would also be a nice choice, but sprinkle these larger salt crystals sparingly and place them by hand to make sure they are perfectly spread out.
You can make the first two steps of this pie the day before you need to serve it and just whip the cream right before you serve it. I covered the whole pie with the whipped cream, but you could just do a dollop around the edge if you prefer a little less.
I also make my whipped cream on the less-sweet side as I think it is nice if the dessert isn’t overpoweringly sugary, but you can adjust yours to your taste by adding more or less powdered sugar to it.
I will make this pie again without question. It’s really a perfect blend of things I love: a chocolate crunch, a salty caramel layer and a nice creamy topping. Try it next time you have a reason to celebrate!
Ingredients
Instructions
