Addicted to Crack Pie
Crack pie: It lives up to its name.
Yeah, but we're not doing that. Instead of giving anything up, we've developed a new addiction. Over the weekend, we baked crack pie, and three days after taking our first bite, we're finally ready to talk about it. Crack pie, folks. Crack pie. It's named like that because there ought to be a law against it. We're here to give you a taste of it.
A staple of NYC-based Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, crack pie is a variant of chess pie, which, if you're not familiar with it, is a traditional American dessert which is best described as "pecan pie without any pecans." Chess pie's a sweet, gooey, simple mess of sugar, butter, eggs, sometimes with cornmeal and corn syrup.
Chess pie is delicious, but we could take it or leave it. It's cloying, not satisfying. But just like cocaine is the precursor to crack, chess pie is the primitive, safer version of crack pie.
Momofoku took chess pie and - we don't know what the right word here is - refined it? enriched it? extra-sweetened it? None of those terms seem right. Momofuku's chefs use oat cookies for the crust, rather than the traditional pie shell. And they've added a few things to add to the mouthfeel of the dish - milk powder substitutes for the cornmeal, for example. The result of the recipe is a gooey, delicious mass of molten sweetness, tempered by a crunchy, slightly salty crust. It's buttery, rich, and unlike any other pie you've ever eaten. The LA Times compares it to kettle corn, and they're right -- it's got a sweet-salty combo to it that makes you devour it without thinking.
Since its introduction at Momofuku, crack pie has taken New York City and the food world by storm. Pies retail for $44 a pop, and Momofuku sells 60 to 90 per day. Even at that price, everyone who tries it goes back. And we hear that the demand for them is so high that Momofuku has started shipping them via FedEx. We despaired of ever trying it, until we came across a recipe for it from the LA Times Test Kitchen, who are now our new favorite source for food news.
Warning: this isn't named after a highly addictive drug that ruins people's lives just because it'll make you want more. It's named after crack because if you eat too much, you'll feel awful. Each slice includes the following:
432 calories; 4 grams protein; 45 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 27 grams fat; 16 grams saturated fat; 187 mg. cholesterol; 36 grams sugar; 125 mg. sodium.
Eating a slice of crack pie is like eating the entire dairy aisle. There's so much butter, so much cream, and so much sugar in this, that your best bet is to fast the days before and after you make this.
This recipe makes 2 pies. We recommend you give away one of them. First time's free, you know.
