Week 15 – Father’s Day Bake

Candy Bar Pie

As you can maybe guess from the title, it’s Father’s Day today in the UK.  So, as I like to do, I wanted to combine this occasion with this week’s bake.  Now, the Hummingbird Bakery books do not look at all manly, with the pinks, flowers and hummingbirds gracing the cover and pages.  However, Inside Home Sweet Home there is a recipe for a Candy Bar Pie.  The candy bar in question is a Snickers, which is maybe the most manly chocolate bar?  So I thought this would do…

The Bake

This bake has 3 parts – the base, the filling, and the decoration.  This time I had a few amendments to the recipe: double choc Oreos (no particular reason, just they had been on offer) light cream cheese, no peanuts on top (more about that later), and melted chocolate chips for the chocolate drizzle decoration.  As I was using a smaller pie dish than the 9 inch one in the recipe, I took 10% off all measurements for the filling (I had already used the correct amounts of base ingredients when I realised there was too much for the pie dish, which is when I realised I should take a percentage away!).  To make the base, crush the Oreos and the digestives in a zip lock bag, then add melted butter, and press the combined onto the bottom and edges of the pie dish.  Refrigerate for an hour. 

While you’re waiting for that to chill, chop the Snickers’ into small slices.  I will admit, I used the supermarket own brand of ‘nutty bar’ rather than Snickers.  I think it was for the best, financially and cuisine-wise, as the peanuts in Snickers bars can be quite big!  You can also make the filling, by mixing the cream cheese and sugar, then adding sour cream, peanut butter, and the eggs.  Once the hour has passed, everything can come together, by adding the Snickers slices to the base, then coating with the filling mixture.  I made circles with my slices – I don’t think it matters, but it does look pretty and organised in the picture:

Now the pie is ready to go into the oven.  Even though I used 10% less of everything, I still had quite a bit of filling, and a few Snickers slices, left over.  So I filled 6 cupcake cases with left over mixture, and a slice of Snickers.  I realise there wasn’t a barrier between the filling and the base, like there is for the pie, but I couldn’t waste the mixture, or just consume it raw, myself.  So in it all went.

The recipe states it should be baked for 35-40 minutes, or until there’s only a bit of wobble to the filling in the middle.  I must say, even after 40 minutes, there was still a lot of wobblage (yes I just made that up).  I think it probably baked for closed to 50 minutes in the end.  But eventually it came out looking pretty good. 

It was then meant to cool, before being put into the fridge.  Unfortunately it hadn’t cooled for long enough before I had to go to work for a few hours, and then went for a Father’s Day meal, so it got to set at room temperature.  Once I returned from the meal, I made the decoration for the top.  Now, in the recipe the pie is topped with melted chocolate drizzle, and chopped peanuts.  I had a bag of peanuts all ready to go, however when my father saw that inside the pie was peanut butter and Snickers, retorted “you know nuts aren’t good for my asthma, right?”  So on his request, I omitted the peanuts from the decoration.  I put some leftover chocolate chips in a sturdy plastic container, before melting gradually in the microwave.  I then attempted to drizzle, but it was more glooping, and here’s the end result:

Looks quite impressive, and tasted good too!  Especially the filling, it’s creamy and smooth but some of the peanuts from the peanut butter give it a crunch, thus providing a texture contrast.  Dad enjoyed too.  I will say though, it’s basically a cheesecake, so not sure why it’s sold as a pie, but no matter, it’s all baking!  I think the addition of salted peanuts would’ve been good on top, as a further contrast – pairing the sweet with the salty.  But who am I to argue with my father’s health!  Until next time, happy baking!