Coffee-Hazelnut Custard Pie

This may look delicious, but it was actually sort of a flop. The custard didn't really set and the crust came out hard and a bit leathery. Not one of my better pies. However, the recipe's pretty appealing, and I think I'll try again.

Despite repeatedly promising to try new crust approaches, I keep sticking with the tried and true: Carolyn's technique. I can do it with my eyes closed by now. And it's pretty reliable usually. Though this is not a reflection of my skill level; it's just a pretty safe and simple technique. The rest of the recipe follows Ken Haedrich's recipe from his book Pie, except for a couple key adjustments as noted.

Here's the recipe:

Filling

1 1/2 cups light cream or half-and-half (I used heavy cream)

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp instant espresso or coffee granules

1 cup heavy or whipping cream (see above; I used the same for both stages, possibly foolishly)

3 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 1/2 Tbsp hazelnut liqueur (I used a Tbsp of Torani hazelnut syrup and 1/2 Tbsp bourbon)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch salt

1 1/4 cups hazelnuts, toasted (basically spread on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, then rub the skin off with a towel as best you can)

Fresh whipped cream for garnish (I used store-bought caramel ice cream, though fresh whipped cream is pretty hard to beat.)

1. Prepare, shape and freeze your pie dough.

2. Prebake 15 minutes at 400 degrees with weights on foil, then remove the foil and lower to 375 and bake another 10 minutes. Remove and cool, and reduce oven temp to 350 degrees.

3. Heat the light cream, sugar and coffee in a medium saucepan over medium heat, whisking gently until warm and dissolved, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the heavy cream. (As noted above, I used heavy cream for both. Doesn't seem likely that this caused my custard woes, but maybe you'll want to follow the recipe more closely than I did just in case). In a large bowl, whisk eggs and yolks until blended (or beat briefly with a mixer). Blend in the cream mixture, liqueur, vanilla, and salt. Stir in the hazelnuts. Slowly pour into the prebaked shell. Use a fork to gently spread the nuts around for even distribution.

4. Place on the center rack and bake 25 minutes, then rotate and bake another 20-25 minutes. Check by nudging it. The filling should be slightly wobbly but not ripply or soupy. (In my case it wasn't, and still was undercooked, so you may want to err slightly on the side of overcooking this sucker).

5. Cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight before serving. (This was probably my main mistake- I cooled but did not refrigerate. You should refrigerate it; it makes the custard set.)

Photos:

Here's the pie shell, before baking. Photos' overexposed but you can see some butter marbling anyhow.

The recipe then calls for toasting and de-skinning hazelnuts. Here's some hazelnuts being skinned:

I blind-baked the crust with my pinto pie weights:

Here it is, pre-baked (and strangely, unusually puffy)

Meanwhile, I started heating the instant espresso and cream:

Then mixed in the other ingredients:

And folded in the hazelnuts:

Then poured the hazelnutty filling into the pie:

After baking, here's what the pie looked like. Pretty good, huh?

It sure looks convincing. Too bad the custard didn't really set. But the top looked great!

In case you don't believe me, here's what a slice looked like:

Now, after refrigeration this actually came out pretty solid and tasty. Day 2 (post-refrigeration) was actually not bad. But all in all this was a disappointment. Well, you can't win them all.