Molly Cookie

Turtle Ice Cream Pie

May 10, 2010 Cakes, Chocolate, Crusts, Desserts

Somehow this past weekend got really busy. It was the kind of busy that made Brian and I find ourselves at Wal Mart after midnight one night, and back again the next night at 10:30 for cooking and plumbing emergencies. I don’t even like Wal-Mart, but for some reason our grocery shopping for Mother’s Day ended up happening at midnight on Saturday night, and on Sunday night water started coming out of a hole in our garage every time we turned water on, so another late night trip to Wal-Mart happened last night. It is convenient that Wal-Mart is open 24 hours for emergencies, but I’m not going to give up my Sunday afternoon Reasor’s ritual.

One of the fruits of our Saturday night trip was this Turtle Ice Cream Pie that I made for my mom for Mother’s Day. My mom and my sister are both moms, and they both love ice cream, so this seemed like a good thing to try out. I got the recipe from Bon Appetit and made it easier by buying caramel topping instead of making my own caramel, but the rest of the recipe was the same. I have to say, this graham cracker pecan crust is one of the best graham cracker crusts I’ve ever had. I love pecans, and I think using them with the graham crackers added a really great flavor. Even if I don’t make the whole pie again, I will definitely use this crust. It made my house smell like sweet pecans when I baked it in the middle of the night. I loved it.

Turtle Ice Cream Pie

Slightly adapted from Bon Appetit. If you want to make your own caramel sauce the recipe is here. Serves at least 10

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1 cup toasted pecans
• 5 graham crackers
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 stick butter, melted

Filling:

• 2 pints vanilla ice cream like Edy’s Vanilla Bean or something else awesome like that, divided
• 1/2 cup caramel topping, divided

Topping:

• 5.5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. For the crust, blend graham crackers and pecans in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the sugar and pulse a few times until combined. Add the butter and blend until coated. Press crust into a 9 inch pie dish, covering the sides and bottom of the dish. Bake crust for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and pop all air bubbles that have formed (if any) by pressing the crust down into the dish. Freeze for at least 1 hour.

Soften 1 pint of ice cream and spread onto the frozen pie crust. Top with 1/4 cup of caramel topping and spread evenly. Freeze for at least 1 hour. Repeat with the second pint of ice cream and the remaining caramel sauce. Freeze pie overnight.

To make the chocolate topping, combine cream and chocolate in a metal bowl and set over a pot of boiling water. Stir frequently until chocolate is melted completely. Remove from heat and add vanilla and salt. Cool completely. Pour chocolate on pie and spread evenly. If you want, you can add pecans to the top of your pie at this point. Freeze for about an hour and up to overnight. Before serving, add a little extra caramel sauce to the topping if you wish.

Beware, this pie is really good and really gooey, so don’t be alarmed if the caramel spills out a little. The longer you freeze the pie the less the caramel will spill out. I only froze mine for a few hours because I was impatient, and you can see how mine turned out. It was delicious though.

Tags: Bon appetit, Dessert, ice cream dessert, ice cream pie, turtle ice cream pie