A few weeks ago I bought a copy of Ladies Home Journal and noticed they had a new feature where along with a recipe, they included a story about its origin. In this case, the recipe was for a vanilla cream pie and the author of the story recalled how her father said it was the pie that made him propose to her mother. If it weren’t for this pie, Sue Marquis might not have been born! And even though I don’t know her personally, that was enough to get me to try it. That, plus we love cream pies and it had been a while since I’d made one with simple vanilla.
Easy Basic Vanilla Cream Pie
Simple is pretty much the key word here. The pie is made with readily available ingredients and can be whipped up in a matter of minutes. It does require a good amount of chilling, so it’s not exactly a spur of the moment recipe; but it’s worth making and might even become a regular at your house. The whole milk filling is not over-the-top rich and the dash of nutmeg makes the pie taste almost like eggnog in pie form. In fact, I might try adding some rum flavored whipped cream around the holidays and call it that! It’s a great little pie, to be sure, but I did make some small changes. I reduced the sugar in the crust to 1 tablespoon and added a ring of piped sweetened whipped cream.
Recipe
Vanilla Cream Pie
Ingredients
- 12 graham crackers broken
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
Filling:
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 2 1/2 cups cold whole milk
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon good really quality vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- Garnish: Sweetened whipped cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Crush or grind the graham crackers and set aside ¼ cup of crumbs to use as garnish. Mix remaining crumbs with sugar and butter and press into a 9 inch pie plate. Set on a baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes.
- In a 3-qt saucepan, whisk together sugar, salt, and cornstarch. Whisk in the milk and egg yolks. Heat mixture over medium, whisking constantly until mixture begins to bubble. After mixture starts to bubble, set timer for 1 minute and cook for another minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, nutmeg, and butter; place over an ice bath to cool slightly (I only did this for about 5 minutes) before pouring into baked crust. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for five hours or overnight.
- Before serving, pipe sweetened whipped cream around the edges. Sprinkle reserved graham crackers in the middle.
connie
Excellent pie, I use for banana cream. Easier than tempering the egg!!! Thank you
Laura Dembowski
This sounds like a simple delight! Vanilla is an incredible flavor to let shine through, and cream pies are always a hit.
Christine
Wow, that looks good! And the recipe sounds surprisingly easy. I may give this a shot.
Cheryl
This does look good! Think I will shortcut it and use a pre-made graham crust and just crumble up a few for the topping.
Sue
This makes me think of the graham cracker cream pie I grew up with. The nutmeg would be a noticeable difference.
Martha in KS
I’m thinking that adding a couple of sliced bananas would make a delicious banana cream pie.
Anna
Heidi, that sounds interesting. Most of the peanut butter pies I know of have whipped cream folded in so that they are kind of fluffy. Yours sounds a little different.
Heidi
This looks delicious. Very similar to a peanut butter pie I enjoy – you mix 1/2 c. peanut butter and 1 c. powdered sugar to form a crumbly mixture, placing most in the bottom of the unfilled pie shell then sprinkling the rest on top of the custard pie.