Don your cowboy hats, Viking helmets, and eye patches! It’s time to electrify your cold, snowy weekend with the warm comfort of a deceptively simple chess pie.
The Doctor’s Live Chess Pie
Series 6, Episode 13, Story 224
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 tbsp cornmeal
- 3 eggs (or equivalent in frozen or refrigerated egg substitute)
- 1/4 cup whole milk (or ¼ cup room temp safe milk substitute + 2 tsp veggie oil)
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 2 tsp orange extract
- 2 tsp blue food coloring
- 1 9-inch unbaked deep dish pie crust (check your grocer for vegan or gluten free options)
Running from your inevitable death can be a cold and lonely slog with pitifully few stops for groceries. If you need a little something to sweeten the journey to Trenzalore, you can whip up a Utah recipe classic available in all the best Lake Silenco diners using only a trio of eggs and some shelf stable pantry staples.
It’s almost as easy as lopping off a monk’s head.
First, acquire a raw pie crust. It doesn’t matter whether you grab a frozen one from the grocery store (check the ingredients! A lot of the generic ones are unintentionally vegan!) or make your own favorite crust from scratch as long as you start this process with a raw carby shell waiting to accept your sugary offering.
Now dump everything else in a bowl. The swirls of white sugar, yellow cornmeal, and blue streaks might remind you a little of Vincent. Distract yourself from the sadness by attacking the bowl with a hand mixer for 1-2 minutes, or until everything is a uniform shade and texture. If it’s not blue enough, add a few more drops of blue food food coloring and mix some more. Remember, the pie’s color will darken during baking.
Protect the outermost boundaries of your pie from dangerous conductive radiation by wrapping a pie shield (or some strategically ripped aluminium foil) around the edges of your crust. Once the heat shield is secure, pour in your blue filling.
Bake the pie at 350F for 10 minutes to help set the crust. After that, turn the heat down to 325 and continue baking for 40-45 minutes, or until the center of the pie is no longer wibbly wobbly. Turn off the oven and let the pie cool inside for the next half an hour.
If your pantry is thusly stocked, feel free to decorate the top with yellow sprinkles, powdered sugar, or both.
GLUTEN FREE VARIATION
As long as you make sure your cornmeal is manufactured in a gluten free plant (check the label) then all you need to do is buy a frozen, gluten-free pie crust from your local health food or schmancy grocery store.
VEGAN VARIATION
- Substitute ¾ cup silken tofu for the eggs.
- Substitute ¼ cup non-dairy milk + 2 tsp veggie oil for the whole milk (you need the fat!)
- If you’re using a frozen pie crust, double check to make sure it’s vegan (a lot of store brand generic ones are unintentionally vegan!)
Put the tofu, non-dairy milk, and fat into a blender and keep it whizzing away until the tofu is completely smooth and free of lumps. Rather than dirty up a mixing bowl, go ahead and add the sugar, cornmeal, vinegar, orange extract, and blue food coloring to the blender pitcher and keep processing until you have a swirling vortex of blue liquid that any TARDIS would be proud to hurtle through.
Pour the mix into your vegan pie crust and follow the rest of the baking instructions.
Wondering what else to cook while snowed in? Check out our 11 Nerdy Recipes You Can Make from Pantry Staples!
NEED MORE NERDY PIES FOR PI DAY?
Small Adventure Sized Shire Mincemeat Pies
Men of Letters Spiced Cherry Pie
Winchester Brother’s Bloody Plum Custard Pie
Castiel’s Torture Porn Pear Tart
