A few weekends ago, Joe trotted off to London for the weekend to see his friends. As a result, I was at home with lots of relaxing to do. This meant three things - Americas's Next Top Model, Breakfast at Tiffany's and baking. I had to make something Joe really wanted - he needed rewarding since he did lots of washing up during the week when I couldn't be bothered or was too tired. What a star!
Grasshopper Pie was the obvious choice to me. Always a fan of mint chocolate, whether it's my mint choc chip cupcakes or After Eights. I made it the Hummingbird Bakery way set out in Cake Days minus the huge dollops of whipped cream on top. He's a lover of the cream, but I had a bit of a kitchen nightmare when my Kmix overwhipped the first 300ml of the cream, meaning I only had 300ml left for the filling! I got distracted with colouring my milky marshmallow mixture a perfect mint green. Mint is the main event and I thought that the extra whipped cream could have muted it. This was my convenient reasoning at overwhipping the cream anyway!
I made the biscuit base with humble bourbons (or you could use Oreos if you prefer). I'm so used to ginger or digestive biscuit bases and using bourbons is much better in many ways! For example, the melted butter in the processed bourbons made it look like soil (and I'd rather be in the kitchen with my 'soil' than in the garden!). I was a mucky mess by the time I had pushed the crumbs into the flan tin.
Melting the marshmallows into the milk was incredibly relaxing. I love seeing food melt, or change consistency right before me. This became a luscious velvety mixture after around five minutes of consistent stirring. The recipe tells you to fold in the cream to this minty mixture, but I had real trouble with this. I had to abandon this technique by just whisking it in. It seemed to work better for me than trying to fold it in. This green mass of matter was then dolloped into and completely filled my perfectly set soil case.
I loved the pie and so did Joe. The filling was light and the only thing I could compare it to is mousse, but it was a lot denser than mousse. The marshmallows must have given it the light texture. It had a wobble to it, like a baked cheesecake would. The bourbon base was addictive - I couldn't get enough of it! I would sit next to Joe, putting on my best eyes (like a cat would when they want something you have, almost stalking you until you give in) waiting for a morsel of the base.
I urge anyone who loves mint chocolate to make this.
