Pep Pie!

Anyone out there remember Pep? Like an oversized After-Eight saucer, a tongue-cooling white peppermint "candy"-filled dark chocolate party puck in a crinkly, shiny green wrapper.

My husband Rich's favourite ice cream is peppermint chocolate chip, and I have been pretty exhausted with making cakes lately so when I get a chance to make something else I get quite excited! So for Rich's birthday, I made this Pep pie...

Ice cream pie made out of homemade ice cream, and it was truly simple and magical indeed. Crumbs of the Oreo cookie combine with melted butter and get pressed into a pie pan. Baked for just a few minutes until set, then left to cool. Ice cream is churned and piled into the pie pan, smoothed with an offset spatula and left to set in the freezer. A rich dark cocoa fudge topping is made on the stovetop, cooled, and poured on top of the ice cream pie. Back into the freezer it goes to set, uncovered, for an hour. Then plastic wrap covers it until the time comes to slice in.

Thus, I christened this my Pep Pie. I made the creamy cool peppermint ice cream filling using condensed milk, heavy cream, peppermint extract and a pinch of salt, and I just had to use the teensiest bit of green food colouring to trick the eye into thinking "peppermint". Not that you would have to trick yourself... one bite and the peppermint cools your mouth, a creamy smooth spoonful with flecks of dark chocolate folded into it.

To my honeybun Richie: Happy Birthday!!

{Peppermint Ice Cream Pep Pie}

You will need:
An Oreo or chocolate wafer cookie pie crust
peppermint ice cream
dark cocoa chocolate fudge topping
(recipes below!)

to make the crust:

Combine 1 1/4 cups Oreo or dark wafer cookie crumbs with 1/4 cup melted butter. Press into 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes until set. Let cool on wire rack.

to make the ice cream:

1. In a medium sized bowl, whisk to combine 3 cups of heavy cream with 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (300 ml)
2. Whisk in 3 teaspoons or pure peppermint extract and 1 generous pinch of salt. Add a teensy touch of green food colouring if so desired.
3. Power-chill mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes until mixture is ice cold but not frozen.
4. Pour into ice cream maker and mix according to ice cream maker instructions, I churned mine for about 25 minutes or so until thick and creamy.
5. Fold in 1 cup of chopped dark chocolate pieces, or chocolate chips of any size.
6. Scoop ice cream into cooled pie shell, using an offset spatula to smooth it. Put in freezer, uncovered while you make the fudge sauce.

to make the fudge sauce:

On stovetop, combine 1/3 cup of dark or high quality cocoa powder with 2/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup of heavy cream and 3 tablespoons of butter. Whisk gently to combine. Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, whisk until smooth. Pour into bowl to cool. I power-chilled my fudge sauce in the freezer for 20 minutes!

Once fudge sauce is cooled, pour on top of peppermint ice cream layer. It's important that the fudge sauce is cooled otherwise it will melty-melt the ice cream and it won't look very pretty.

Place back in freezer and chill for 1 hour uncovered until fudge sauce is set. Then wrap with plastic wrap and chill until time to serve!!

PS you will have leftover ice cream as the recipe above won't all fit into one pie shell! ^_^

You can serve with fresh whipped cream and chocolate shavings or chocolate chips. I meant to do this but I was also hosting a fondue party at the same time so I never got around to making the whipped cream... :)