Does this not sound like the most disgusting BBCook post you’ve ever heard of?  I know.  Me too.  Stay with me.  The jalapenos are traumatic but merely incidental in the grand scheme of this post.

Last weekend, my dear friend Dave and I embarked on an epic culinary adventure in the hopes of saving a few bucks by not going out to dinner.  Three chicken legs, three sticks of butter, a tub of the expensive Greek yogurt, three jalapenos, six limes and $35 later (thanks, PCC!), we realized our cheapness plan failed dismally.  We trudged home trying not to do the mental math to figure out what sort of restaurant meal this could’ve bought us (more sushi than we could possibly eat from Musashi’s…six sandwiches from Baguette Box…) and devised our battle plan: we would split the dinner duties of chopping, sautéing, etc. and then I would make dessert once dinner was on the stove.

We set about our tasks to make our chicken stewed in coconut milk: he minced garlic and cleaned the chicken while I wept bitterly over the red onion and fielded the jalapeno.  Once we’d burned the first batch of rice and plunked the chicken in its coconut milk bath, I promptly abdicated all dinner responsibilities like a kitchen slacker and turned to dessert.

I had decided upon Crack Pie, an insanely complicated and completely delicious pastry situation.  I’ve had a crush on this pie since I went to go visit it (er, New York) in March at the Momofuku Milk Bar at the recommendation of one Sam Horwith, but we got serious over the weekend, this pie and I.  Momofuku is the brainchild of David Chang, a young whipper-snapper chef in New York who’s famous for his noodles, for screaming at his cooks, and for his Cereal Milk (trademarked, apparently) ice cream.  The premise is steeping cornflakes in milk for a day, straining out the cornflakes, and then churning this infused milk into ice cream.  Why would you do this?  I have no idea.  Why did it compel me to hike across Manhattan just to stand in line and pay four dollars for an ice cream cone?  See earlier comment.

As I rode the insane (at two in the afternoon on a weekday, no less) line at Momofuku, I perused the pastry case, which was neatly stacked with things like Banana Chocolate Crunch Cake and Compost Cookies (chocolate chip cookies which also include potato chips, pretzels, and anything else lying around in your cupboard) and Crack Pie.  I would capitalize those letters even if it weren’t a proper name.  This pie was devoid of description, simply daring foodies (and, presumably, drug addicts) to take a chance and order it.  I stuck firmly to my guns and ordered a cone of Cereal Milk (which doesn’t deserve to be capitalized, by the way) ice cream, but Crack Pie stuck in my head for six months, until I stumbled across a recipe for it on the internet.

It continued to defy description: some people said “creamy,” others said “sticky.”  The deal-clincher for me, besides a lust-inducing picture of its luscious golden interior, was the description “like pecan pie without the pecans.”  Once upon a time, I used to adore pecan pie because of the teeth-rotting filling that oozed between the crevices of the pecans.  I developed a nut allergy a few years back and have been unable to enjoy the magic of pecan pie since, so I knew I owed it to the little girl in me to attempt Crack Pie.

Crack Pie is essentially a homemade oatmeal-cookie crust liberally doused with a mixture of sugar, butter, heavy cream, and eggs, which bakes from a mixture that really does look suspiciously like a yolk-yellow sugar soup into a creamy, dense custard that’ll make your teeth fall out of your head just looking at it.  I got to work on the crust first, combining flour and butter and sugar and eggs into the world’s largest oatmeal cookie, which I slathered on a cookie sheet (no need to scoop out individual cookies if it’s all going in the food processor anyway, I reasoned).  Dave and I made quick work of the, uh, cleanup, and I could taste faint traces of jalapeno on my hands as I scraped the sides of the mixing bowl to get out every last bit of cookie dough.  The burning aftertaste in my mouth paired well with the sweetness of the cookie dough, and I declared myself a culinary genius, until that burning in my mouth gave way to not-so-sweet burning on my hands.  I ran my hands under the water to wash off the jalapeno, continued to rudely ignore Dave who was trying to make a second batch of rice and simultaneously not burn our dinner, and set about making the interior of the pie.

Butter count: 1 stick.

For the filling, I put more sugar and butter together than a culinary innocent such as myself previously thought possible, even conscripting Dave away from his Blair-induced dinner duties to separate eggs (eight of them.  Yes, eight) and tried to ignore the burning in my hands.

Butter count: 3 sticks.

I pulled the giant cookie out of the oven and whirled it in the food processor along with more butter and sugar, divided the sticky crust among two pie plates, and then gently oozed my beautiful golden filling into each waiting receptacle.

Butter count: 4 sticks.

I stuck a pie in the oven and began a complicated charade of cooking the pies one at a time (why?  Because it told me to) and turning the oven down 15 degrees after 15 minutes, rotating the pie 67 degrees counterclockwise, and howling at the moon.  Dave and I sat down to his delicious dinner of tender, moist chicken in a sauce of reduced coconut milk, tomatoes, jalapenos, and onions over perfectly-cooked rice.  The meal was delicious, though I was disappointed at my inability to taste the jalapenos (I like spicy food), and quite dismayed to find that my hands were really freakin’ burning at this point.  Quickly dismissing the possibility that my ability to taste had been transferred to the backs of my hands, I consulted the best source for medical problems: Wikipedia.

Evidently capsaicin, the oil found in peppers that makes it spicy, isn’t water-soluble, which is why my problem hadn’t ended two hours prior when I’d washed my hands.  Wikipedia had all sorts of seemingly-nonsensical solutions for this (rubbing alcohol, sour cream, yogurt, olive oil), but I picked one that would be the easiest and the least gross: milk.

As Dave battled his way through a zombie-infested underworld on the newly-borrowed Game Cube after dinner, I sat patiently squelching my hands around in a bowl of milk, which provided instant relief until I lifted my hands out of it.  Realizing I would not be very popular on the bus, at the office, or at restaurants with my friend the bowl of milk, I knew there had to be another option.

We finished cooking the pies and scooped warm slices out of the pie pan, only to watch butter drain out of the pie and onto our plates.  I guess that’s what four sticks of butter will get you.  The pie was everything I’d hoped for: moist, chewy, sweet, completely un-nuanced, and an absolute tribute to pecan-pie-sans-pecans.  With dinner, pie-eating, cleanup, and zombie-killing complete, Dave wished me a hearty “good luck with the jalapeno hands!” and went on his way.

While I was temporarily distracted from the jalapeno problem as I consumed my caloric allotment for the week in that slice of pie, the system failed once I’d finished gorging myself.  After pulling my umpteenth Lady Macbeth at the sink to no avail, I trudged back to the internet to see what else I could do.  The internet suggested a baking soda paste, which I slathered on with high hopes as I tried to distract myself from the pain, which was increasing with my home remedies.  Two cups of baking soda, two episodes of Gilmore Girls and two hours later, I was still having a Major Problem.  The time was 2:30 in the morning and I was starting to go a little crazy.  With thoughts of using capsaicin as a very effective torture device (someone later pointed out to me that this is what pepper spray is: duh, Blair), I hoped I was tired enough to sleep the pain away and hopped into bed.

When I woke up the next morning my hands still hurt.  So I manned up, ate some cold pie for breakfast, and vowed never, ever to cook with those mean old jalapeno bullies ever again, even if they make oatmeal cookies even more delicious than usual.

Momofuku‘s Crack Pie

Total time: 1 1/2 hours, plus cooling and chilling times

Servings: Makes 2 pies (6 to 8 servings each)

Note: Adapted from Momofuku. This pie calls for 2 (10-inch) pie tins. You can substitute 9-inch pie tins, but note that the pies will require additional baking time, about 5 minutes, due to the increased thickness of the filling.

Cookie for crust

2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 ounces) flour
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
Scant 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) sugar
1 egg
Scant 1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) rolled oats

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.
5. With the mixer running, beat in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined. Stir in the oats until incorporated.

6. Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.

Crust

Crumbled cookie for crust
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 1/2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together). Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins. Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins. Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.

Filling

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (3/4 ounce) milk powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 egg yolks
2 prepared crusts
Powdered sugar, garnish

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
3. Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air.
4. Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.
5. Bake the pies, one at a time, for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown (similar to a pecan pie), about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.
6. Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The pies are meant to be served cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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