Monday Night Martha: Rum Vanilla Cream Pie

​We've harbored a fantasy of opening our own food truck that only serves up pie and coffee. Phoenix Novembers would be perfect for this endeavor. And while we don't actually have a pie truck, we are always eager to try a new pie recipe. Which brings us to this week's Monday Night Martha, where we take on Rum-Vanilla Cream Pie.

Martha describes this as a, "traditional 1950s style cream pie". Mmm, sounds good. Plus the recipe calls for 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon golden rum. We're in.

First you have to make Martha's pate brisee (fancy French for pie crust) - her recipe makes two 9-inch crusts. Or take one out of the freezer if you are so inclined, and follow the directions for baking. Ours was perhaps, slightly under-cooked.

​You make the custard by combining sugar, cornstarch and salt and whisking in milk and vanilla seeds over medium-high heat until bubbling and thick. Next, you whisk in 4 egg yolks, and once incorporated you remove from heat and pour in rum and add 4 tablespoons unsalted butter. After this has cooled for 10 minutes or so you pour the custard into the piecrust, cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Finally just before serving, pipe whipped cream over the pie.

Confession time, the recipe calls for one vanilla bean split and scraped. We didn't use the vanilla bean, we used vanilla extract. We know, we know, how un-Martha of us. It was a time/cost issue and let's face it, we all have them. One local supermarket was asking $12.50 for two beans.

We liked this pie. It was creamy and had a bit of a kick with the rum. It would make us really happy to be served a slice of this pie with a cup of coffee after a big meal. The 5-year-old taster said, "Not the best ever, but still good." Which is a pretty good endorsement.

​Can't you see this being served out of the pie truck window? Not sure how the custard's going to do in the heat of the Phoenix summer, though. We may be forced to take the pie truck north to Alaska for a few months every year.