Pineapple Pie with Coconut Cream

Late September. Sunday dinner is back. Real Sunday dinner — the weekly, the permanent, the non-negotiable gathering that was interrupted by a pandemic and is now restored with the reverence of a cathedral rebuilt after a fire. The table seats twelve. Last Sunday: me, Eduardo, Mami, Sofía, Miguel Jr., Jenny, Lucas (three, opinionated about rice), Isabella (fourteen months, walking with authority, pointing at the pernil with the focus of a food critic). Eight people. Not sixteen yet — Rosa is in New Haven, David is in Brooklyn — but eight is a resurrection, eight is a rebuilding, eight is enough to fill the kitchen with noise and the noise is the music and the music is back.

The menu is unchanged. Has always been unchanged. Will never change. Pernil, arroz con gandules, tostones, ensalada de coditos, flan. Every Sunday. Since 1996 when we moved into this house. Twenty-five years of the same menu every Sunday and I have never been bored and I will never be bored because the food is not the variable, the people are the variable. The pernil is the same. The people at the table are different every week — older, taller, more numerous, carrying new stories and new appetites and new opinions about the sofrito, which are always wrong because the sofrito is not a matter of opinion, the sofrito is a matter of fact, and the fact is: my sofrito is correct. Always. This is the one area of human endeavor where I claim infallibility, and the claim has not been challenged in forty years.

Mami was good on Sunday. She knew everyone's name. She held Isabella on her lap — or rather, Isabella was placed on her lap by Jenny, and Mami's hands, which tremor now, which shake when they hold a fork, held Isabella with a steadiness that the tremor could not touch, because the hands remembered holding babies the way the hands remember sofrito, the muscle memory below the fog, the body's knowledge that survives when the mind's knowledge fades. Mami held Isabella and said, She has your eyes, Carmen. I said, She has yours, Mami. She looked at me. She said, I know. And for one moment the fog was gone and she was Luz María Ortiz, eighty-four, sharp, present, holding her great-granddaughter and knowing exactly whose eyes were looking back at her.

The flan disappears first — it always does, it has always done this, it will always do this, and I have made peace with it. What I have not made peace with is Isabella’s face when the flan is gone and she is still pointing. So a few Sundays ago I made this pineapple pie with coconut cream alongside it, because the table was full again and a full table deserves more than one dessert, and because something about the brightness of pineapple and the richness of coconut felt like the right note to end on — luminous, sweet, unmistakably ours.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust, store-bought or homemade
1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 can (13.5 oz) full-fat coconut cream, chilled overnight
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
Toasted shredded coconut, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Fit the unbaked pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate, crimp the edges, and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
Make the pineapple filling. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the crushed pineapple (with its juice), granulated sugar, and cornstarch. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble, about 5–7 minutes. Remove from heat.
Temper the eggs. Slowly whisk a few spoonfuls of the hot pineapple mixture into the beaten eggs to temper them, then stir the egg mixture back into the saucepan. Add the melted butter, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir until fully combined.
Fill and bake. Pour the filling into the chilled pie crust. Bake for 40–45 minutes, until the filling is set and the crust is golden brown. If the crust edges brown too quickly, shield them with foil after the first 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack, at least 2 hours.
Whip the coconut cream. Open the chilled coconut cream without shaking it. Scoop the solidified cream from the top into a cold mixing bowl, leaving the liquid behind. Beat with a hand mixer on medium-high until fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and coconut extract if using, and beat 30 seconds more.
Assemble and serve. Spread or pipe the coconut cream over the fully cooled pie. Garnish with toasted shredded coconut. Slice and serve at the table where everyone is already waiting.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pineapple Pie with Coconut Cream — The Dessert That Closes Every Table Worth Keeping