White Chocolate Coconut Pie

In a small mixing bowl combine flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt and egg yolks. Whisk until thoroughly combined. Set aside.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine milk and vanilla bean seeds. Cook over medium heat until the milk is just below the boiling point.

Slowly whisk at least half of the hot milk into the egg mixture.

Return pan to heat and slowly add the milk/egg mixture to the remaining milk, whisking constantly.

Continue to heat, stirring constantly until the mixture begins to boil. Cook and stir for another minute. Remove from heat and immediately whisk in white chocolate chips, stirring until all chips have melted and are well incorporated.

Pour the pastry cream into a small bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface. Refrigerate until completely cool, about 1 1/2 hours.

When the pastry cream is cool, finish assembling the pie.

Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold in the cream of coconut.

Fold the whipped cream mixture into the pastry cream and pour into the prepared pie shell.

Top with toasted coconut and chocolate curls. Chill for two hours or more before serving.

Notes:
To toast coconut, spread on a cookie sheet and bake at 350ºF for 7–10 minutes. When coconut begins to brown, stir frequently. Watch closely because it will go from brown to burned very quickly.

If you don’t have a block of white chocolate to make the chocolate curls you can melt 1/4 cup white chocolate chips in the microwave on medium power for about 40 seconds. Pour the melted chips on a piece of wax paper and allow to cool completely, then shave with a potato peeler or crumble into small pieces.