Rich cream pies. Butter laden crusts. Sweet gooey fillings. Friends have jokingly requested a diet pie to counterbalance four months worth of caloric goodness that is starting to weigh heavy on the scale. And since swimsuit season is fast approaching, a diet pie would fit the bill and maybe help some of us pie indulgers to fit the bikini!
In my quest to find a worthy diet pie, I immediately eliminated those recipes that called for fat free substitutes such as fat free cream cheese or fat free half and half. As my husband quips, the word fat is actually an acronym for "flavor and taste." So a zero fat recipe has zero flavor and taste. And here's the skinny on lots of those fat free items: they can be chockfull of artificial ingredients, and who wants a pie swimming in chemicals even if its calorie count is low as a limbo stick?
I first consulted, as always, Ken Haedrich's pie bible. I found a yogurt filling that looked worthy with a bit of tweaking. The crust, however, called for butter and graham crackers which wouldn't quite meet the diet pie requisites. So I scanned various websites and found a crust using Grape-Nuts cereal. For those of us old enough to remember, the spokesperson for the cereal used to be Euell Gibbons, a natural foods enthusiast who purported that parts of a tree were edible. He advocated cooking with neglected plants such as cattails, dandelion shoots, and stinging nettles. On a sidenote, I once took a survival course with my husband where we harvested and cooked the aforementioned plants. I can unequivocally say that if I used those ingredients in a pie, people would lose weight for fear of eating it!
But getting back to the crust issue, I decided to try a recipe using Grape-Nuts and apple juice which are both naturally low in fat. The crust baked up so crisply, I do believe it would cause a dental emergency if bitten into. Did you know that parts of a Grape-Nuts crust are inedible? But the pie pan thought quite highly of it as it tightly bonded itself to it and refused to let go.
As the pan and fused crust soaked in hot sudsy water, I returned to the drawing board. I found an oatmeal crust that looked hopeful. Using just a small amount of butter, this looked like the winning crust recipe. Indeed it was with its wholesome granola crunch.
The filling is versatile as you can mix and match any berry with any yogurt flavor. I used blueberries and a combination of vanilla and blueberry yogurt. With the creative yogurt flavors on the market, such as raspberry cheesecake and peach melba, this diet pie might fool the most discerning dessert lover. Despite its low fat content, this pie has high flavor and taste. We can indulge without guilt as we head towards swimsuit season. And if you desire, go ahead and garnish the pie with a stinging nettle. I know Euell Gibbons would approve.
Crust:
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup oat flour (finely grind oats in a blender to make oat flour)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons apple juice or cider
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-inch pie pan with cooking spray. Stir together oats, oat flour, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in large bowl. Stir in butter and juice until crumbly dough forms. Press dough into bottom and sides of prepared pie pan, moistening fingers with cold water, if necessary, to prevent sticking. Place pan in oven and bake 15 minutes to until light brown and bottom looks dry. Cool.
Filling:
One 1-pound bag frozen berries (not packed in syrup - if using whole strawberries, slice in quarters)
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
5 6-ounce containers yogurt
Combine frozen berries, orange juice, and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until hot and the berries have released much of their juice, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle in the cornstarch and bring berries to a boil, stirring and gently boiling for 1-2 minutes until mixture is thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Scrape the berries into a wide bowl and let cool to room temperature. Once cooled, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Open the containers of yogurt and drain off any whey liquid at the top. Mix all yogurt with a spoon until flavors are blended through. Spoon the yogurt into the cooled pie crust and smooth the top. Spoon the cooled berry filling over the yogurt. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least 2 hours until thoroughly chilled.
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