A million dollar pie!

A few years ago I was watching one of the morning news shows and they featured the million dollar winner of the Pillsbury bake off contest. This lady (Suzanne Conrad) won with her Oats and honey granola pie. This recipe looked so good and so easy to make I knew I had to try it! So I did!  And I loved it!  Well the recipe got lost and forgotten in my recipe card file until Monday night.  I was looking for a good family night treat and  I came across this forgotten recipe and remembered how much I liked it.  I had most of the ingredients minus a couple so I decided I could improvise with what I already had in my kitchen.

here is the original recipe from the Pillsbury website and then you will find my tweaked version below:

Oats 'n Honey Granola Pie


.INGREDIENTS:

Crust1box Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on box

Filling1/2cup LAND O LAKES® Butter

1/2cup packed brown sugar

3/4cup corn syrup

1/8teaspoon salt

1teaspoon vanilla

3LAND O LAKES® Eggs, lightly beaten

4Nature Valley® Oats 'n Honey crunchy granola bars (2 pouches from 8.9-oz. box), crushed (3/4 cup)*

1/2cup Fisher® Chef's Naturals® chopped walnuts

1/4cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats

1/4cup Hershey's® semi-sweet or milk chocolate baking chips

Whipped cream or ice cream, if desired.Show Directions

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DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 350°F. Place pie crust in 9-inch glass pie plate as directed on box for One-Crust Filled Pie.

In large microwavable bowl, microwave butter on High 50 to 60 seconds or until melted. Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup until blended. Beat in salt, vanilla and eggs. Stir crushed granola bars, walnuts, oats and baking chips into brown sugar mixture. Pour into crust-lined pan.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until filling is set and crust is golden brown. During last 15 to 20 minutes of baking, cover crust edge with strips of foil to prevent excessive browning. Cool at least 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled with whipped cream or ice cream. Cover and refrigerate any remaining pie.


High Altitude (3500-6500 ft):

 
And here is my tweaked version :-)  Shh!  Don't tell anyone, but I think I might like mine better :-)
 

 Follow the above recipe, but this is what I did different.

-Instead of butter I used coconut oil.

- Instead of oat and honey bars I used 2 cups of granola with almonds in it.

- I am not a lover of walnuts so I did not add them.  I would have used pecans or almonds instead, but I did not have any on hand. So I figured I had few almonds in the granola so I called it good enough:-)

- I also added 1/2 cup of coconut flakes and about a 1/2 a tsp of Cinnamon.

- Instead of 1/8 tsp. I added 1/2 tsp. of salt.

- And for my last change instead of  fitting all the filling into one 9 inch pie crust I distributed the filling  into too pie crusts.  In the past I think having so much filling in one pie made it a little too rich.  and by putting it into two pie crusts the baking time cut to about 30-35 min.

Oh and I also used frozen crusts instead of the refrigerated crusts.  I find that they don't get to brown and overcooked as the refrigerated ones seem to do.

Ta Da! here was the result.  We served them with Vanilla ice cream, but they are good enough to hold their own without any extra ice cream or whipping cream if you want.

This pie is so yummy! And they did not last long at our house. I thought we could save the second pie for the next day, but everyone liked it so much we had to cut into the second pie also :-)

And like I predicted by dividing the filling into two pies it made them a lot less rich.  Which I liked.

I promise you that you will love, love, love this pie!

So good luck making it :-)