A Sweet Tea Pie Experiment

I bought two frozen pie crusts to make a birthday pie for a friend, but I didn't have room in the freezer to store the other crust. So what else could I do but make another pie? There was recently a whole pie episode on a show I watch called "Food Porn," and they featured a bakery called The Pie Hole in L.A. that makes an unusual item called Earl Grey Tea Pie. They didn't give an exact recipe, but they showed the steps of the process. Of course, I thought, "I could make that!" So I did. The pie has a bittersweet ganache layer and roasted/salted pistachios on the bottom, an Earl Grey-infused white chocolate mousse filling, and it's topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream and more chopped pistachios.

And I must say, I am so pleased with myself and how my Earl Grey Tea Pie experiment turned out so beautifully! It's light as feather (how could it not be, as it's mostly comprised of whipped cream?) with a little dark chocolate bitterness and some pistachio crunch on the bottom, and the tea flavor in the white chocolate mousse filling is more subtle than I had feared. The only thing that would perfect this pie is a homemade crust, which I will be sure to do next time.

Earl Grey Tea Pie
(Source: inspired by The Pie Hole's signature pie)

one 9-inch pie crust*, blind-baked and cooled

1 cup half-n-half
4 Earl Grey tea bags
1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup roasted and salted pistachio, roughly chopped (divided)
3/4 cup chopped white chocolate
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

While you are baking and cooling your pie crust, bring the half-n-half and the teas bags just to a boil, remove from the heat, and let the tea steep for at least an hour until the half-n-half is a tan color. Remove the tea bags and discard.

Bring the infused half-n-half back to just before the boiling point. Add 1/4 cup to the bttersweet chocolate chips, and the other 3/4 cup to the chopped white chocolate (in separate bowls). Whisk until smooth. Spread two or three tablespoons of the bittersweet ganache into the bottom and up the sides of the baked and cooled pie shell. Sprinkle on two tablespoons of chopped pistachios. Place the pie shell in the fridge while you continue with the rest of the pie.

Whip two cups of heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Don't worry about tiny bits of tea in your ganache--I like how that looks--but if larger pieces have escaped the tea bags, strain it through a mesh strainer.) Once the tea-infused white chocolate ganache has cooled to room temperature and has been strained (if necessary), whisk in one quarter of the whipped cream, then gently fold in another quarter of it. Remove pie shell from the fridge and add the white chocolate mousse filling.

Gently fold in the powdered sugar and vanilla bean paste to the remaining whipped cream, and then top the pie with that mixture, and the other two tablespoons of chopped pistachios. Chill at least two hours or, preferably, overnight.

*I used a frozen pie crust, But according to the "Food Porn" pie episode, The Pie Hole's two-crust recipe is as follows:
3 cups flour
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup cold water

Mix ingredients until it feels "like a baby's bottom" then chill. Roll out, fit into a pan, weight down, and blind bake for 20 minutes until GB&D.