Coconut Cream Pie Comes Back

Creamy, coconutty goodness from the Bakehouse

Coconut cream pie seems such a staple of American eating that it’s hard for me to imagine that it hasn’t been part of Anglo-American baking for centuries. In fact, though, the recipe is only about 100 years old.

Coconuts have been a fundamental part of daily life in the tropics. They were traded widely and often used as currency. Growing near water and producing very hardy seeds that can float in the oceans, coconuts traveled well—so well that they are ubiquitous in the tropics and no one is certain about their actual origins.

Coconuts entered European awareness in the early 19th century when J.W. Bennett, an Englishman, wrote A Treatise on the Coco-nut Tree and the Many Valuable Properties Possessed by the Splendid Palm. At the same time that coconut was entering the European market, sugar was also becoming much more available. The candy and pastry business increased dramatically in this period, and all sorts of fruits and nuts were incorporated into confections, including coconut. It was at this time that a French company figured out how to shred and dry coconut meat, making it much easier to ship to Europe without spoiling. By the early 1890s, the company was shipping 6,000 tons of dried coconut a year. By 1900, the quantity had increased tenfold. Coconut had become a big hit in Europe.

Coconut finally entered the American market in 1895, when Franklin Baker received a shipment, really by accident. Mr. Baker, a Philadelphia flour miller, received a boatload of coconuts in payment for a debt from a Cuban businessman. After unsuccessfully trying to sell them fresh before the nuts spoiled, he made a decision that put coconuts into the hands of home cooks, commercial confectioners, and pastry chefs—he set up a factory for shredding and drying the coconut meat. Within two years, the coconut business was going so well for him that he sold his flour mill and established the Franklin Baker Co., selling exclusively coconut meat. By the early 1900s, coconut recipes became very popular in the United States, with coconut cream pie being one of them.

Inverting the idea of the Bakehouse’s wonderful Summer Fling Coffee Cake—a lime-scented all-butter coffee cake with a generous dose of coconut—the thought occurred to me this week to try the Bakehouse’s Coconut Cream Pie with a spoonful or two of lime curd on the side. I’m gonna try it soon! Either way, come and enjoy a flavorful bite of American business ingenuity with a slice of our version of Coconut Cream Pie! Large and small pies are available on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays all month during April.

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