Scrumptious Caramel Pie

Hi Everyone!  I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I know that I did. Lots of food and time with family.  We hosted Thanksgiving for my family, so we had a large group of people to feed.  Fortunately for me, my family all pitch in and help with the cooking. Everyone brings a dish of some sort and we divvy up the large-batch dishes so that no one person or couple is tasked with cooking every part of the meal for 40 or more people.  As much as I love the big gatherings for the holidays, I do not relish the idea of spending the entire day cooking and cleaning up afterward. That does not sound like fun to me. But anyway, we had the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and dressing with the addition of rolls and some sides.  It was all delish! And then, there were the desserts.  I cleared off my buffet in the dining room thinking that it would house all of the desserts easily. Well, let me tell you, we filled that sucker up with pies, cakes, candies, and cookies. It was truly a sight to behold. When I was planning my menu, I kept thinking of desserts that I wanted to make.  Of course, I didn’t have the time to make all of that, so I was stressing out (unnecessarily) about depriving my guests of these wonderful sweet treats. The husband does most of the pie baking at my house, so he made pumpkin pies. I made some cheesecake fudge and some puppy chow and a Kentucky Butter Cake. Alex made some peanut butter cup fudge the night before for a gathering with his friends and we set out what was left of that.  So, you see, it wasn’t like I had not contributed to the dessert table. I had – and then some. But there are some dishes that I have made for holidays past that I love to share with family. One of those is caramel pie. I have made this for Thanksgiving and Christmas and even for family reunions. Almost everyone that has ever tried it loves it. I say almost because I have had heard some people say that it is “too rich” and “they just can’t eat foods that sweet”.  I have never had that problem and so I am not sure what that even means. This is witnessed by the size of my thighs. I mean, I could totally understand if someone says that they just don’t like a food but to say that a food is delicious but “too rich” to eat is beyond my scope of understanding. I guess that my tastes and palate are not that refined. Ok, rant over. Let’s talk about this pie. There are very few ingredients and it is incredibly easy. It does take some time to make so plan accordingly.  You will need sweetened condensed milk (2 to 3 cans) and a graham cracker pie crust and some optional ingredients of whipped cream and crushed heath bars. That’s it!

You slow cook the sweetened condensed milk until it becomes a luscious, velvety caramel. You stir it well to make sure that all lumps are gone and then pour it into the graham crust. Chill the pie for a bit and then add your toppings as you serve up slices, if you wish. The result is a wonderfully smooth and flavorful sweet pie with a nice crunchy graham crust that is nothing less than luxurious.

I have seen a multitude of methods to make the caramel from the sweetened condensed milk.  This one, I think, is the easiest and pretty fool-proof. I do know of bakers that actually cook the caramel in the unopened milk can.  I have never done that, and I am not saying that you shouldn’t do it, but I am too chicken to try it. I envision exploding cans and cleaning caramel off the ceiling for the rest of my life.  So, I place the sweetened condensed milk in a glass bowl or jars in the crockpot surrounded by water. I used to have a great glass bowl that fit in my crockpot perfectly and held all the milk easily, but it broke and then I got a new crockpot which is not as deep.  So, this time I decided to use small wide-mouth mason jars (the pint size) and it worked perfectly. Now, in my pictures here you will see that I not only used regular sweetened condensed milk but also some chocolate- flavored as well. This was an experiment. I had a couple of cans of the chocolate flavor in my cupboard that I bought last year on clearance.  It was almost to the expiration date, so I thought, what the heck, I will try to make a chocolate caramel pie. As it turns out, this was very foolish. The chocolate version turned out so good that I wanted to make more but that flavor of sweetened condensed milk is no longer available. Rats! So, unless, someone starts making it again there will be no more chocolate caramel pies in my future, but, by the time I discovered this I had already taken all the photos for this post.

So, you will need a graham cracker crust and 2 or 3 cans of sweetened condensed milk.  2 cans for a regularly-sized crust is perfect. If I buy the crust that has the extra serving, I use 3 cans.  Note, you can use the fat-free version of the sweetened condensed milk.  It does not seem to become as thick as the full-fat version.  Sometimes, I swap out one can of full-fat for the fat-free.  When mixed together you will never know that it is not entirely full-fat and it will save you a few calories.  

You slow cook the sweetened condensed milk until it becomes a luscious, velvety caramel.  You stir it well to make sure that all lumps are gone and then pour it into the graham crust.  Chill the pie for a bit and then add your toppings as you serve up slices if you wish. The result is a wonderfully smooth and flavorful sweet pie with a nice crunchy graham crust that is nothing less than luxurious.

I have seen a multitude of methods to make the caramel from the sweetened condensed milk.  This one, I think, is the easiest and pretty fool-proof. I do know of bakers that actually cook the caramel in the unopened milk can.  I have never done that, and I am not saying that you shouldn’t do it, but I am too chicken to try it. I envision exploding cans and cleaning caramel off the ceiling for the rest of my life.  So, I place the sweetened condensed milk in a glass bowl of jars in the crockpot surrounded by water. I used to have a great glass bowl that fit in my crockpot perfectly and held all the milk easily, but it broke and then I got a new crockpot which is not as deep.  So, this time I decided to use small wide-mouth mason jars (the pint size) and it worked perfectly. Now, in my pictures here you will see that I not only used regular sweetened condensed milk but also some chocolate flavored as well. This was an experiment. I had a couple of cans of the chocolate flavor in my cupboard that I bought last year on clearance.  It was almost to the expiration date, so I thought, what the heck, I will try to make a chocolate caramel pie. As it turns out, this was very foolish. The chocolate version turned out so good that I wanted to make more but that flavor of sweetened condensed milk is no longer available. Rats! So, unless, someone starts making it again there will be no more chocolate caramel pies in my future but by the time I discovered this I had already taken all the photos for this post.

So, as I said before, you will need a graham cracker crust and 2 or 3 cans of sweetened condensed milk.  2 cans for a regularly sized crust is perfect. If I buy the crust that has the extra serving, I use 3 cans.  Use a separate jar for each can of milk. Pour the milk into the jar and place the jars into the slow cooker so that they are not touching if possible.

Add water around the jars so that the water level comes just to the level of the milk in the jars as you see here in my photo.

Place a flat lid on each jar (or you can make a lid from foil).  This will keep condensation from the crockpot lid from dripping into the caramel.

Cook these on high for 4 to 5 hours or until the milk has become the color of peanut butter.  This is the only tricky part of the whole proceeding. Crockpots vary so much in temperature that it is hard for me to say that your caramel will be done at 4 hours.  This time, mine took 4 ½ hours. You can also pour all the milk into one glass bowl but then it will take considerably longer to turn to caramel. So, my advice on this is to give yourself plenty of time and on your first attempt keep an eye on it.  Start checking at 4 hours and then watch it carefully after that. You can overcook the caramel. Once the milk has become a nice caramel color (or peanut butter color), carefully remove the jars from the crockpot.

Pour the caramel into one bowl and use a whisk to beat it until nice and smooth.  This usually takes about a minute or less. Caution – the caramel is very hot and very sticky.  If you get it on your skin, you will be sorry. Be careful!

Pour the smoothed-out caramel into your pie crust and spread as evenly as possible.  Let the pie sit on the counter for about 30 minutes to come closer to room temperature and then place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours until it is chilled through and set.

When you are ready to serve, cut slices and add a dollop of whipped cream and some bits of crushed heath bars.  Enjoy!