This was loosely inspired by a smoothie bowl aesthetic, but I wanted to that take and make a pie out of it. I don’t know. That’s just how I was feeling. There was something about round things being placed into swirly things that looks really cool. So I went ahead and made a purple ube based pie crust with lemon curd filling and kaya, dyed with my favorite butterfly pea tea, as the topping. I took the kaya and swirled some of it, and froze the rest of it into half spheres, to make sure that we had different textures of the same pretty mousse. The idea was that it looks like a stormy sea, or the skies clearing after a long period of rain. I took leftover pie crust, as well as coconut oil powder that I made with tapioca maltodextrin and used that to garnish the top of the crust with, just to give it a “beachy” sort of finish. Again, I don’t really know. I just roll with it. And it is just what I roll with.

For the crust:
1 cup mashed ube, passed through a sieve
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick unsalted butter
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup sugar

Combine ingredients into a dough. Chill down. Roll out to about 1/8th an inch thickness and place into a pie tin. Prick the base, weigh down, and bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. 20 minutes into the baking, remove the weights so that the base can fully bake. Cool completely. Be sure to bake whatever leftover crust at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes, at the same thickness, and break into pieces.

For the curd:
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cornstarch
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
zest from 2 lemons

Heat up lemon juice, zest, and salt. Cream egg yolks with cornstarch and sugar. Temper yolks with lemon mixture then whisk over medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes, or until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Whisk in the butter, off heat, then strain. Refrigerate until thick.

For the kaya:
1 14 oz. can coconut milk
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon butterfly pea powder

Whisk cornstarch into coconut milk. Once smooth, transfer to a pot and whisk over medium-high heat with the sugar and salt. Once thickened to the consistency of pudding, take off heat and strain out any lumps. Season with vanilla. Divide mixture into two and dye half of it with the tea powder. Take the two mixtures, swirl them together, and freeze some of the mixture into small silicone half domes. Press the half spheres together to form the balls.

For assembly:
Pour the lemon curd into the base of the pie, then top with the kaya mixture that was not used in the sphere molds. Garnish with the pie crust, spheres, and coconut powder.

For the powder:
1/4 cup coconut oil
3/4 cups tapioca maltodextrin
a pinch of salt

Blitz together until it forms a course powder.