Cinnamon Pie

I recently asked if I could bring anything to dinner and Karina said it would be great if I could bring dessert. Considering I’m no baker, this almost surely meant I’d be picking something up at a local bakery and not even attempting to pass it off as my own. But then at the last minute I remembered I had a pie shell leftover in the freezer and knew that would be the smarter route. We were only about two hours out from dinner so I needed something that came together quickly…and simply, due to my lack of baking prowess. I Googled “easy pie recipe” and this cinnamon pie was one of the first to show up in my feed.

This pie uses so few ingredients that it couldn’t be easier. It requires a mixer to get it to the right texture, which meant I finally got to use that beautiful KitchenAid we got for our wedding – it’s not just a counter ornament!

The ingredient list for this recipe is short and super basic. Even the lamest grocery store will have every item. It’s just cream cheese, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, eggs, heavy cream, and salt. THAT’S IT. It was so easy that I got home from the grocery store at 3:13 and managed to get the whole thing ready for the oven before my 3:30 conference call (which includes me reading the KitchenAid instruction manual).

Note: I would use a deep dish pie crust or don’t fill it as high as I did…or you’ll wind up with it completely spilling over the side when it bakes. Either way, bake it on a cookie sheet just in case. When I took mine out of the oven, it practically looked alive, like the creature from the blue lagoon was coming to get me. Thankfully, it was easy to cut the excess off the sides so nobody was the wiser.

The key is using a mixer to get it to the right fluffy texture – note: that’s fluffy, as in light, not whippy. The cream cheese gives it a bit of a tang – some zip, if you will. These flavors are so warm and autumnal that I suspect this would be an absolutely perfect Thanksgiving dessert. I love the look of powdered sugar sprinkled on top – it’s like a snowflake…which means this dessert goes way beyond Thanksgiving. It’s great all winter long.