Goo Goo Cluster Pie with a Coca Cola Reduction Drizzle

Goo Goo Cluster Pie with a Coca Cola Reduction Drizzle + Brown Butter Ice Cream

This is pretty much a glorified candy bar pie. With a twist of pecan pie on the side. And add in a large soda + a scoop of ice cream to boot. For all I care, you could just sub out the Goo Goo Cluster chunks with another candy treat. Do as you please, my friends. Y'all ever had a Goo Goo Cluster? Well, if you haven't, I sure feel bad for you. It comes from the South (Nashville to be exact) and contains caramel, roasted peanuts, marshmallow, and milk chocolate. Like a Snickers, but only way better. It starts off with my favorite peanut butter shortbread cookie crust. What's not to love about that? Candy. Cookies. Pie. Ice Cream. All in one bite? Whambamthankyama'am. Then, it's studded with fried, salted peanuts and candy pieces before it's filled to the brim with bourbon-flavored custard (similar to a pecan pie). After it's all said + done, and by that, I mean baking & chilling, you must drizzle the top of a slice with the homemade Coca Cola reduction... ya'know, to make it extra-southern. This pie is insane by itself, but make sure to make it super indulgent by adding a scoop of homemade ice cream. It was perfection with brown butter, but vanilla bean or bourbon would be amazing as well. It's the ultimate sweet treat indeed!! Enjoy :)

For the Peanut Butter Shortbread Cookie Crust:

1C Peanuts, Unsalted & Dry-Roasted

½C AP Flour

¼t Salt

¼t Baking Soda

¼C Light Brown Sugar, Packed

¼C Sugar

2T Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature

1 Large Egg Yolk

¼t Vanilla

For the Goo Goo Cluster Pie:

2 8oz boxes of Goo Goo Clusters or Cream-Nuts, Chopped into Chunks

3 Eggs

1C sugar + 2T Light Brown Sugar

½C Light Corn Syrup

2T Bourbon

1t Vanilla

1 Stick of Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature

½t Salt

2C Fried Salted Peanuts, Roughly Chopped (roasted peanuts may be substituted)

Prepared Goo Goo Cluster Chunks

For the Coca Cola Reduction:

2C Coca Cola (or any other soda substitute: Cheerwine would be my second choice)

Directions:

1. Spray a pie pan with Baking Pam and set it aside.

2. For Peanut Butter Shortbread Cookie Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pulse the peanuts into the food processor and blend until a peanut butter forms, about 2 minutes (add a little oil or honey to loosen it up if it is too thick). In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda until incorporated. Using an electric mixer, beat together both sugars, peanut butter, and butter until well combined and mixture resembles wet sand, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl, until well blended, about 3 minutes (the mixture will be clumpy). Gradually add in the dry ingredients with your hands and beat until just combined (it will be crumbly, but do not over-mix). Gather dough with your hands, place into the prepared pan, and press evenly onto the bottom and up the sides of the dish. Bake until edges are golden brown, about 15-20 minutes. Set this aside to let it cool completely before adding the filling.

3. For the Goo Goo Cluster Pie: In the bowl of a standing mixer, add in the butter and both sugars and beat until light & fluffy, about 1 minute. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, corn syrup, bourbon, vanilla, and salt until smooth and incorporated. Add this wet mixture into the bowl of the butter mixture. Mix on medium-low speed until you have a smooth filling, and then add in your chopped peanuts and mix until just incorporated evenly throughout. Set your filling aside and place the Goo Goo Cluster chunks evenly into the bottom of your cooled, pre-baked peanut butter crust. Slowly pour the filling over the clusters until the whole pie has been filled to the rim. Sprinkle the top with fleur de sel. Place the pie onto a baking dish, so that it will catch any drippings or filling that has flooded over. Bake this pie at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 300 degrees. Lightly cover the pie with some tin foil and bake for another 20-30 minutes, or until the pie has set around the edges, but slightly jiggles in the center. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack to room temperature.

4. Place the cooled pie into the freezer (you might want to cover with tin foil) and let it sit, undisturbed, overnight. The pie filling should be super gooey and runny, this is a good thing, don’t worry.

5. For the Coca Cola Reduction: Pour the coke into a pot and cook over low (just barely medium heat) until it reduces into thick soda syrup. This process took a long time for me almost an hour.

6. Serving the Pie: The next day, remove from the freezer and cut into slices. Place onto a plate and let it warm for 5-10 minutes. This gives the pie time to defrost and makes the caramel-y filling begin to ooze out. Drizzle the top of the pie with some of the Coca Cola Reduction and enjoy the gooey goodness. We added a scoop of ice cream on top of ours, and it was perfection (we had three homemade ice creams in our freezer: brown butter-bourbon, southern buttermilk, + malted vanilla bean).