The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Nebraska · Dessert

Nebraska Kool-Aid Pie

  • Easy
  • 30 min
  • roughly 1 of 4 for cost
  • Vegetarian

bright Leads with acid holding everything up to the light.

Ingredients

  • 1 graham cracker crust
  • 1 packet unsweetened Kool-Aid (lemonade or cherry)
  • 400g sweetened condensed milk
  • 250ml whipped topping
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice

The skills inside

Folding: keeping the air in

Allergen screen

Found: gluten · dairy

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Whisk the Kool-Aid powder into the sweetened condensed milk until the color is even.
  2. Add the lemon juice and stir: the acid thickens the filling.
  3. Fold in the whipped topping until smooth.
  4. Spread into the graham crust.
  5. Chill at least 3 hours until set. Top with more whipped topping. 180 min

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Folding: keeping the air in 34 recipes

  • The air was actually built first and it shows: whatever was creamed or whipped has changed colour and grown in volume, pale and light rather than dense.
  • The two mixtures were brought closer before being combined: a little of the light one worked into the heavy one first, so the rest is not beaten flat trying to move it.
  • Folded and not stirred: a broad implement down through the middle, across the base, up and over, with the bowl turned between strokes.
  • Stopped the moment the streaks disappear. It is still visibly aerated and holds its shape briefly when the spoon lifts away.
  • Into the tin and into the oven straight away: a batter left standing on the bench gives back the air it was built for.

Where it goes wrong It was stirred until it looked perfectly smooth. Every stroke past the point where the streaks vanish knocks out air that cannot be put back, so the bake comes out dense and short of the tin, and often wet through the middle where there was no structure to hold it.

At the Table

The Pour
Moscato d’Asti
Also Right
Late-harvest Riesling
From the Taps
Witbier
Zero-Proof
Sparkling elderflower

Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Nebraska Kool-Aid Pie Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Nebraska Kool-Aid Pie A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.