Dick Taeubers Cordial Pie Recipes

In January 1970, The Times published a recipe for brandy Alexander pie. It was an unassuming confection: a graham-cracker crust filled with a wobbly, creamy mousse and enough alcohol to raise the hair on your neck and then make your neck wobbly too. Later that year, Craig Claiborne, then the food editor, declared it one of the paper's three most-requested dessert recipes and ran it again. By rights, this should have been the recipe's swan song. But thanks to Dick Taeuber, a Maryland statistician, the pie lived on. Taeuber discovered that you could use a simple formula to make the pie in the flavor of almost any cocktail you wanted (3 eggs to 1 cup cream to 1/2 cup liquor). In 1975, Claiborne renamed it Dick Taeuber's cordial pie and published it once more, this time with all 20 variations (see note). Calling it a cordial pie doesn't quite capture its punch or proof. Booze pie would be more fitting. It's not the kind of thing you want to serve for a children's birthday party.

Provided by Amanda Hesser

Categories     pies and tarts, dessert

Time 30m

Yield 6 servings

Number Of Ingredients 11

Nutrition Facts : @context http, Calories 495, UnsaturatedFat 11 grams, Carbohydrate 44 grams, Fat 29 grams, Fiber 1 gram, Protein 6 grams, SaturatedFat 17 grams, Sodium 323 milligrams, Sugar 32 grams, TransFat 0 grams

• Ingredients