Welcome!

Welcome to Henrietta's House!

I created this site to inspire and be inspired by everything that makes a house a home. That includes food, furnishings, family and fun!!

So I hope you enjoy this site and visit daily. Post comments, email me, try the projects and recipes.

And speaking of recipes....

Our first recipe is Grandma Henrietta's Coconut Cream Pie. This is what I call summer on a plate!

There are three elements to this pie: the crust (homemade by the way!), the filling and the whipped topping. Read through this recipe before you start so you can plan accordingly. There is some serious time involved here. Lots of chilling!!

We need to start with the crust. Here is your ingredient list for a 8-9 inch single crust:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup lard (yes, I said lard. That's what makes it taste so good!!)
• 3 Tablespoons ice water

Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Cut in lard with a pastry blender until dough is pea sized.

Add ice water a Tablespoon at a time. Mix until blended and moistened. With hands, form a ball and clean sides of bowl. Place ball on a square of waxed paper. Place another square of waxed paper on top of ball and roll to edges until you have a uniform circle that will fit into your pie plate.

Peel top wax paper off. Place rolled dough upside down in pie plate. Remove other piece of waxed paper. Fit into the pie plate and crimp the sides. Prick sides and bottom of the dough with a fork. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Then chill your crust in the fridge.

Are you still with me? Check out this video of making the crust.

Watch the video for making the crust

Now onto the filling. Here is your ingredient list:

• 3/4 sugar
• 2 round Tablespoons flour
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cups milk
• 3/4 cup sweetened flake coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon artificial coconut flavoring

Now let's make the filling. Mix the sugar and flour together into a saucepan. Make a well (you know, dig a little hole in the center of these two mixed ingredients) and drop in the egg yolks. With a whisk, slowly add the milk.

Cook this mixture over medium heat while stirring constantly until mixture comes to a rolling boil. Then cook and stir for one minute.

Remove from heat. Add extract and coconut. Place plastic wrap (so it doesn't get that yucky hardened pudding top) onto filling and let cool.

Once cool, pour into the baked pie shell. Chill this in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap for 2 hours. 

How are you doing? Check out the video for help.

Watch video for pie filling, topping and garnish


While you're waiting that LONG two hours, make your whipped topping and garnish.

Here is your ingredient list for the garnish:

• 1/4 cup flaked coconut (that was easy!)

Put the flaked coconut in a pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

While that's baking, make your whipped topping. Here's your ingredient list:

• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 pint of heavy whipping cream

It helps if you chill your mixer bowl and beaters for one hour prior. Put your whipping cream in the mixer bowl and turn on low-medium. Slowly add in the powdered sugar. Now really whip that up until you see peaks forming.

Now all you need to do is pile that whipped topping onto the pie and add your garnish of baked, flaked coconut!!

Enjoy!!