This may be the best thing I’ve made to date! Let me warn you: it’s not a quick recipe, but the outcome is amazing. This is sure to be the star dessert for whatever occasion.
There’s essentially 3 parts to this recipe. The first part is pre-baking the pie crust, which can be done while you’re prepping the filling. The second part is prepping the filling. The third part is the marshmallow topping. If you’re time crunched, you can pre-make the filling the day before. Another time saving tip is to swap the butternut squash for canned pumpkin. Definitely not the same result (the squash is tastier), but desperate times…
A trick to ensure the pie doesn’t get the cracks down the middle is to take out the pie when the center (about 1″) wiggles a little bit. The pie will settle and continue baking a little while it cools.
If you don’t want to take the time to heat the milk, then evaporated milk will work well. However, the I prefer the heated milk because I prefer to work with more natural ingredients (and there’s nothing natural about milk in a can…).
While the pie rests and cools, I made the marshmallow topping. Now, this topping doesn’t actually use marshmallow. Instead, you create it from scratch. If you want a bigger and fluffier marshmallow topping, use a couple more egg whites.
There are two keys to a great topping. First: melting the sugar down into liquid form. Melt the sugar first and then add it to the egg whites before whipping the egg whites. The sugar helps the whites become stiff. Second: whipping the egg whites. I’ve seen people be able to get the stiff peaks without cream of tartar, but the cream of tartar acts as a booster.
