Buko Pie from Laguna

This Buko Pie is made with pure young coconut meat and coconut juice.  It's a perfect everyday pie and also happens to be vegan!

Virtual Merienda

Hello!  My friends and I are hosting a Virtual Merienda session.  Merienda translates to light snack.  When I was living in the Philippines this was our schedule:  Wake Up, eat breakfast and clear the table and prep for our morning merienda.  Clear the table and cook lunch, have lunch.  Clear the table for lunch and find food to eat for afternoon merienda.  Clear the table and cook dinner.  My Grandmother would shop and cook for everything that day along with her assistant.

At any given time there would be 10 or more of us at the table and depending on who you are within the family, you would either eat during the second or first shift.  Sounds so crazy right.  Usually our Merienda would just be some bread called Pandesal dipped in coffee.  Or spread with this thing called Sandwich Spread.  I don't really know what was in it, but it was good.

Sometimes it would be a special snack that someone would of brought from their travels, either locally or from another country.

I wanted to bring my fellow Filipino American Food Bloggers together to help celebrate Filipino American History Month by having a Virtual Merienda together.  There are some lovely recipes by Kitchen Confidante,  The Little Epicurean, Six Snippets, Lemons and Anchovies and Madeline Hall.

To our Virtual Merienda table I share with you all this Vegan Buko Pie.

What is Buko Pie?

The key word in this pie is Buko.  It translates to young coconut in Tagalog.  The filling is simply made by creating a thick custard with the Buko juice and meat.

Buko Pie is super famous where my Dad grew up in the Laguna, Philippines.  When we were living in the Philippines we would drive up to where his family is and at the end of the trip we would always stop by this particular mom and pop shop that just sold these Buko pies.

They were super flaky and creamy and sweet.  Sometimes too sweet where you can't even taste the coconut.

In this recipe I just let the young coconut do it's thing and only add some vanilla to help enhance it's flavor.

Ingredients for the Buko Pie Filling

You will need the following to make the filling.

Fresh Buko Flesh

Coconut Juice

Vanilla Paste

Arrowroot Flour/Powder

Making the Buko Pie Filling

To make the buko filling find the best young and fresh coconut you can find.  The hard part is breaking apart the young coconut without spilling all the juice.  I would watch this video first prior to trying to break apart a coconut.  You can also buy some young coconut meat frozen with coconut juice at some Asian Grocery Stores.  If you can hunt down a Seafood City.  They sell all the Filipino ingredients.

You need the scoop out the meat of 2 young coconuts and set that aside and place all the juice into a sauce pan.  Add in a tablespoon of vanilla paste and mix will then add in 4 Tablespoons of arrowroot powder. Cook over low to medium heat until it's nice and thick.  It will take about 10-15 minutes.  Set aside to cool down fully.  Once cool mix in the coconut meat.

Vegan Pie Crust

I used this vegan pie crust for this recipe.  You only need half as we are just making a small 4 inch Buko Pie.

To line your tin with the dough roll out the dough so that it is one centimeter thick then turn over the pie tin and using a sharp knife trace around it to get a circle.  Repeat again to get two circles.  One to line the bottom and one to top off the pie.

Spray the cake tin with coconut oil and line with one of the circles.  Fill the pie with the filling.  Brush the sides with cold water and top with the other dough.  Using a fork crimp down to seal the pie.

Let's Bake!

To make the pie nice and brown combine 2 tablespoons of almond milk and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup.  Brush this all over the vegan buko pie.

You can place the pie in the freezer for a hour to rest or even overnight.  To bake pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and take the pie right from the freezer to the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes until the crust is nice and golden and the filling is bubbling.

Let's Eat Vegan Buko Pie!

So that your pie does not fall apart when you cut it, you must practice restraint and let the Vegan Buko Pie cool down completely.  This helps the filling to solidify and for the crust to finish baking.

To serve I just like eating it on it's own.  It's a very clean fresh coconut pie as opposed to those filled with cream.

If you do like a little bit of cream on it you can top the Vegan Buko Pie with some vegan coconut ice cream or some coco whip.

Don't forget to check out what my other friends brought to the table:

Kitchen Confidante

The Little Epicurean

Six Snippets

Lemons and Anchovies

Madeline Hall

For more  Filipino inspired goodness in your life follow along on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest.  Or subscribe to get these recipes in your inbox.  And if you make this recipe.   I would love to see it.  Tag your Instagram snaps with @rezelkealoha and #rezelkealohaeats.