Happy Wednesday! I am excited to share this recipe for Chai Spiced Ruffled Milk Pie with you because this pie is the perfect, little comforting dessert for right now. It’s cold everywhere, I live under my heated blanket and all I want to drink are hot things. We used chai spice in this pie because we love it and will never be over chai spice in desserts. Chai is just so good.
The ruffles from this pie come from scrunching the fillo together which is an easy thing to do. Then you wrap the scrunched fillo into a coil and bake it. Halfway through baking it you pour the milk over the entire dessert making a softer center with crispy edges. It’s so good and the scrunching makes it really easy. Anyone can make this chai spiced ruffled milk pie look and taste amazing, I promise. It’s one of those pies (using that term loosely, lol) that looks impressive but isn’t hard to make at all. It’s totally my favorite kind of pie. :)
You can also make this recipe ahead of time and stick it in the freezer pre-baked. When you’re ready for it, just pop it into the oven straight from the freezer. It’s so simple and makes a great freeze ahead dessert!
If you love this recipe and just chai in general, you’ll also love our chai banana cake.
♥ Teri
Chai Spiced Ruffled Milk Pie
INGREDIENTS
chai spice
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¾ teaspoon cardamom
- ¾ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¾ teaspoon ground cloves
filling
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
- 2 cups finely chopped walnuts
- 1 ½ cups light brown sugar, divided
- 2 cups milk
- 2 large eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
assembly
- 32 sheets fillo dough, thawed
- ⅔ cup powdered sugar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350˚F.
- Lightly grease inside of 9 inch springform pan, then wrap foil and place onto a baking sheet. Set aside.
- Place all chai spice ingredients into a small mixing bowl and whisk together.
- Place 2 sheets filo onto a clean surface, overlapping one another. Brush the top sheet with butter and top with 2 more sheet of filo and brush with butter.
- Sprinkle ¼ cup of chopped walnuts evenly over buttered filo followed by 1 tablespoon brown sugar and ¼ teaspoon of chai spice.
- Carefully scrunch together filo sheet from top to bottom, then tightly curl into a spiral.
- Place stuffed and rolled filo into center of springform.
- Repeat steps 4 to 6 with remaining ingredients, adding to the original spiral, with each ruffled log of filo until the springform is full.
- Place pie in oven and bake for about 20 minutes.
- While pie is baking, make custard base: Pour milk and vanilla into a saucepan and scald over medium-low heat.
- In a mixing bowl combine remaining cup of brown sugar and eggs and whisk together.
- Add ½ cup scalding milk to egg and sugar mixture and quickly whisk together to prevent scrambling. Whisk an additional ½ cup milk to mixture and whisk together.
- Pour mixture back into saucepan with remaining milk and whisk together.
- Cook mixture, constantly stirring, until just thick enough to barely coat the back of a wooden spoon. Stir in ½ tablespoon chai spice into milk mixture and remove from heat.
- After 20 minutes remove pie from oven. Pour milk mixture evenly over pie and place back into oven for an additional 20 to 25 minutes or until custard sets and top of pie turns golden brown.
- Remove from oven and cool for 10 to 15 minutes before unmolding from pan. Transfer to serving dish.
- Combine powdered sugar with remaining chai spice and sift over ruffled pie. Serve.
NOTES
*To Freeze: Cover springform pan tightly with foil and place in freezer for up to 3 months. To make, preheat oven as directed above and bake pie for 30 minutes before pouring milk mixture over and continuing to bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
Did you make this recipe? We want to see!
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Hi Teri Lyn! This recipe sounds amazing! Does it have to be served immediately after cooling? What are the recommended storing instructions?
Did you really mean 3/4 CUP of cardamom?
no, definitely not! thanks for pointing that out, the recipe has been updated!
This looks absolutely amazing and I want to try to make it but I don’t quite understand what is going on. I am no expert when it comes to baking and cooking but I wanted to try something new. Hopefully something can be fixed so people like me can understand it.
ah yes! This is definitely on we should’ve done a few process images for! It’s definitely a simple recipe, but without photos can be confusing for sure. We’ll work on getting those up soon!
I think it would be very helpful to post pictures of all steps or a video. I was excited to make this but I literally don’t know what the steps are referring to.
I was a little lost, too, with the scrunching and rolling. Looking at the pic I’m guessing that you’re mooshing (as much as one can moosh) the phyllo and then, starting in the center of the pan, spiraling the mooshed phyllo in the pan from the center to the outside. Looks yummy.
this is interesting but I don’t understand some of the directions!
#4 – overlap end to end? or stack on top of each other?
#6 – Scrunch? not sure how. Lengthwise or short end? is a scrunch a messy roll-up?
#8 – do you add this scrunched log to the end of the 1st spiral? or are they stacked to fill the pan?
Some photos might be helpful since this is a new technique.
It looks delicious and I have some new crop walnuts that I am anxious to try it on!
Hi. #2 directions are a bit confusing. Wrap what in foil? Can you include photos of the steps. Normally I don’t need them, but this recipe could use a few. Also, #6, 7, and 8….could use photos. Thank you. I really would like to try this, but feel a bit lost on the procedure.
Could really use a video for this. I’m having a hard time visualizing what you do with the phylo.
Any chance there is a video or pictures with the recipe? Not sure what it means to overlap, fill and scrunch and filo …
I had that question too, so did an internet search and found pictures of a similar pie on Smitten Kitchen. I think I get it now. Can’t wait to try this!