Billy Miner Pie (The Keg Copycat)

What is Billy Miner Pie

Billy Miner Pie is a dessert served by the Canadian restaurant franchise, The Keg Steakhouse + Bar. It’s a “pie” made up of an Oreo cookie crust, mocha ice cream filling, and topped with sliced almonds, caramel sauce, and chocolate sauce. 

While the restaurant has called it a pie (due to the crust made of Oreo crumbs, similar to a chocolate cream pie), it would be more accurate to describe the recipe as a mocha ice cream cake.

Who is Billy Miner

If you’ve never heard of Billy Miner Pie before, you wouldn’t be alone in assuming that the pie was originally created by someone named Billy Miner. However, this isn’t the case at all. The dessert is not Billy Miner’s Pie, but one created by The Keg in 1972 in homage to Billy Miner.

But who is Billy Miner? Bill Miner was a notorious train robber (sometimes referred to as the “Gentleman Bandit”) from the late 19th Century. The colors of the pie (mocha brown, caramel, and chocolate) are said to resemble Billy Miner’s beard! 

Personally, I don’t love the idea of naming a popular dessert after a bandit, but sometimes that’s just the way things are.

The Keg’s Billy Miner Pie Ice Cream

Given the recipe’s immense popularity, The Keg franchise have released a Billy Miner Pie ice cream flavor. And while the official ice cream (made up of mocha ice cream, chocolate and caramel swirls, diced almonds and cookie crumbs) does taste similar to The Keg’s Billy Miner Pie recipe, it’s not quite the same. Using The Keg’s Billy Miner Pie ice cream (while tasty) will not result in an accurate copycat of the in-restaurant dessert.

Ingredients

For the base

• Oreo cookies (no filling or filling removed) 
• Unsalted butter, melted 

For the ice cream pie

• Mocha ice cream 

For the toppings

• Semisweet chocolate, melted
• Caramel sauce
• Sliced almonds

How to make Billy Miner Pie

Given that there’s no actual baking required to make this ice cream pie recipe, it’s quite easy to do (and there’s also some added room for error and/or experimentation).

Begin by preparing an 8-inch springform pan with parchment paper. If you want a taller ice cream cake with a thicker base, you can use a 6-inch pan. 

How to prepare the base

Blend the Oreo cookies into crumbs, and transfer to a small bowl. Mix the melted butter into the crushed cookie crumbs and press the mixture evenly into the bottom of your prepared springform pan. (You can use the bottom of a measuring cup or the back of a large spoon to press the cookie base flat and even.) Place the pan into the freezer for 30 minutes. 

How to prepare the ice cream pie

Let your ice cream thaw for at least 10 minutes – you want the ice cream to be soft enough for you to scoop it and shape it (but not so melted that it turns into mush or leaks through your pan).

Spread the softened ice cream in an even layer over the chilled pie crust. Put the pie back into the freezer for at least six hours (ideally overnight), or until frozen.

Topping the pie

Carefully remove the frozen pie from the springform pan – although not necessary, it sometimes helps to go around the edges of the pan with a palette knife. 

When it comes to decorating the pie, you really can do whatever designs or patterns work for you. The Keg has a standard design (though I have experienced them deviate from it once or twice), so that’s what I’ve used (this is a copycat recipe, after all – I’ll give you some variation ideas in the section below). 

 Sprinkle the sliced almonds around the edges of the pie. Drizzle over the melted chocolate, and caramel sauce in a zig zag pattern (be generous, bestie!). Serve immediately (or store in the freezer). Enjoy!

Tips

Chill out. As you’re working with ice cream and a chilled chocolate crust, make sure to chill your pie properly – this is not the recipe to try to take a shortcut and rush the chilling process.

A clean cut. When it comes to ice cream cakes, cutting clean slices can be challenging. I recommend using a clean knife that's been dipped in warm water for best results.

Does it have to be mocha? Mocha ice cream is the closest to The Keg's original recipe, but cappuccino ice cream and coffee ice cream will give comparable results, depending on your preferences. 

While researching this post, I saw a few recipes saying that The Keg makes their Billy Miner Pie using only vanilla ice cream. I’ve never seen that before, so I called up The Keg to find out. And the answer was “No, Billy Miner Pie is never made using vanilla ice cream” (but they have occasionally served a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side).

Presentation. You’re really free to plate and present the pie any way you like, less is often more for something like this but I recommend giving it an extra drizzle of chocolate and caramel sauce once you’ve cut and placed a slice of Billy Miner Pie on a plate.

Substitutions

At its core, Billy Miner Pie is a relatively simple dessert. And that means it’s easy to find or make substitutions for most of the core ingredients.

Swapping out Oreo cookies

You don't have to use official Oreo cookies for this recipe. Any similar chocolate cookie will work (as long as you enjoy the taste).

Store-bought chocolate sauce

If you don’t feel like melting chocolate, or have a preference of any store-bought chocolate sauce (or chocolate fudge sauce), you can use that instead. Personally, I like melting dark or semi-sweet chocolate and using that, but a hot fudge sauce is an excellent substitute.

Homemade caramel sauce

I suggest using a store-bought caramel as my goal is provide an easy Billy Miner Pie recipe that you can make at home. However, a homemade caramel allows you the flexibility to determine exactly how you want your caramel sauce to taste.

Making the caramel sauce at home would be matter of melting sugar in a heavy-bottomed pan, and mixing it with butter and then heavy cream. The caramel bubbles when hot so I recommend not doing this for the sake of this recipe unless you’re already comfortable with making caramel at home.

Homemade mocha ice cream

While mocha ice cream is available in most major supermarkets here in Toronto, I understand that’s not the case everywhere. If you’re not able to find mocha or a mocha-adjacent flavor (like cappuccino), you can mix together equal parts of coffee ice cream and chocolate ice cream (ideally, a dark chocolate ice cream). It’s not a perfect substitute, but it’ll do the trick if you’re in a pinch.

Storage

As this is an ice cream pie, it stores quite well. Billy Miner Pie can be frozen for up to one month. I recommend freezing the pie without any toppings, and then adding fresh toppings when you choose to serve it. 

Please don’t make the mistake of trying to store this in the fridge – the ice cream layer will melt.