After a less than perfect day at work all I could think of was chocolate cream pie. A few days before this I had seen the movie Julie and Julie and all I could think of was the scene where Julie Powell who has also had a bad day decided to make chocolate pie. “One thing I know for certain, if you add eggs yolks to chocolate, it gets thick.” She says while her husband eats the chocolate cream filling as it spills from the bowl into the pie shell. All he wants to know is how long before it’s ready.
What I needed to know was how to make the filling. After some searching and tweeting with my fellow food blogger friends I found a recipe that I thought would work with what I had on hand.
I did a search to see if I could find the chocolate cream pie recipe that was in the movie. I did find a site http://www.movierecipes.net/2009/12/chocolate-pie/ that says it had one based on the movie but I should have known it wasn’t since the photo they used was one of a piece of cake not pie. But I tried it anyway…..
The basis of the pie is thickened cocoa and sugar that you add egg yolks and milk to. It’s all cooked on top of the stove then cooled and poured into a pie crust. Sounds simple enough? Yeah, I thought so too. But for some reason it just didn’t work for me.
My first step was to make the graham cracker crust. There is some debate as to whether you should use a baked pie shell or a graham cracker crust. To me this is all personal preference, and I prefer a graham cracker crust. They’re easy enough to make. Put broken graham crackers, sugar and some melted butter into a food processor until the mixture becomes easy to form.
Put the graham cracker crumbs into a pie shell and firm it down. I’ve found using the bottom of a measuring cup helps.
Now it was time to make the filling. I had only 2 large eggs and the recipe called for 3.
I followed the recipe to a “T” up until adding the egg yolks. Since I only had 2 large ones my husband decided he would go to the store and get more eggs. The pudding was starting to thicken while he was gone but I decided to add the last egg yolk. That’s when it all went wrong. After I added the last egg yolk, the filling stopped thickening all together. Not sure why. I took the filling off the stove and let it cool, still did not thicken.
So I took the heavy cream that I going to whip for the topping and whipped it and added it to the filling. Better but still not set.
The next day I tried some. Couldn’t slice it, it was too loose so I took a spoon and scooped some out. Couldn’t even take a photo of it, it looked like a spoonful of pudding on a plate. But it did taste good. So lesson learned. Sometimes when you want something so badly and you get it, maybe it’s not what you should have had in the first place. Or maybe even if it’s not perfect it’s okay as long as it tastes good.
Here’s the recipe I used. If you dare try it, please feel free to let me know your results.
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 cup water divided
2/3 cup milk
2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
baked pie crust or graham cracker crust – 9 inch
1. Mix cocoa and flour in the top of a double boiler over hot water and whisk in about half of the water, just enough to make a smooth paste.
2. Blend in the sugar and the beaten egg yolks and add the remaining water and milk. Cook over low until thick; add butter and vanilla. Pour into pie crust. Top with whipped cream and chill thoroughly.
Cook time: 15 minutes — Serves 8.
I cooked my pudding for a lot longer than 15 minutes and it still didn’t get thick. I guess the next time I want chocolate pie I’ll head over to the frozen case or try again using a box of old fashioned cooked pudding.
Have an cooking experiment you’d like share?
Have a fool proof chocolate cream pie recipe?