triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Mexican Silk Chocolate Pie

This is the simplest recipe I've ever posted. Not the simplest to make, just the simplest for me to post. I merely copied one I'd posted before, and made a simple ingredient substitution.

That simple ingredient substitution completely changes the character of this pie. The wee wifey learned recently that cinnamon can help control her blood sugar, and it's been turning up since then in a lot of what she eats. She asked me if I thought the extract would work in the pie she was making for this weekend's Easteroid gathering, and I suggested also adding almond, so as to emulate the Mexican hot chocolate, and it worked well enough to amount to a new recipe.

1 cup unsalted butter - 2 sticks
1 1/2 cups white sugar (very fine sugar, such as some of the generic beet sugar, is best)
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
4 eggs
1 pie crust -- (9 inch) baked

Cream butter and sugar. Blend in chocolate and flavor extracts. Beating at high speed, add one egg and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Repeat with each remaining egg. Keep whipping until fluffy.
Spread in cooked pie shell of choice and keep refrigerated

Wee wifey's notes: "I generally use a crust made from pecan shortbread cookies. The key to success is thorough beating. Beat 5 minutes after each egg for a minimum of 20 minutes total for the pie. This is what makes the pie! And yes, I use a hand mixer. To do so I sit at the kitchen table with another chair in front of me (between my legs). On the chair I have 2 large phone books on which the bowl is placed. In this position I can lay my arm on the kitchen table and hold the hand mixer -- thus I am able to mix the filling for the required 20-25 minutes and not have my "arm drop off". Be sure that you can see a clock from this position. It also helps to have the radio or TV on to make the time go a bit faster."

Please note this pie uses raw eggs. Be sure to use only fresh eggs for this recipe. Do not serve to the immune impaired.

Update:

Chilled and set up, the flavoring was a little subtler than I expected. You may wish to try 1 teaspoon cinnamon extract and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract.

For the same occasion we* also made another batch of the Italian sausage pepper and onion recipe I posted a couple of weeks ago. The suggested improvements worked as expected.

*Yes, we. I prepped the vegetables for our entire contribution, including slicing lots of onions and peeling 6 each, cucumbers and potatoes. The trick is to sharpen the peeler from the back side with a triangle stone.

Posted by triticale at April 14, 2007 06:54 AM | TrackBack