American Chocolate Pie

The Boy's mom makes a fantastic chocolate pie every time we go home to Olathe, KS. It's one of those quintessential American recipes - easy, delicious, and chocolaty. In a moment of culinary history epiphany, The Boy professed the American way: just add peanut butter, chocolate, cheese or bacon, and it will be tasty. It's more true than you think!

Adapted from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. This recipe produces a slightly gelatinous chocolate pie filling, as opposed to a custard-based filling e.g. in a Lemon Sabayon tart.

AMERICAN CHOCOLATE PIE

A - Base
1 pie crust (either homemade or prepared)

B - Filling
1.5 cups white sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups whole milk
2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped

C - Thickening agent
4 large egg yolks, beaten with a whisk
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla

*****

A - Bake tart pastry.

B - In a saucepan, mix the sugar, cornstarch, salt and milk. Mix well and then add the chocolate. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a spoon, until the mixture starts bubbling. Boil until the mixture thickens and leaves a trail on the surface when you lift your spoon.

C - Lower the heat. Bit by bit, stir in the beaten egg yolks slowly. The trick here is not to cook the egg yolks, but to control the temperature such that it acts as a thickening agent instead. If you see bits of cooked egg yolk forming, just cheat and take them out with a spoon. =)

Stir in the butter and vanilla. Turn off heat and set aside. When the filling has cooled slightly, pour the warm filling into the tart pastry. Press a plastic wrap over the filling to prevent a film forming on the top.

Refrigerate at least 2 hours until the filling has set.