Everybody Makes Mistakes

We found a recipe for a Homemade Chocolate Pie in American Cowboy magazine and decided to make it. I have never eaten or made a chocolate pie before, but how hard could it be?

The recipe called for a homemade pie shell, but I decided to just use a frozen one.

*IMPORTANT TIP* When making a custard or pudding pie you must bake the pie shell first, before adding the custard or pudding. Otherwise the shell will never fully cook. 

Sadly, I learned this lesson the hard way.

I started by making the chocolate filling. Be very careful as you mix the sugar, coca, flour in the sauce pan because it will burn easily!  Make sure you are watching and stirring constantly. I would also recommend sifting the flour. I added in the cream and milk and brought the mixture to a boil.

The next step was to add the eggs to the boiling mixture. Now this recipe did not say to temper the eggs, but I did anyway and I still ended up with some scrambled eggs! After I mixed in the remaining ingredients I poured the entire mixture through a sieve to strain out the lumps.

Here is where I made the BIG mistake of pouring the chocolate filling in to a RAW pie shell. The recipe did not mention par baking the shell and I didn't know that you always par bake a shell before making a custard pie.

Needless to say, this pie was not edible because the shell was raw. :(

I made this pie again a few weeks later and decided to use a graham cracker pie shell. I thought chocolate, graham crackers and toasted marshmallow (the meringue topping) would be like a S'mores Pie!

A few comments about making the meringue. I noticed that after baking and refrigerating the pie was "sweating" out the cornstarch, sugar and cold water mixture. I don't know if it is necessary to add it, I think the meringue would be fine without it. I just put the egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar in my stand mixture and the meringue was nice and fluffy. Just be careful not to over beat.

After making the pie with the graham cracker crust we finally got to try it out! The pie is SUPER sweet but very delicious!  The meringue adds a lot of sweetness so I think it could be omitted. The chocolate pudding filling was amazing by itself!

This pie wasn't easy to make, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons that will help with other baking endeavors in the future.