Lazy Days & Chocolate Chess Pie

It's been a really busy few weeks, so I'm sorry for the delay.  Baby Boy Taylor looks great!  He's very active in his little home (which doesn't feel or look so little to me).  We hit 19 weeks tomorrow!  The doctors have suggested I spend some serious time with my feet up, which has put my husband in the kitchen more.  He's awesome in there, though, so I don't mind.  Here's a shot of our little troublemaker at about 16 weeks - he happened to look up at the sonogram wand, open his mouth, and give us some jazz hands at the right time:

In the midst of all this sleeping, working, sleeping and sleeping some more, I honestly haven't done a lot of cooking.  Shocker.  But I did attempt one of the scariest recipes in my mom's book.  Chocolate Chess Pie.  

Chocolate Chess Pie, in our family, is legend.  I don't remember when Mom introduced it to Thanksgiving but I remember holidays without it.  See, I'm not a huge fan of pecan pie or regular chess pie.  Mom never liked pumpkin so it wasn't always present, and really, I probably wouldn't have liked it until the past ten years anyway, when I jumped on the pumpkin from September-December bandwagon.  

But holidays were experiment days, especially in a family full of teachers who had a week or two surrounding each event to plan and research new recipes.  So one day this pie showed up, probably around the time I was 8, and suddenly I had a dessert I loved at Thanksgiving - aside from the pumpkin roll which we'll get to later.  

This pie belongs to a lot of people!  It is what my cousin's son Roland recently requested for his birthday dessert.  It is what my mom made my uncle Charles for his birthday every year.  My cousin, Eric, knew Aunt Debbie made this for him every Thanksgiving, and he wasn't wrong!  This pie was a huge gift from Mom, and everyone loved to receive it.

The problem is this pie is a legendary challenge.  Ugly - this dessert is, at least according to my mother, the ugliest dessert in existence and if you follow her rules, you have to apologize for its appearance at every turn. 

I'll just put out a blanket apology now, and say it really doesn't matter what it looks like.  All you have to do is taste it.

And now that I think about it, I will go ahead and let you know that my mom had a way of writing recipes that makes no sense to me.  We'll talk about this more when we hit cornbread dressing, but she tended to write the brand name rather than the item on every recipe.  So I'll include both :)

Chocolate Chess Pie 

1 uncooked pie crust - Pet Ritz frozen (now Pillsbury)

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 Tablespoon flour

1/2 cup melted butter

3 eggs

1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

whipped cream for garnish - Redi Whip or homemade.  Homemade is super easy.  I'll add something about it at the bottom.

Place your oven rack on the lowest position.  I did this, but it may have been a mistake.  We have a gas oven, and putting it on the bottom puts the pie closest to the flame.  Our crust was just a little bit chewy, so I will be experimenting with this.  In an electric oven, it should be fine.

Mix together sugar, cocoa and flour in a bowl until there are no lumps.  In older recipes, Mom mentions running them through a sifter.  I prefer to mix dry ingredients with a whisk.  It saves time and does the same job :)

Stir in melted butter.  

Mix in one egg at a time until smooth.  I don't know that I'd call it SMOOTH, but it starts to look like a glob of fudge, or chocolate cookie dough.  It also smells amazing.

Stir in milk and vanilla - no extra vanilla this time.  It's important to stick to the numbers with pies!

Now that is smooth!

Place the pie crust on a dark cookie sheet for stability.  Dark cookie sheets are better for this because the lighter ones are made to reflect specific heats to give crusty shells, nonstick bottoms, and a lot of other stuff that doesn't matter when you're just trying to balance a hot pie.  Pour the mixture into the pie crust.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.  

When the pie comes out, it will have developed a dome.  Somehow I didn't get a picture of this.  I'm sorry.  I wish I had because it really freaked me out to see it.  Set it to cool to room temp and it will fall.

See?  Ugly.

Cover and place in the fridge.  This pie is best served cold, covered in whipped cream.  Also, the whipped cream covers all the ugly.  If we'd been serving the pie all at once, I would have made it beautiful.  But I only had four friends coming over, so I took a picture of the destruction.

The clear plate makes it look like we eat straight off the counter.  Aww yeah.  Fun fact - those clear plates are leftover from our wedding in 2009.  We don't waste!  They even made the move from the townhouse!

*Homemade Whipped Cream

1 carton whipping cream (I like the small cartons - they're more manageable)

1-2 teaspoons vanilla  

Whip these together with an electric beater.  A whisk attachment is best.  You'll do this forever.  Then it will look and taste like whipped cream!