Ask and Ye Shall Clog Your Arteries...

I have heard the clamoring. I have heard the masses yearning for the recipe to the fabled chocolate chess pie. Yes, you can find recipes on the web for it. But they have to try to get all stupid and fancy and add all sorts of silly & superfluous ingredients. Let me give you the classic chocolate chess pie recipe that my family has made for years. I have taken a recipe from a dear family friend Lou (my middle name is Lou after her - and I dare say that might be why I'm so attached to her chocolate chess pie!) and made it well known from Boston to Austin.


Here are two from the 2006 holiday season...So here, gentle reader, is the recipe that will make you a regular on holiday party lists. It is incredibly easy but tastes like it took forever:

CHOCOLATE CHESS PIE
1 1/2 stick butter (I use organic unsalted)
2 1-oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 9" unbaked pie shell

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Melt butter and chocolate in a pan over low heat (don't burn it).
• Mix eggs, sugar, salt & vanilla in a large mixing bowl. (I made them for decades mixing by hand. But I've found my recent pies mixed w/ an electric mixer makes them sit higher in the pie plate.)
• Slowly pour melted ingredients into the mixture in bowl - stirring the whole time.
• Pour into unbaked pie shell.
• Bake at 350F for 25-30 mins.

The top will round up pretty high. It will be wiggly when you take it out of the oven because you've basically just made an old fashioned pudding in a pie. So take it out carefully. It will fall as it cools so don't be alarmed.

I find that it serves better when it's completely cooled. If you cut it still hot, it will be a gooey runny mess. I mean, it will taste amazing. But basically use bowls if you serve it hot. Serve it with plain vanilla ice cream and you will basically pass out from happiness. It's good with unsweetened whipped cream (come on, it's got tons of sugar, you don't need sweetened whipped cream!). It's good hot or cold. Honestly, you can't go wrong with this pie.

Here is my secret to making it exactly my favorite way. The above recipe can come out perfect sometimes but often it's too runny for me. So I tend to add 2 tablespoons of flour to the mixture in the bowl. This firms it up pretty well. But it does remove me from a pure "chess" pie - which is generally eggs, sugar & butter. But ask Trish or Kristen...I may not have a "pure" chess pie but - DANG! - it's GOOOOOOOD!

Go and share the pie with the world. It really is amazingly good.

And Kendra, I thought about your dad - the pie shell - he can't have it because of the wheat. I recently saw a recipe for a cake that was basically a chocolate chess pie in a cake pan. So I'm wondering if we tried the chocolate chess pie recipe (minus the added flour) and baked it in a cake pan - would it work for your dad? Hmmm...

05/24 edited because my recipe was very U.S.-centric:
I apologize to the ever-baking Ellesappelle for not clarifying measurements. One stick of butter in the colonies is 4 oz or half a cup. So for one pie, you need about 6 oz of butter.