I think I first learned of the existence of Chocolate Cream Pie when watching Goldie Hawn in the ’80s movie Overboard.  It was in a tinfoil pie shell which she served on a plate to which her hands had been superglued, so she had to slide it onto the table. Kurt Russell and the “kids” hoed into it with their hands. Basically it was a vision of tinfoil and whipped cream. Not inspiring, but I knew about it.

Not Goldie Hawn’s Chocolate Cream Pie

Since then, I have come across it a few times and have come to understand that it is at least as American as Apple Pie itself, but paid it no further mind, on the basis of the aforementioned vision of silver and cream.  It seemed to be well in the category of “not food”, overly simplistic, processed, probably too sweet, and definitely too rich.

Face it, it does look simple, sweet and rich… But in a good way.

This belief lasted for many years. Until last year, in fact.

First, I made the Mississippi Mud Pie on Martha Stewart’s website, which is so rich it could kill you at 50 paces, and has a flourless chocolate cake in an oreo crust, topped with chocolate custard and cream. It is totally wonderful made in cupcake size. I’ve been meaning to blog about that actually. That pie was surprising, because the chocolate custard was so lovely. Prior to this I have frankly not been much of a fan of chocolate in custard.

Next, Melbourne has a great Southern US/Louisiana style pub/restaurant called Le Bon Ton. To a Melburnian, it needs little introduction. It has amazing food, hotsauce soaked chicken wings, cherrywood smoked jalapeno cheese sausage, texas chilli cheese fries, I could go on. And the dessert menu consists entirely of pie. Chocolate Cream, Banana Cream, Apple and Pecan. I’ve had them all. The Apple Pie is also particularly spectacular.

On my first visit, stuffed full of fried chicken, southern crab cakes and chilli, I was faced with a terrible dilemma. Here, for the first time, was an open invitation to sample Chocolate Cream Pie. What the heck, I thought. It will be disgusting, which is fine, because I am too full to eat it anyway. And I will have tasted it. Knock it off the list, sort of thing.

So it arrived at the table, in an individual 5 inch pie tin, a mountain of cream drizzled in chocolate sauce. My dinner companion got Banana Cream Pie and that was coated in blowtorched meringue (and was surprising luscious).

Ok, so deep breath, and dig in. Cue “eating my words”.

Le Bon Ton’s Chocolate Cream Pie

I can’t tell you how good it was. The restauranteurs hail from New Mexico so clearly they know what they are about, and one of the things they were definitely about was this pie.

Dark chocolate (almost black) cookie crumb crust, creamy but beautifully set chocolate custard, billows of cream… I felt like Jodie Foster’s character Ellie Arroway in Contact where she’s looking at a star forming and says in this softly awed voice “I had no idea”.

So it was indeed very rich, and bearing in mind I already had a well developed foodbaby from my main meal, I could only physically eat half of it, but boy, it was the best half pie ever. Yes it was simple, proving simple things can be mind-blowingly superb. But processed and too sweet – no. Probably the cookie crumb crust was Oreo, I shall overlook this on the basis of “its American, fair enough”. The custard, which I had imagnings of being instant chocolate pudding (the most horrendous thing in a packet in the supermarket dessert aisle ever encountered in my childhood), was more like a sophisticated crème patissiere. And it was a star.

Inside… Even better than outside

Needless to say that Chocolate Cream Pie lust (with a solid encouragement from Louisiana hotsauce, cherrywood smoked chicken wings) had me returning to Le Bon Ton more times than I care to say in a short period of time. I took some lady friends with me one time, the glamourous type who (try to) watch their diets and seldom eat sweets, and these girls were in ecstasy, despite initial misgivings. Everybody I make eat this stuff, adores it. This is what I like to think of as the Chocolate Cream Pie Effect.

You can imagine my despair, then, when I went there for my birthday, and they had taken it off the menu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DISASTER. (Perhaps except for my waistline).

This meant, that if I wanted it, I would have to figure out how to make it for myself. This has probably turned in to an even bigger disaster for my waistline.

Somewhat unusually for me, this task has been a bit of a mission. I don’t normally have to make multiple multiple renditions in order to get something perfect – which means that the beguiling simplicity of chocolate cream pie actually lies in very important proportioning.

It’s been a long road, of inflicting it on my sister, my workmates, my mother, my friends, and restauranteur friends and unwitting guineapigs at my local bar/restaurant Hercules Morse. I should say that all of these renditions were loved by all who tasted them (the Chocolate Cream Pie Effect) – I was the fly in the ointment in this journey, because I knew I was looking for a very specific texture, taste, chocolate level, mouthfeel, and cutting quality. But I think that I’m there now.

The research phase – a previous recipe and a previous method!

Ironically the first one I made was at my sister’s, over New Year. It was really very delicious. But of course I didn’t note down the recipe, I just know I used Cadburys washed-out cocoa and no chocolate. On the next attempt I thought that really more would be more, so better cocoa and actual chocolate would make a better pie. Both of these factors meant the second one wasn’t right – wrong cookies, not enough butter to bind the crust, custard was too soft, and there was too much chocolate! The third one had the right cookies, but the cocoa was still too strong and the custard felt gritty. It was this rendition that I took to Hercules Morse and I am reliably informed that if you freeze it and eat it frozen, it’s completely wonderful (the Chocolate Cream Pie Effect is clearly a strong force in the Universe). The fourth one was ok, but the custard was still too soft and the proportion of filling to cream was wrong.

The fifth one… Nearly there. My assistant at work, who initially avoided it because she thought it was going to be too sweet, wound up with me in the lunchroom at about 3pm to make tea. I made her taste it, and she left the lunchroom with a cup full of pie. The Chocolate Cream Pie Effect in motion.

Finally I made four different chocolate custards and lined them side by side in a crust, and tasted them bite by bite. Jackpot.

Fillings side by side

So. Lessons we have learned. The cookies matter. The cocoa matters. The chocolate matters. The thickening agents matter. The proportions matter. The method doesn’t actually matter… but the one I’ve given you below is much easier to work!

About the cookies. I chose Oreos, being really dark, easy to obtain, nice to crush and because I couldn’t be bothered making my own dark chocolate cookies. But here’s the thing. The Oreos have to be chocolate cream stuffed. The vanilla cream ones make a truly disgusting flavoured crust for this pie.

Oreo crumb crust

About the cocoa. My first rendition was made at my sister’s house and, not knowing her kitchen, I couldn’t find any chocolate, so I had to make the custard with just cocoa. And she only had Cadbury Bournville Cocoa which, frankly, when you use high quality Dutch cocoa in your regular baking life, comes as a very pale comparison indeed. Funnily enough, 4 tablespoons of this brand with no other chocolate made a truly delicious custard – so go figure. 4 tablespoons of high quality Dutch cocoa was gritty, and tasted somehow “cheap”.

About the chocolate. For the ideal flavour, you really want a 50-60% cocoa chocolate. Enough oomph to boost the chocolatey taste, but not too much to be overpowering.

About the thickening agent – you really do want flour and cornflour. Its a proteins thing, to make the custard smooth but slightly stiff.

And the proportions – you want slightly more cream than custard; and you want that cream to mound just a bit higher than the pie crust.

So with all this research and all these rules, you might be thinking that this pie is unfeasibly complicated. But actually, it isn’t. It’s an incredibly simple beastie to make, and it gets better the next day, which means you can make it in advance. Serve it for dessert. Despite the Chocolate Cream Pie Effect, the uninitiated tend to find this one a bit confronting at morning tea time!

Chocolate Cream Pie

You will need a straight sided 20cm spring-form pan with the bottom lined with baking paper and the sides lightly greased with canola spray (this will help with easy extraction later!). An unfluted loose bottom tin would also work so long as you are careful when you unmould it. You can also just use a lightly greased 20cm pie plate or tin if you don’t want to lift the pie out before serving. Shape is also not critical, so you can use a 10x30cm loose bottomed or expandable bar tin, which yields nice rectangular slices, or for 12 individual cupcake sized pies, use the whole crust recipe, 3/5 the filling recipe and 3/5 the cream – remember to spray the pans and bake the crusts to make them easier to handle.

Chocolate Cream Pie

Serves 8-12 depending on how much dinner you’ve eaten.

Crust

ingredients

205 g Chocolate Cream Oreos (1 box)
75 g butter, melted

mixings

Process the Oreos in a food processor until you have fine crumbs. Add the butter, process until combined. You can also crush the Oreos and the butter together in a deep bowl using a pestle, but this is much messier!).   Tip the crumbs into the prepared tin. Using your fingers held flat, press the mixture evenly and loosely all over the base. Then press crumb up the sides to a height of about 4cm, and a thickness of about 4-5mm. Once you have done the sides you can redistribute the crumb over the base and press it down. Use the back of a dessert spoon to compact the crumb smoothly on the base and the sides. If you are feeling fussy, you can also carefully level the upper edge of the crust. Refrigerate the crust. If you’re making little pies, to make the crusts easier to unmould, it’s best to bake them for 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius and then chill them again once cooked. Loosen the crusts from the pans before filling them.

Chocolate Custard

500 mL milk
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla or 1/4 tsp ground vanilla pods
2 tbsp dark cocoa powder
5 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp plain flour
100g 50-60% cocoa chocolate, chopped
50g butter, chopped into cubes

300mL cream, whipped with a little vanilla if desired

mixings

Combine the milk, salt, vanilla and cocoa in a saucepan and whisk over a high heat until the mixture is well combined. Let the milk heat until it just starts to simmer.

Combine the egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and flour in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. When the milk is hot, pour over the egg mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly until all the milk is incorporated. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir over a medium heat until it thickens and boils. Let the mixture boil for about a minute, then remove from the heat. Scatter the chopped chocolate and cubed butter over the hot custard, and stir until the chocolate and butter melts and  the mixture is combined. Cover the hot custard with a film of cling wrap and let cool.

When the mixture is just warm, spoon into the prepared crust and refrigerate until set and everything is very cold (the longer you leave it the better, at least 2 hours). Top the pie with the whipped cream, either making peaks with a knife or by piping the cream in stars onto the filling. You can chill it a little longer at this point or serve it immediately.

To unmould the pie, soak a clean tea-towel or cloth in very hot water and wrap around the sides of the pan for about 30 seconds. This will slightly melt the butter next to the sides of the pan. Undo the spring-form collar slowly and ease away from the sides of the pie. Be careful when transferring to a plate – the pie is a little flexible and the crust will crack.

Decorate the top of the pie as desired, for example with shaved chocolate, chocolate sprinkles, sifted cocoa or drizzles of chocolate sauce, and serve when still well chilled. This delicious beastie doesn’t take well to sitting around in the warm!

Ready for the Chocolate Cream Pie Effect?

Enjoyxxx