Amendments

After making the chocolate cream pie for a blog post, I was not entirely satisfied with the texture and consistency of my pie. Time for tinkering, which just meant that I needed to make another one. This rarely raises objections in my house.

First thing to tackle was the crust. It was a bit too crumbly for my liking, so I decided to let it set up a bit more. After making the crust, I popped it in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking it slightly longer in the oven. This allowed the crust to become a bit more uniform in texture and cut easier.

Next I needed to fix the darn thickness of my filling. Not happy with it, as it was slightly runny. I added an egg yolk to the mixture, which would lend itself to helping the "custard" set more as well as adding a bit of richness to the pie. I also swapped out cornstarch for flour. This has a two fold effect. First, you don’t have to stir as long to get the filling to thicken, and cornstarch has a more stable structure over time, so it is less likely to go all runny on you. While I believe the egg did little for the mixture (It already has three), the cornstarch did wonders. I sliced a piece last night and it came out just like I wanted it to, thick and pie like while still tasting delicious. To make the pie come together faster, I now recommend almost simmering the milk before adding the chocolate and other ingredients. This is because cornstarch's thickening ability is improved over a certain temperature, so the quicker you get there the faster it works (and fewer lumps are formed).

I have amended the original recipe and put a link at the bottom of this post.

Chocolate Cream Pie

Next up- Pasta Carbonara