Bittman Mondays – Chocolate Cream Pie

I do realize that this week’s edition of Bittman Mondays is a little late…but it’s been a weekend.  You know when you have one of those weekends that fly right by you in a haze of activity?  Or one of those weekends when so many things happen, it takes way too long to wrap your brain around them?  Or one of those weekends when the thought of doing anything more culinary than boiling water seems a Herculean feat?  Well that was the kind of weekend I had…all rolled up into one.  So when it came time for Bittman Monday, I went on the hunt for pie…preferably with chocolate.  Because as we all know, a good pie crust and chocolate make everything so much better.

It was such a beautiful weekend that the very thought of doing anything trapped indoors (like pie baking) seemed wrong somehow.  I mean, here it was February and it felt like Spring!  Brunch was being served outside all over the city.  The line for froyo (oh I’m hip to the lingo the young kids are throwing down now) at Tangy Sweet went out the door in Dupont Circle.  And we won’t even discuss the odd mixture of children picniking with their parents alongside a band of young Asian guys break dancing to Grand Master Flash (if only I’d had the sense enough to capture their routine on film).  So you can’t blame me for not wanting to stay inside toiling over a pie, can you?  I mean, it’s not like I completely abandoned the kitchen or anything…just decided to have a fling with the outdoors instead.

But just as I had to when I was younger, I came in when the street lights came on.  And it was at that moment when I remembered this chocolate cream pie…and the fact that I hadn’t actually finished making it.  I made the crust on Saturday, so all I had to do was roll it out, bake it and make the filling.  Honestly, this ended up being one of the easiest pies I’ve ever made, right down to the instructions for the crust.  Sure I knew all about using beans, rice or pie weights to keep the crust from bubbling up during baking.  But I’d never heard about first placing a greased piece of foil over the crust before weighing it down with the aforementioned rice, beans or pie weights.  This prevents the weights from leaving indentions in your finished crust.  Even though the filling always covers up the indentions, the foil also prevents any moisture from escaping the crust during baking.  What’s left is a wonderfully flaky crust that is still sturdy enough to hold up to any filling.

As with almost all of his recipes, Bittman’s Cream Pie recipe is a master recipe that allows for variation.  I threw in two ounces of quality unsweetened chocolate from ACKC here in DC into the basic cream filling as it cooked.  The result was a rich and decadent pudding that could have easily been eaten on its own.  I followed the recipe faithfully and added the meringue topping but the next time I make it, I will be using a homemade bourbon whip cream instead.  Because as one of my good friends puts it, “What could be better than whiskey and chocolate?”

Tagged as: Baking, Baking Recipe, Bittman Mondays, Chocolate, Chocolate Cream Pie, Chocolate Cream Pie Recipe, Chocolate Recipe, Food, Pie, Pie Crust, Pie Crust Recipe, Pie Recipe, recipes