.chocolate french silk pie.

Have you ever had french silk pie? If you have, you'll be familiar with the delicious light, whipped filling that has a very delicate texture. Absolutely delicious. The chocolate is very subtle, unlike a chocolate cream pie. This is really just a chocolate mousse plopped on pie crust. What can be better than that?

This pie does call for raw egg, so if you have a problem with that, this might not be the pie for you. But trust me (trust me), you will not get food poisoning and you cannot taste the egg at all.

Before making the filling, you need to make a pie crust. When I started the pie crust, I took 3 eggs out of the fridge and sat out on the counter. You don't want to use really cold eggs, but rather you want eggs that have the chill taken off them. I have found if you take them out as you start the pie crust, they'll be out long enough to whip well.


For this recipe, make one single pie crust. Put in your pie plate, stab with a fork to create air holes, and stick in a 425* oven for 10-15 minutes.

You want the pie crust to be a little golden brown. Pull from the oven and allow to cool. You can make this pie crust the night before if you want.






While the pie crust is in the oven, you need to melt 3 ounces chocolate. The key to this recipe is good chocolate. Don't use Hershey's or Toll House. I'm talking gourmet chocolate here, people.

I broke off a piece of my Callebaut bar. It is some seriously good chocolate with out about 70% cocoa. It's a nice dark chocolate.












Melt over a double boiler on low heat. Don't get this too hot!











In a mixing bowl, put 1 softened stick (1/2 cup) butter and 3/4 cup sugar.

You really will want to use a hand mixer or stand mixer for this. You will KILL YOURSELF trying to whip this by hand and you won't get anywhere near the texture you need/want.






Cream the sugar and butter together for about 5 minutes on medium high speed. You need to make sure you let this whip until the sugar is no longer grainy. It needs to dissolve into the butter.









Add the melted chocolate and whip to incorporate. See how fluffy this is already becoming?

Add 1 tsp vanilla at this point too. Mix well.









Now, add one egg and whip whip whip on high. When it has been whipped and the sides scraped, add the second egg.

Again, whip whip whip on high. Each time you add an egg, it will get lighter and fluffier. Scrape the sides again.

Add the third egg and whip whip whip for the last time. By this point, you will have a beautiful silky mousse filling.


Here's a better shot of that filling. See how gorgeous that is? It's almost like chocolate whipped cream!











Scrape all of the filling into the cooled pie shell. Put in the fridge to sit while we make the whipped cream.










Thanks to the magic of the internet, voila. Sweetened whipped cream! Put the whip cream in a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe whip cream around the edge of the pie and a little dollop in the center.

I used my vegetable peeler to shave off some chocolate off my Callebaut bar and sprinkled that on top.

Because this pie has egg in it, you will need to keep it in the fridge at all times. Probably not a good pie to serve at a hot summer pot luck outside. No no. Not good, unless you pull it directly from the fridge, serve, and put right back.

This pie is so very simple to make. Wow your family with this dessert tonight!


Printable version:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg2vfjqm_1312w8dkwdv