Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

Oh my. Oh my god. Where has this pie been all my life? It sounds like such an unlikely combination; cookie and pie, but it works. It works really, really well. This pie is just the perfect combination of structure and dense, chewy goodness and I have no doubt anybody it is served to will love it. Because who doesn't love cookie or pie? It can only get better when you combine the two.

When I first came across the inspiration for this recipe (here and here), I was a little baffled. How exactly did it work? Was it just a giant cookie? What on earth? You see, I'd never heard of a chocolate chip cookie pie - we're rather deprived when it comes to sweet pies out here in New Zealand. I've already explained that here, pie means meat and pastry. So finding new sweet pie recipes is always a revelation and exceedingly exciting. Anyway, despite my misgivings, I plowed on. And it was kind of a little scary, but once I figured out just what was happening, and let the oven do it's thing, everything went very smoothly. When I first put this pie into the oven, the filling promptly dissolved, because it has a lot of sugar in it. I freaked out and wondered what on earth I'd done wrong, before I remembered sugar + heat = duh! So I let it cook further, and lo and behold; the flour and eggs did their job. This pie, it appears, is supposed to be very moist and dense - which makes sense, given the amount of heavy ingredients (pecans and chocolate) and butter in the recipe. So maybe this is a recipe you don't want to make if you're convinced every baking endeavour you under take will flop. In saying that, this pie actually isn't complicated. It just requires a little leap of faith at certain points. I am convinced that any baked good I make succeeds because I refuse to think that it won't work, somehow. It can always be salvaged, right? Lets just cut off the burnt bits! (Kidding! I don't really burn things now days). Nobody has any idea how often things I make don't turn out how I intended, but they work well just the same.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

Pie Crust
1 1/2 cup flour
120 g butter, melted
1/4 c caster sugar
1 egg yolk

1. In a bowl, chuck all your ingredients and blend. What you should come out with is a loose dough that has formed into lots of little balls.


See what I mean?

2. Press it into a tin. Make sure it is very well greased. For this pie, you want it to be relatively deep, so a nine inch pan with high sides is best. I only had a spring-loaded cake pan, so I used that, and just stopped the crust about an inch from the top.



3. Cover with baking paper and weight down with baking beans (I use haricott, you can use other dried beans, or rice. Just anything that won't burn when you put it in the oven). Let cook for five minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celcius, then remove from the oven and let cool. While cooling, make up your filling.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Filling
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
150g butter, softened but not melted
1 cup chocolate buttons (I pefer milk)
1 cup roughly chopped pecans

1. Beat your eggs well, until they are frothy, at least a minute, preferably two.

2. Combine the flour and sugars with the egg.


3. Slowly add in your butter, chocolate and pecans, making sure that everything is well combined (no butter pools/slicks).



4. Fill your semi-cooked pie crust, and then put into the oven (which should already be heated to 180 degrees celcius from cooking the pie) to cook for roughly 35 - 45 minutes.



5. Remove from oven and let sit for five minutes. If you used a spring loaded pan, go ahead and release the catch now and ease the sides away.


Looks like a giant cookie, doesn't it?

6. Dust with icing sugar, cut the pie and serve warm with ice cream.



7. Eat it. Immediately.




Deliciously dense.

Chocolate Custard Pie with the Easiest Pastry Crust Ever

This is one of the recipes that reinvigorated my love affaire with baking. I'd been away at university for the last four years, and my kitchen skills had suffered. But I'd been talking with some American friends, and they were waxing lyrical about how fantastic sweet pies were. Here in New Zealand, pie means pastry with meat in it, so the concept was unusual but sounded yummy. As I am a chocolate lover, I decided that was to be my flavour and set out to find a suitable recipe. It scared me; they all seemed so fancy and custard filled. What if the custard didn't cook, or it curdled, or... there was a long list. But really? It was so much easier than I'd anticipated and my confidence was boosted immeasurably.

This pie is delicious, and made with milk chocolate, so the chocolate flavour is not really overwhelming. Which is to say, you won't feel like you're going to die of chocolate over load by the end of it. If, however, you do desire such a delicious fate, go ahead and use a chocolate with a high cocoa percentage.

It was my father's birthday today (52!), so I thought we should have a yummy dessert, which is why this delicious recipe is making it's debut tonight.


The dessert section of my much loved recipe book.

Easiest Pastry Crust Ever:

1 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa
100g salted, melted butter*
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg yolk

*I always use salted butter in my cooking; unless I stipulate otherwise, assume it's salted.

1. In a bowl combine everything. Make sure that your melted butter does not touch the yolk initially. You don't want a cooked yolk.

2. With an electric mixer, combine.

3. You can kneed and roll this pastry if you like, but I never, ever do. Instead I press it into a flan tin (one where the bottom lifts out if pushed from underneath). Just keep adding little handfuls of the pastry mix and press until the whole tin is covered (sides included). Make sure your tin is well buttered.


See the loose stuff around the edge? Just press it down, so that it looks like the stuff in the middle.


Buttered up.

5. Cover in baking paper and then fill with baking beans* to weight down. Bake for ten minutes at 180 degrees celcius, just long enough to partially bake the crust, but not long enough so that it will burn when you cook the custard filling.


Here we are all ready to go into the oven. It'll look pretty much the same when it comes out.


With the beans. I always like to make sure the baking paper covers the edges, as they are the most likely to burn/cook faster.

6. Remove and let cool for ten minutes, then fill with custard and pop back in the oven for 10 - 20 minutes.

* I use haricott beans. Rice works, too. Anything that you don't ever want to cook again, and will not burn when in the oven.

Chocolate Custard Filling:

270g milk chocolate
375mls heavy cream
2 eggs
1 egg yolk

1. In a saucepan slowly heat the cream and chocolate. Do not let it boil; you really just want enough heat to melt the chocolate, so that you can combine the two.

2. Set aside to cool to tepid (and make your crust).

3. Once the mixture is tepid, whisk in your eggs and egg yolk. Now you can pour the mixture into your prepared pastry case, and bake for 10-20 minutes at 180 degrees celcius. In order to tell if the custard has set, touch it gently. If you feel some resistence to your touch, it is ready. There should be some jiggle to it, but nothing that would indicate that it is still liquidly inside. It will not set to solid.


All cooked up and cooling.

4. When cooled, dust with lots of icing sugar and serve with a dollop of cream




Does that not look amazing? It's all creamy and velvet soft and yummy in there.