Classic French Silk Pie

One last offering for your Thanksgiving dessert table and it has nothing to do with pumpkin or sweet potato.  Last week I wanted to make a birthday dessert for my friend Trevor. If you follow along here intently, you know Trevor help me shoot Bakehouse classes and is generally a wonderful friend.  Since he’s always watching me bake, we talk a lot about his favorite nostalgic desserts and whether or not I can recreate them.  Last Christmas Trevor texted me a picture from his mom’s church cookbook with a recipe for his favorite French Silk Pie. It was a simply pie with a store-bought crust and Cool Whip topping and looked JUST RIGHT.  I tucked that French Silk Pie recipe away brought it out last week for Trevor’s birthday.

Because I’m me I made pie crust from scratch and a combination of Cool Whip and fresh whipped cream. It was divine and I mean that quite literally.

I’m making another pie this week for Thanksgiving. I only got one piece last week and have been hankering for another ever since.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this French Silk Pie recipe:

•  a single disk of all-butter pie crust.

•  granulated sugar and powdered sugar

•  eggs

•  unsweetened chocolate

•  unsalted butter

•  vanilla extract

•  heavy cream

•  pie weights (which can me store bought or dried beans or granulated sugar), pie tin, and parchment paper.

Start by making a butter pie crust. Make two pie crusts for future pies if you’re feeling ambitious. I stick with this technique for making all-butter pie crust by hand.  The one difference with this pie crust is that we’ll blind bake it after a long chill in the refrigerator.  Blind baking means we’re baking the crust to golden crisp with no filling in it.  We’ll use pie weights or dried beans to weight the pie crust downs as it bakes.

Blind baking takes can be a little touch and go.  I find that King Arthur Flour has a good tutorial on the matter.

My tips:

•  Freeze the pie dough in the pie tin while the oven preheats

•  Dock the bottom and sides of the crust. That means prick the crust with the tines of a fork.

•  Line with parchment paper and fill to the absolute brim with pie weights or beans.  The tippy top of the crust edges is how high you want the weight to keep the crust from sinking.

•  Preheat a baking stone in the oven and blind bake the pie crust on top of the stone. It will help the bottom of the pie crust bake to deep golden.

While the crust bakes, let’s make the chocolate pie filling.

Start by whisking eggs and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  We won’t cook this pie filling so this step makes the raw eggs safe for consumption.  Cook the eggs to 160 degrees F whisking constantly.  Be patient here, don’t boost the heat to speed up the process. You don’t want to cook the eggs to a sugary scramble.

We want this French Silk Pie recipe to be chocolate, of course. After the eggs come to temperature, pour in melted chocolate and a pinch of salt and vanilla extract and whisk to combine.  The mixture will feel like it thickens and tightens some – that’s right.  Whisk to glossy smooth and allow to cool to room temperature.

Once the chocolate cools, whip unsalted butter in a medium bowl just to ensure that it’s super well softened and spreadable.

Add the melted chocolate and egg mixture and whip on medium speed for about 5 minutes to thick and well combined.

The cooled chocolate mixture will feel like a sticky, glossy chocolate wonder.

We’ll lighten it with softly whipped, very lightly sweetened cream.  Gently fold in the whipped cream in three batches to keep from deflating the cream.

Note: for Trevor’s pie, I used COOL WHIP like his old school recipe called for. Loved it!

What emerges is a light and fluffy chocolate mousse you’ll want to eat by the spoonful. The taste is just beyond!

Instead though – spoon the chocolate mousse into a cooled baked pie crust.

Don’t cheat and spoon into a warm crust – you don’t want a melty layer of mousse that would be a bummer.

I refrigerate the pie for 2 hours, loosely covered with plastic wrap.

After the pie chills, top with lightly whipped cream and garnish with chocolate curls.

Refrigerate the pie until ready to serve.

Look at this wonder of a pie!

A perfect slice. It’s so light and flavorful, you’ll want a second slice with your first bite.

Photos with Jon Melendez.

Inspiration from Trevor Ekanger for his 35th birthday.

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