Best Chocolate Cream Pie Recipe?
I am planning on making a chocolate cream pie for Saturday eve. Right now I have a recipe from the Gourmet cookbook & one from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Never having made this before, I'm not sure if I should go with the latter (which calls for 2.5 cups half & half, 6 eggs and 6 tbsp of butter) or the former (3 c milk, 4 eggs, 2 tbsp butter). The recipes are otherwise pretty similar. It needs to be good but I don't think we really need all that extra richness... can I go with the lower-fat Gourmet version and will it be good? Please help! Thanks!
doc_k55
Sep 19, 2007 07:54PM
I have made the Cook's Illustrated cream pie recipe, which I think is the same as the ATK one? There are lots of versions in that original CI article, and I don't actually think I made the chocolate version, but the coconut, banana, and I'm thinking the vanilla, too. All were really good, and yeah, rich as it gets. I think I even used part milk and part half and half, if I remember correctly. I also didn't do that whole rolling the pie crust in graham cracker crumbs thing, which seemed silly. I'm not big on graham cracker crusted pie unless it's chiffon though. Gosh, I don't know if this helps you at all, but I do suspect that a 4 egg, 3 c. milk pie would be plenty decadent enough, based on the take-no-prisoners richness of the CI recipes. ATK and CI have a tendency toward fat, fat, fat, which tastes great but is sometimes unnecessary for everyday meals.
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Thanks, that's my sense of it too. I agree - CI/ATK do have exceedingly rich recipes - and while that over the top approach is occasionally ok, I am hoping that the less-rich Gourmet recipe will be fine. We'll see if anyone else responds!
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Sorry -- I realize this is an old post. I made the Gourmet magazine recipe over the weekend and wasn't terribly impressed. It was good, but using cocoa powder added to water and thickening that with corn starch left me wondering why I hadn't just used a jello instant pudding mix. Yeah, I know there is a little bit of bittersweet chocolate add, but it tasted about the same as jello, too, which is to say, not bad, but really not great.
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