I made that!

Are you ready to get messy? This post is a reminder that we all make mistakes. And as long as those mistakes still taste good, who really cares? I do, because I’m a perfectionist, but I don’t think anyone else at dinner tonight did.

This pie is a spin on a family tradition. In the south, chocolate pudding pie is king. Every family has their recipe, and of course, everyone thinks theirs is the best.  I’ve made this one for years, and I’m pretty confident it’s a winner. Traditionally, in my family, it’s just a crust, some chocolate pudding and some meringue. I like to wait for strawberry season so I can throw some strawberries on top. Today I traded out the meringue for some whipped cream.

It all started out like any other pie: with a perfectly baked flaky pie crust. Crust so flaky I could see the butter boiling in the translucent flakes when I pulled it out of the oven.

Then I smeared in some melted dark chocolate. The melted chocolate forms a shell to protect the crust from the wet filling. I’m a bit of a crust Nazi, you won’t find any soggy crusts in my kitchen!

Once the chocolate covered crust spent a enough time in the fridge for the chocolate to firm back up, I poured in some chocolate pudding. This is where I started getting nervous. I had made the chocolate pudding an hour earlier, so it should have firmed up by then. But it didn’t. Ouch. I thought “maybe it just needs a little more time in the fridge…” I had my suspicions. I was pretty sure I had gone a little light on the flour that thickens the pudding. But denial is a powerful thing.

So I let that hang out in the fridge for a few hours, to get nice and firm. Except it didn’t get nice and firm.It’s possible that it was a tad thicker than earlier, but firm it was most definitely not. But what was I supposed to do? I had dinner guests and those dinner guests wanted PIE. John’s mom was in town and I was hoping to throw down with some mad skills. I don’t just make pudding pies EVERY DAY. And this ain’t no JELLO pie either! So there was no turning back, so I just went with it. I dumped the strawberries on and watched them sink like titanic wreckage into the depths of my beautifully, glossy chocolate goo.

I figured I might as well own it, so I whipped up some cream to throw on top as well.

I was prepared for a structural failure. When it’s time to be presented came, I placed it ever so gently into a baking pan. We all ooohed and aaahed at it’s beauty. And then I crushed it with one quick slice of the pie trowel. We ate in bowls, and eventually ended up just digging into the pan with our spoons. It wasn’t pretty, but I have to admit, it was mighty tasty. And even submerged in a sea of chocolate soup, my crust was fantastic.