Aztec chocolate chess pie
Of all the experimental pies I’ve lugged into the newsroom at my day job, this is the one my colleagues loved the most. It’s true, journalists tend to be easy to feed. Their standards are low. They think of themselves as beleaguered, and they munch their way through just about anything for comfort.
(My kids saw it clearly early on. Any foods we didn’t like at our house got this immediate chorus: “Take it to work. Those people will eat anything.”)
So it wasn’t surprising when a line formed in the kitchen milliseconds after I sent an email saying that pie was about to be served. My co-workers are used to having to exchange critiques for pie; they don’t seem to mind paying for a free slice with a reflective, descriptive analysis of what they’re eating. Typically I hear a mix of adjectives, and sometimes, well, it’s pretty quiet, with only a few murmured thank-yous (a clear signal to go back to the drawing board).
But today the response was a unanimous gush of positive feedback. Boiled down, it came to this: rich, fudgy, delicious, intriguingly seasoned, delicious, with just the right amount of heat, and, oh yeah, delicious. Even I had to admit the pie was damn good. So it’s now joined the others on CurvyMama’s menu.
Welcome, Aztec Chocolate Chess!
Aztec Chocolate Chess Pie
Ingredients
- Dough for a single-crust, 9-inch pie
- 10 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
- 2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
- 2/3 c. white sugar
- 2/3 c. dark brown sugar
- 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cornmeal
- 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp. chipotle chili powder
- 4 eggs
- 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. white vinegar
- 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Instructions
- Roll out your dough. Place it in a 9-inch pie pan. Roll and crimp the edges. Place the crust in the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 425.
- In the top of a double boiler, melt the butter and chocolate.
- In a bowl, combine the sugars with a fork to get all the lumps out of the brown sugar. Mix in the other dry ingredients, then the eggs, whisking to combine, but taking care not to beat too hard.
- Add the butter and chocolate mixture to the sugar mixture. Mix well.
- When the oven is preheated, take the pie crust from the freezer. Line it with parchment and fill it with dried beans to weight the crust and keep it from shrinking. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.
- Take the par-baked crust from the oven and reduce the heat to 350. Pour the chocolate filling into the crust and put the pie back into the oven. Bake 25-35 minutes, or until the center is set.
- Let cool to room temperature before serving.
