Friday Pie-Day: Chocolate Cream (Lactose Free)

In honor of my wife and her ongoing lactose intolerance, I worked this week on a dairy-free cream pie, of which there are few.

Cream pies are creamy usually because they contain, well, cream — or at least some creamy goodness, which usually means dairy, either in milky or buttered form.

I chose a chocolate pie because we both love chocolate, and I thought that the chocolate might be a bit more forgiving in the taste world.

First the critique: This pie isn’t bad. It isn’t great, either. It has some very nice components, but it doesn’t fill my chocolate silk fantasy.

The crust, for instance, is quite nice. There are a few things I would do differently with it, though. I might blind bake it for a few minutes so the bottom gets the chance to crust up. The sides are nice and crispy and the bottom turned out a little soggy.

Here is the crust recipe as I would rework it.

20 Oreo cookies crushed to the consistency of cement sand (this means with little pebbles in it)

½ stick of margarine, melted

1 tablespoon of Godiva Chocolate Liqueur or a coffee liqueur

Mix everything together and press it into the bottom and sides of a pie pan.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes then blind bake it in a 375º oven for 10 minutes.

Let cool before adding pie filling.

The pie filling was okay though it was particularly sweet. I added more sugar and cocoa than the original recipe called for, so it was my fault. I’d keep with the cocoa, but pull back on the sugar. It is chocolatey, but not as much as I had hoped for.

It also uses tofu, which concerned me, as it seemed rather lumpy when I was done blending it. But it turned out fine. I think next time I would add some nuts, some pecans or walnuts to the filling, but I’m a nut fan so that could just be me.

Also, I might dispense with the Cool Whip topping. It may have been the culprit that made the pie cloying.

Here are the ingredients for the filling:

1 pound silken tofu

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup white sugar (here I used vanilla sugar instead)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (here I used a tablespoon of liqueur instead)

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 tub Cool Whip

4 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Blend tofu with an electric mixer or in a food processor until smooth. Blend in cocoa, sugar, vanilla (liqueur) and vinegar.

Pour into prepared crust.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Refrigerate at least for 1 hour.

Whisk 4 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar into Cool Whip to thicken it up.

Place Cool Whip mixture on top of pie and mold it into a dome.

Eat with a large coffee.

Again, I wanted this thing to hit the fence, but it really didn’t.

Let’s see what the wife says:

The crust is both crunchy and chewy. Yum! The richness of the chocolate is nicely tempered by the whipped topping. I will dream about this pie tonight. Get it out of my house.

Okay, perhaps it was better than I thought. I did make it for her, though, so I guess that was good.

Think I’m going to try a blueberry next week.

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