When I moved to Minneapolis from Vermont, I hadn’t expected to experience culture shock. I was raised mostly in New England with stints in Northern California. Somehow, those places, as far from each other as they can get on a map, are more alike than the vast land in the middle.
I understood the food of the coasts, including the pie, dominated by apple and pumpkin or even lemon meringue. But, the Midwest has a pie culture all its own. I first learned of French Silk Pie in the 1990s from a local Minneapolis newspaper’s people choice award. Every year Bakers’ Square would win “best dessert” in Minneapolis with their French Silk Pie. I was painfully aware of this because I was baking my heart out at a local restaurant and despite all my efforts, I could never touch this pie’s popularity. I did finally taste one, and IMHO, it was sweet and lacking in any real chocolate flavor, but the texture was certainly worthy of the name. Out of spite (I was young and sillier then), I never served a French Silk Pie in any restaurant I worked at and honestly, this is the VERY first one I have ever baked. It comes from the beautiful new baking book, Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland
Do you have pie questions or need to troubleshoot your recipe? Check out my guide on how to make pie crust.
To make the chocolate shavings, scrape a bar with a sharp knife. This Knife by Shun Cutlery
After an hour in the refrigerator the pie was ready to slice and serve.
Thank you Shauna for the beautiful book!
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 single layer pie dough (see note) RECIPE HERE
- 3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, cool room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- 1 tbsp unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 3 3/4 oz (107g) bittersweet chocolate (70-75% cacao) Semisweet chocolate will be way too sweet!
- 3 large eggs COLD! – these are raw, so used pasteurized if this makes you nervous
Topping
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- Chocolate Shavings for sprinkling over the top
Instructions
- Prepare the dough and blind bake the crust in a 9-inch, shallow pie dish.
Filling
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the melted chocolate and beat until blended. Add the cold eggs, one at a time and beat for about 5 MINUTES AFTER EACH EGG.
- Spoon the filling into the prepared blind baked pie shell.
- Whip the cream on medium speed, just to soft peaks. If you over whip the cream, it will not pipe smoothly. Whipping it slow and low, will create a cream that will hold up for hours, if not days.
- Cover with whipped cream. You can pile it on in a cloud or pipe it in ruffles, as I did with a large rose tip (Ateco 180 – Large Flower Petal Decorating Tip).
- Chill the pie for at least an hour and serve. The filling will tighten up as it chills, so the texture is just about perfect for the first several hours and then it becomes denser and loses a bit of the silkiness, but is still delicious.
- To make the chocolate shavings, scrape a bar (I use the large chocolate bars at Trader Joe's) with a sharp knife.
This chocolate pie looks utterly luscious! So decadent and delicious – can’t wait to try this recipe ♥
So interesting–I’m from MN, but had never eaten french silk pie until I met my husband, who is from Massachusetts! We now live in MA, and chocolate pie is a must at the holidays; I use a recipe almost exactly like this one. We raise our own chickens, so I know the eggs are fresh and safe. But when we lived overseas, I would add the eggs to the melted chocolate and beat the chocolate/egg mixture over a double-boiler ‘just to be safe’ and then add that to the rest once it cooled, and then beat it again! It worked every time and made a really smooth, rich and fluffy pie. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
French silk pie was one of my favorite desserts as a kid, and this version is the best I’ve ever had. The ones I liked as a kid would be too sweet for me as an adult, but this one sweet without being cloyingly so.