Tag Archives: pie

Chocolate Mallow Pie

I’m not sure what it is about this summer, but we are eating a bunch of marshmallows. We have been enjoying s’mores several times a week, last week we tried the ice recipe with marshmallows in it, and I didn’t realize until just now that today’s recipe also has marshmallows in it.

Marshmallows have quite a long history. The first known marshmallows were eaten by the Ancient Egyptians. Over the years they have been used as both a sweet treat and for medicinal purposes. By the early 1900s, they were being sold as candy and used in a variety of recipes. A home front housewife would have used marshmallows frequently in her cooking, especially when making desserts.

This chocolate pie uses marshmallows both in the pie filling mixture and as a decorative topping. The recipe is from the 1941 251 Superb Pies and Pastries cookbook published by the Culinary Arts Institute.

Chocolate Mallow Pie

  • 1/2 c cocoa
  • 3/4 c water
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 c milk
  • 3/4 lb marshmallows
  • 1 baked pastry shell
  • 2 bananas, sliced lengthwise
  • 6 marshmallows, cut into halves

Mix cocoa and water to a smooth paste and cook over low heat for 2 minutes. Cool, then add vanilla and salt. Heat milk, and add marshmallows. Fold over and over until marshmallows are about half melted. Remove from heat and continue folding marshmallows until smooth and fluffy. Chill about 15 minutes, then combine with cocoa mixture and chill about 25 minutes longer, stirring twice. Pour chocolate marshmallow mixture into pastry shell and chill until firm. Arrange slices of banana on top of pie in criss-cross pattern and decorate with halves of marshmallows. Makes one 9 inch pie. You can use pineapple strips in place of the bananas.

Results

My daughter and I decided to decorate the pie a little differently than the recipe called for. I wish I would have thought to buy or make whipped cream for it because I think that would have looked nice on top, as well. The pie was very bitter. My husband likes bitter chocolate, but even he thought this pie was too bitter to enjoy. Unless you enjoy your chocolate pie this way, I’d keep looking if you are in the mood for a new chocolate pie recipe.

I hope you are safe and well. See you in August.

Third Time’s a Charm?: Spiced Blueberry Pie

Making the blueberry pie for the Summer Lawn Party turned into quite the pie adventure.  As promised, here is the recipe and the experience my daughter and I had troubleshooting it.

Round One

We followed the recipe exactly, using frozen blueberries as suggested. Here are the ingredients.

Pastry for a two crust pie

3 c frozen or canned blueberries

1 tbsp flour

1 c brown sugar

1 tbsp butter

1/4 tsp ground cloves

 

We thawed the blueberries to try to keep the pie from being too watery. We lined the pie with dough for one crust, and put the berries into the pie. We sprinkled the pie with the flour and brown sugar, then dotted it with butter. We then dusted the cloves over the top of the brown sugar. We cut a few slits in the top crust and placed it on the pie. We baked it for 15 minutes at 450 degrees, then reduced the temperature to 350 degrees and baked for another 30 minutes.

The pie turned out incredibly runny. It had a really nice spicy- sweet layer right below the crust from the brown sugar, cloves, and butter. We definitely needed bowls when we ate this. It was a nice balance of sweet and a bit tart. The textures of the crust, blueberries, and the brown sugar layer complimented each other well. We finally decided to use the pie as an ice cream topping, and try the recipe again with some adjustments to the ingredients.

Round Two

For the second version, we used fresh blueberries and changed or added the following ingredients.

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp flour

4 tbsp butter

We mixed the flour and cornstarch into the blueberries, but kept the rest of the recipe the same. The resulting pie was still runny, but not quite as watery as the first pie. It still had a nice layer of the sweet brown sugar mixture, and was ultimately used for ice cream topping again due to the consistency of the filling.

Round Three

For our final pie, we purchased cans of blueberry pie filling. Everything else in the recipe was the same. We had hoped the canned filling would help thicken the consistency of the blueberries, but the third pie also suffered from the same watery filling.

Results

The pies were delicious. Despite the runny filling, the flavor was just right. The winning part of this recipe is the brown sugar and clove topping right beneath the top crust. Adding this pie to ice cream was a big hit. We used both a vanilla and a blackberry ice cream. It made a perfect summer dessert. Even my one year old wanted more, so I count it as a success. I’d make this again just to use it for a topping. It definitely didn’t work as a pie for us.

Do you have suggestions on how to thicken the filling? We’d love to hear them and would try this recipe again to test them.

 

 

 

 

 

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