Hubby's Favorite Dessert

Forty-four years ago...yessss, it's been that long, I learned how to make Jay's favorite dessert, Chocolate Pie.  It's a simple recipe, especially now that a crust that tastes better than mine, comes all ready to go.  Here are the ingredients you need to make a spectacular 9-10" Chocolate Pie.

Didn't I tell you this is easy?  First, open up your pre-made pie crust, pat it in your pie pan thus, and after making a nice little pattern of holes in it with a fork, bake it at 425º for 8-9 minutes until just a tinge of golden shows up on the edges of your crust.  Let the crust cool for about 40 minutes.

Next, pour four cups of milk into a saucepan to cook on medium-high heat. Add two 4 oz packages of cook-to-serve chocolate pudding. (Jay doesn't like the instant and it DOES have a distinctively different taste.) It'll look something like this...stir continually to keep the pudding from sticking to the bottom of your pan.

It'll start to look like this.  When it reaches a rolling boil, take it off of the heat and let it cool for about five minutes, again stirring about every minute or so to keep the pudding from forming a skin while it cools.

Now for the fun part.  Pour that rich chocolatey pudding into the cooled crust. 

I usually put either waxed paper or plastic wrap on top of the hot pudding to keep a skin from forming, and then let the pie cool before topping with fresh whipped cream. 

For Jay, the whipped topping must be made from real cream.  Since we're trying (but not too hard) to keep an eye on our growing waistlines, I used about 2 tablespoons of Splenda this time (you could also use a granular Stevia or real sugar, of course) to sweeten the whipping cream plus a teaspoon+ of vanilla.  It looks kind of funny in the photo, but here's the mix before it's whipped.

Mmmm, I love vanilla!

Whip the cream until it forms nice stiff peaks.

Apply to cooled pie and voila!  You've made a simple chocolate pie that looks like it's taken hours to prepare and tastes like it comes from the finest restaurant, which is YOURS of course! 

If you're short on time, this pie also tastes great slightly warm, but Jay and I probably like it best chilled.  It keeps fairly well in the fridge, but over time, the crust softens and loses some of its flakiness.

Enjoy!