Photos: Domesticfits.comCakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Cake Gumshoe Jackie, a Los Angeles resident (but we won't hold that against her) who cooks and bakes from a small kitchen surrounded by a husband, bulldog, 1 year old daughter and lots of sunshine. She is committed to cooking and baking with the abundance of local produce that her area offers, strawberries and avocados better watch out!
CHOCOLATE PIE CRUST! It’s pretty clear by my excessive use of capitalization what my favorite part of this pie is. I woke up in the middle of the night (I know, overly dramatic for a food blog post) with the idea of a chocolate pie dough crust. After a quick google search I wasn’t able to find a recipe for inspiration, leading my to wonder if my midnight dessert vision wasn’t even possible. By only modifying my go-to pie dough crust, It turns out that it is VERY possible, and super tasty.
Here are a few process shots and the recipe, which can also be found on Jackie's blog, Domestic Fits.
Cherry Pie in a Chocolate Pie Crust
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 2 2/3 cup of all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 tbs sugar
- 12 tbs butter, cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup shortning
- 1/4 cup vodka
- 1/4 cup cold water
Pie Filling ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 tbs cornstarch
- 5 cups of fresh bing cherries
- 3 tbs lemon juice from a real life lemon, none of that squeeze bottle crap (about 1 large lemon’s worth)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate, broken up into chunks (I used 56%)
- 3 tbs butter
- 1 tbs light corn syrup
- 2 tbs butter (for crust assembly)
- plus 2 tbs white sugar to sprinkle on top before cooking
Procedure
- I did some pretty extensive research on pie dough over the past few years and I’ve learned a few things that I’ll pass on to you all. First, food processors are great at getting the job done as quickly as possible, and we all know that the more you mess with dough the tougher it becomes. So break out that food processor and add the cocoa, 2 cups of the flour, salt and sugar and give it a quick pulse until it’s combined.
- Add the cubes of butter and the shortening and pulse until combined, about 1 1/2 minutes. A mix of shortening and butter gives a good flavor and texture.
- Now, if you have a larger food processor that mine, then add the remaining flour and pulse until it gathers around the blade. MINE is tiny and I need a new one. So if you are in the same boat as I am, just transfer it to a bowl and add the remaining flour by hand. (if you have a nice big guy food processor, transfer to a bowl after you add the remaining flour)
- Then add the water and the vodka and squish it into the dough until its all combined. Vodka is another tip I picked up during my dough research. It cooks off completely (unlike water) creating a super flakey crust. Your dough will be very moist, but you can add a bit of flour if it is too moist to hold together. Then split into two evenly sized disks and wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for AT LEAST AN HOUR, super important, don’t skip this step.
- You can chill it for a few days if you need to, in that case, put the wrapped circles in a zip lock bag.
- Before you get to the cherries, combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, lemon juice and vanilla in a large bowl and set aside.
- Now, get out those beautiful cherries. You’ll have to pit them, so I hope you have a pitter. You can buy them for about $8 and its totally worth it.
- To pit 5 cups, it should only take about 10 minutes. Unless, your daughter needs a nap and she won’t sleep and you can hear her jumping in her crib throwing bedtime bunny, sleepy time bug, and her sippy cup across the room and you have to go in and lay her down and tell her that she is a tired lady and she needs to go nigh night….in that case, it may take longer.
- Add the pitted cherries to the sugar mixture bowl and stir until the cherries are well coated. Allow to rest for about 30 minutes.
- Get your cold dough out of the fridge and place it on a well floured surface. I’m not gonna lie to you, this is not the easiest dough to work with. It’ll need a lot of flour on both sides, flour the top to make sure it doesn’t stick to your rolling pin. roll out into a circle large enough to fit into your pie pan with only a little over hang. If it breaks apart, just smoosh it back together with your fingers. Transfer to your pie pan, if it breaks, again, just push the cracks back together.
- in a microwave safe bowl, add your chocolate chunks, butter and corn syrup.
- Microwave for 20 seconds, stir and repeat until all melty. Pour the chocolate into the crust and smooth out to make an even layer. Then add your beautiful cherries.
- OK, so by this point I was a little fed up with my crust, so the double crust plan was altered a bit. If you want to roll out circle #2 and make it a double crust, be my guest. I decided to roll out #2 and cut him up with two mini cookie cutters. You can also cut strips to do a lattice top.
- I then layered them on the top to create parallel lines, brushing each cutout with melted butter to help them adhere to each other. I then filed in a bit of the blank spaces with randomly placed cutouts and sprinkled the top with sugar.
- By this point you may be thinking, “Why didn’t she ask me to preheat the oven? Did she forget? should I just set it to my go-to 350?” Nope. This is one of those pearls of pie dough wisdom that I am passing on. Ice cold dough cooks better than room temp dough. SInce we have worked this pie dough over pretty good, it needs to rest and chill before going into the oven. SO now, turn the oven on and set it to 475 and place your pie in the fridge to chill. Wait about 20 minutes and then bake your pie at 475 for about 15 minutes. Then, turn your oven down to 375 and finish baking for about 45 minutes or until the filling is thick and bubbly. If your crust looks like it is browning too much, cover it in foil.