Of Apple Pies & Carrot Cakes

   This was the day I made 5 apple pies and 3 carrot cakes. All in one day. And I had to catch a bus to KL after that too.

   First, let's look at the apple pies. I love making pie pastry, though they never turn out the same each time,. Unpredictable, these people.

   First, I made this for mum's cousin. It's quite a scare isn't it? I meant to just cut out holes using an apple-shaped biscuit cutter, but it turned out to look like this:

   Should cheer anybody up, that! 

   Next, I made this for my driving instructor, who unfortunately forgot to come and take it, so we gave it away to somebody else. I'll make her something else next time. It was quite the prettiest pie I made that day, I think, with the apple cutouts all around the edge: 

   I meant to leave this for the others to eat at home, but they gave it away to Little Brother's teachers, along with the second pie. Little Brother got 9As for  PMR, so it was sort of thank-you gift. Congratulations Little Brother, you nailed it!

  I also brought 2 with me to KL, one for Big Sister and her housemates, and another for my friend Wawa, for her birthday which was on 15th December. Latecomers, we both are!

   I only managed to take a photo of one carrot cake, which Mum gave away to her friend. I rather like this baking and giving away thing, it makes me happy (for getting the chance to bake something) and the people getting the baked stuff happy too!

   This is a recipe that I stick to whenever I want a carrot cake because it uses only 5 easy to remember ingredients. The only things that take time is grating the carrots and baking it. I sometimes reduce the amount of sugar, but it's okay to use the actual amount, it's not too sweet.

As usual, this is what I put into my cake, you can visit the link for the original recipe. Jules uses almond flour in her recipe, which she says makes the cake super moist but if you substitute it for all-purpose flour or self-raising flour like it did, it's still pretty good.

I love Stonesoup. Jules recipes are so simple, and so far the ones I've tried have turned out really nicely.

CARROT CAKE

Source: Stonesoup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

250g brown sugar

3 large eggs

250g self-raising flour

250g grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Line a baking tin with baking paper and grease the bottom and sides with a little oil.

3. Measure the oil into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and whisk together until well-combined.

4. Add the eggs, one by one, until well-combined.

5. Sift in the self-raising flour. Fold in until well-incorporated. 

6. Thoroughly fold in grated carrots.

7. Bake in pre-heated oven for about one hour. If the top of the cake browns too quickly,  cover it with a piece of aluminium foil until the cake is cooked (do the skewer/toothpick test).

8. Cover with yoghurt cream cheese topping, which is really easy to make:

Yoghurt Cream Cheese Topping

I'm afraid I forgot to measure the amounts. Just whisk together soft, room  temperature cream cheese, castor sugar and yoghurt. If you want the topping to be stiffer, use more cream cheese. if you want it to drizzle over the sides, use more yoghurt. Add sugar to taste. 

If you like, you can bake the cake in a large, square pan. When its baked, cut the cake into little squares, and pour the topping on top, like a sauce:

This is also useful if you have to cut of the top of the cake to level it. Use the scraps for this, it makes a lovely dessert.

Apple Pie with Oil Crust and a History of (my) Pie Making

   During my pie making frenzy (which started sometime in August) I made nearly or maybe even over 30 pies up to the last pie. I've lost count! It started with failures especially in the crust department, but I persevered (which is a dignified way of saying sweating and biting my lips to keep myself from saying anything particularly offensive to the pie dough while rolling and re-rolling it) and Alhamdulillah, after a number of attempts my efforts started to produce better and better results. I had never made my crust (or any pie for that matter) on my own, and the last time I'd made them was years and years ago, when I was shorter and skinnier (though most of my friends would disagree) and ahhem with more pimples. Ahhh pimples and acne and whatever you call them. Such wonderful times we had together! (Coughs). Anyhow, I digress. Back to pie talk.

   That being said, I did a lot of research and studying (another dignified way of describing enjoying myself while browsing the internet looking at food). I made y first apple pie. Epic failure. I used shortening for the crust, and it would NOT brown. I baked it for so long, the apples dried  up. I despaired and gave up on ever making pie again. My second attempt was this lovely pie from the Homesick Texan (which is a lovely, original blog), but though the chocolate part was quite lovely, the crust was a flop. However, it gave me a little spark of hope and I thought that i'd try once again.

   Next, I made this lovely Chocolate Marvel Pie. I used the basic pie crust recipe from Betty Crocker's Pie & Pastry Cookbook, but I used butter instead of lard (which we don't take because from my understanding it's made from pig fat) and shortening (which I used in the Epic Fail pie crust and, yes, how did you guess? FAILED.) I'd watch a video by Joy the Baker & Jill Donenfield, looked at some step-by step tutorials (one such being this) and devoured the BCP&P Cookbook, and at the same time, I happened to come across some deep dish thingy in my Mum's kitchen store which I figured I could use to bake a pie. So I did. And though the crust slipped down the slippery slope of the deep dish, leaving barely an inch deepness of a pie crust-ness for me to pour my chocolate filling-ness, it was delicious and most importantly, the pie crust browned quite beautifully (though with lots of air bubbles because I hadn't pricked it enough). 

   And that, was the beginning of my pie-making frenzy. Some of the pies I wrote about and posted on this blog, but most of them were quickly finished before i could take any photos. There was also, ahhem, the matter of not having a camera until Big Sister lent hers (and it's still in my hand.... laughs an evil and witchy laugh). Below are some of the pies that I remember having made in the last 4 months:

Chocolate Marvel Pie (around 3? Or 4?)

Lemon Chiffon Pie

Vanilla Cream Pie

Peach Pie (2)

Apple Pie (I've lost count of the numbers. Maybe around 10? Or more?)

   And that's all I can remember. With practice, my efforts in making the crusts got easier produced better results, and I started experimenting with different types of crusts. In this post, I'll share the Oil Pie crust I made, the recipe taken from the BCP&PC. I won't say it was a complete success (details to follow) but it was another step in my pie making adventure so it was pretty good. I made a 10-inch crust, but as usual here are the measurements for both 8 or 9-inch and 10-inch crusts.

OIL PASTRY

8-INCH OR 9-INCH PIE

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

2-3 tablespoons cold water

10-INCH PIE or 8- or 9-INCH TWO-CRUST PIE

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

3-4 tablespoons cold water

10-INCH TWO-CRUST PIE

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

4-5 tablespoons cold water

Method:

1. Mix flour and salt in a mixing bowl.

2. Add oil and using a fork, mix until particles are the size of small peas (which takes some time and didn't exactly result in p's in the s of sp's, but I got a crumbly mixture which I think is okay)

3. Sprinkle water over mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time. Mix using fork until flour is thoroughly moistened and dough almost cleans the side of the bowl (you may add 1-2 tbsp oil id needed).

4. Gather dough into hands to form a ball.

5. For one-crust pies, shape dough into a flattened round. For two-crust pies, divide dough in half, place each half cut side down and flatten into a round.

6. Place flattened rounds between two pieces of waxed paper (which I didn't have- i used greaseproof paper and it worked).

7. Wipe table with a damp cloth to prevent the paper from slipping. Roll pastry 2 inches larger than your inverted pie pan. Like so:

8. Peel off top paper:

and transfer the pastry by placing the pastry paper side up in the pan.
9. Peel  of the paper and carefully ease the pastry into the pan.


   And there you have it. Next, do one of the following steps and bake your oil crust pie:
(a) FOR 2-CRUST FRUIT or MEAT PIE: Fill the pie with your pie chosen filling (for this pie I used the filling from this pie). Roll top crust the same way as bottom crust. Cut slits on top (I punched in a few apple-shaped patterns using a cookie cutter, like so:

Trim pastry and bake according to the recipe for your pie.


(b) FOR BAKED PIE SHELL: Bake pie crust for 12 to 15 minutes at 475F or 245C. (Mine usually takes longer. Like 20-25 minutes). 


   Now, though the crust was quite easy to handle... until the time came to transfer it into the pie pan. I probably need more practice. The top crust tore a bit, and I patched it up, but basically it looked like this:

(Excuse the chunks of margarine, I forgot to dot the filling with them before  putting the top crust on)

   I was a bit doubtful, but into the oven it went:

   And it stayed there for so long, the filling dripped out of the torn parts of the crust and onto the bottom of the oven. Yikes. The reason? The crust would NOT brown. If it did, it took a very, very long time to do it, nearly 1 1/2 hours I think. I was afraid the filling would dry out, but fortunately it didn't. Instead, it turned out into this thick, gooey caramel-ly goodness. Pheeww!


   Mum said it was okay, but that she preferred the usual pie crust I made. The oil recipe resulted in this crumbly, semi-crisp, semi-soft crust. It was quite delicious, and a change from the ordinary butter crust and I liked it. This spoonful says: "Here's to more pies in the future!"

p.s. Yup, the dates on the photos tells you that I made this nearly 3 months ago. Then again, I'm no sure when I'll try making an oil crust again, so here  they are. I should probably start cropping my photos and learn to do a bit of editing, bu I'm too lazy!

Apple Pie(s)

Sorry. It's not a very good picture but I like it anyway.
I'm quite proud of the crust for this pie, it looks lovely and flaky (I think) and it is too.

   It's about time I talk about my apple pie. Apple pies, that is. I think out of all the things that I've made so far, apple pies (or most pies for that matter) are the most rewarding. It took me quite some time to learn how to make the pie crust. The first time I made them on my own was such a failure than I chickened out and stopped trying. Then, after a long time, I tried again. This time it browned, at least, but was too crumbly to be called a proper pie crust. Then I tried again. And again. And again.


   Each time I made a new pie, things got better. I learned where I made my mistakes, and made sure (or tried to) not to repeat them. I learned how to make sure the dough was not too sticky, nor too tough to roll out. It was a long and hard process, but it was worth it. Now, I just jump at the chance of making pie whenever I have enough ingredients (which, at the moment is not often- I haven't made pie for a few weeks now). I've yet to master the art of pie making, but I revel in the thought that there's so much more to explore about it.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the uncooked crust, but I think this was the best crust I'd made up to that time (for my 6th or 7th pie, I think)
We don't have a proper working space for rolling out pastry or kneading bread, so I use this round, tin tray of Mum's which works quite well.

Wonky lattice top.
I wish I had one of those crimp cutters or whatever they're called.

   Most of the recipes that I used for the pies came from Betty Crocker's Pie & Pastry Cookbook, which is a wonderful book. Ever since I remember- well, ever since we purchased the book (secondhand from a car boot sale at Scotland) I've stared and stared at all the lovely and mouth-watering pictures. I read through the recipes,  imagining myself making them. I never did though, until that first disastrous pie. I'm glad I got the courage to try again. It was worth it.

My sifu for pie-making!

   I meant to blog about each pie that I made so that I could take note of my improvements and mistakes, but what can I say, I've yet to become a consistent blogger (while I can say that I have 2 other blogs to write in, it's not a good excuse because I don't post updates all that often over there either), so I'm putting photos of apple pies that I've made altogether in this one post. Next time... we'll see...

I think this was the very first apple pie I made (on my own, anyway)
Look at my wonky lattice top!

APPLE PIE
makes 1 10-inch pie (with some leftover pastry)


Pie Crust
Pastry for a 2 crust 10-inch pie


Pie Filling
8 cups thinly sliced pared apples (about 7 medium-sized ones)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I put nearly 2 tsp, hehe)
a dash of salt
3 tablespoons margarine/butter


Heat oven to 425F/220C.


Roll out pastry and use to line pie pan.


Stir together sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Mix with apples in a large bowl. Turn filling into pastry-lined pie pan. Dot with butter.


Cover with top crust (with slits or holes on top to allow steam to escape). Seal and flute. 


Cover edge with a strip of aluminium foil to prevent excessive browning; remove 15 minutes before end of baking time. 


Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is beautifully browned and juice begins to bubble through the slits/holes in the top crust.


Serve warm, with ice-cream if desired.


p.s. I wouldn't worry too much about getting the measurements right for the filling. Just follow your instincts (and tastebuds, of course!) as well as what you have


Custard Sauce
* This is my own recipe! Hah. Well, I based it on the lemon chiffon filling that I made for the Lemon Chiffon Pie, but this is pretty much my own invention. I'm sorry if it doesn't work if you try it, but it was pretty okay when I made it.


Makes one cup.


1 large egg
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon custard powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
a pinch of salt


Beat egg lightly in a bowl and add milk. Beat mixture until well combined. Add custard powder, sugar and salt. Mix until well combined. Strain into a saucepan. Turn on heat to low or medium-low. Stir constantly until mixture is thickened (shouldn't take long). Pour over your slice of pie and enjoy!


Notes
1. I actually put in two tablespoons of sugar, but I realised that I'd forgotten to strain the egg+milk mixture only after I'd combined all the ingredients, so I strained the whole mixture then, and of course there were bits of granulated sugar left in the strainer. So I think only one tablespoon really went into the custard. It was just sweet enough for me, but you can always increase the amount to two tablespoons. I think the best thing to do would be to strain the sauce after you've combined the egg, milk and custard so that you won't have any eggy or custardy lumps. Then you add the sugar and salt.
2. The sauce shouldn't harden up with just one tablespoon of custard powder, but if it does, just add a little milk to soften it a bit. No biggie.


   Some more pictures... yeah I know, I should get rid of the date stamps or cut them out, but I'm too lazy to do that! 

Two pies I made for Big Sister to take back to KL.
She wanted two. Two whopping pies!
Being the NICE little sister that I am, I made two. Which one looks better, do you think?

There was too much juice. Though I wish I needn't write 'too much'.
I think this happened because I mixed together the apples and flour+sugar etc. too early.
I put them aside, and when I was ready to use them, they had A LOT of juice.
Being me, I felt that it was a shame to throw the excess juice. Wrong decision.
Look at what happened below.

This picture can either gross people out, or make them drool.
The latter happened to me. Though it spoiled the pie's looks (it'll never get a prize for Most Beautiful Pie), I love the how the juice caramelised through the crack. It's such a pretty colour.

   With cake, there is a time when I feel, "Ok, that's it, I've had enough cake for this week!" but so far, it hasn't happened with pie. Should I ask Dad to get some apples on his way home for work? Haha.

Another pie.
Don't ask me why I punctured so many holes on the crust, but I did.
It also happened that I forgot to dot the apples with margarine before covering the filling with the top crust.
So I poked some margarine through the holes.
Some mistakes turn out for the best reasons, huh? (Or not, haha)

   Other pies I've made and posted about:
   Vanilla Cream Pie
   Chocolate Marvel Pie
   Lemon Chiffon Pie
   Peach Pie


   Oh, and just thought I'd share here that my convocation day is on October 10th. Yay! I'm still waiting for a job placement, so preparing for convocation is providing some fun for me. I went to IIUM to get my robe on October 1st, so I got to meet some of my friends, which was really fun. 


   This is what I'll be wearing! I forgot to take a picture of my own robe (didn't want the bother of having to repack it, anyway) so I took this picture from the website:

   Ooohhh!!! It's just 5 days away! I'm nervous. I hope I don't trip myself up on stage. Or have my face freeze when taking the scroll. Or drop the scroll after receiving it. Ahhhh!!! I'm scared!

  But I'm still looking forward to it! :D

Veggie/Fruit a Month: Peaches - Peach Pie

   I've always loved peaches. The wonderful smell, the bright, beautiful colours of both the skin and the flesh and the flavours... and it had always been one of my biggest dreams (I have a lot of those, by the way) to make a Peach Pie.


   And here it is, a Peach Pie, to celebrate the gathering of all 7 members of my family! We're all home, and it was lovely to have ifthar together. We joked, shared stories, poked fun at each other and just enjoyed being together as a family. 


   This the fourth time I've made pie using BC's Pie and Pastry Cookbook, and I'm afraid I'm still struggling with the pastry. I cheated several times (such as cutting the rolled-out pastry in half and placing the halves one after another before pinching them together in the pan... hehe) but it turned out okay. I was afraid they wouldn't brown, that the peaches would taste weird, blablabla... but it was okay. It turned out fine.


   So here it is, my most (I think, anyway) successful pie yet. My youngest brother says it's nice warm, but KakYong and Abang think it's be good cold. Abuya gave me the thumbs-up sign, so I guess it went well. I took over an hour preparing the pie with some help from KakYong, and went it finally went into the oven I felt relieved. Well, perhaps not truly  relieved because I was worried the pie wouldn't cook... blablabla again. I'm happy to say I'm no longer so afraid of making pastry!


   So enough said, let's go to our pie, shall we? I'm including measurements for three pie sizes (8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch) but I made a 10-inch one. Once again I've not included the recipe for the crust because like I said, I'm still struggling with it, though I know it's a good recipe because it works better than any other so far!


   My final say: This peach pie is a peach!!!

PEACH PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

8-INCH PIE
Pastry for 8-inch Two Crust Pie
4 cups sliced peaches (about 6 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter or margarine


9-INCH PIE

Pastry for 9-inch Two Crust Pie
5 cups sliced peaches (about 8 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon butter or margarine

10-INCH PIE

Pastry for 10-inch Two Crust Pie
6 cups sliced peaches (about 10 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoon butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425F/210C.


Prepare pastry.


Toss peaches and lemon juice. Stir together sugar, flour and cinnamon; mix lightly with peaches. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter. 


Cover with top crust (with slits, or you can a lattice top, which I did); seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminium foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. 


Bake 8- and 9-inch pies 35 to 45 minutes, 10-inch pie 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is nicely browned and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust. Serve with lemon sauce (recipe below).




Baker's Notes
1. If you can't get fresh peaches, you can use canned ones. I got two cans of peach halves for a good price at Mydin (around RM 5.00+ for each can) and only used one and a half cans (around 13 peach halves). Drain the peach halves or slices (keep the juice for another recipe) and decrease the sugar to half of the required quantity. 


2. We increased the quantity of cinnamon in our pie- I love cinnamon!


3. I baked my pie for 1 hour at 240C. It came out a nice, golden-brown colour and when the timer went off, some caramelised sugar/juice was beginning to seep out of the top crust.

OLD-FASHIONED LEMON SAUCE

Makes 1 1/3 cups.

*According to the book, this sauce is good for blueberry and mincemeat pies. It worked really well with the peach pie.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup water
1 egg, well beaten
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
3 tablespoons lemon juice


In saucepan combine all ingredients. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Serve warm or cool. Store sauce in covered container in refrigerator.




Baker's Notes
1. We had 3/4 of a lemon left, so we put all of that in instead of just 3 tablespoons.
2. I decreased the sugar to 1/3 cup.
3. The sauce firmed up a little too much while it was sitting in the fridge, so we just added a little hot water and it worked fine.

   I'm submitting this recipe for the Veggie/Fruit a Month, an event created by  Priya of Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes. The event is hosted monthly by a different person/blog with a different fruit or veggie, and this month the host is Susan from the Well-Seasoned Cook and the theme is Peaches! (I hope I've put all the links properly- still trying to get used to this!)

   I'm also submitting this to the August Bookmarked Recipes hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. The event was originally created by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. (I meant to join last month but didn't quite have the nerve). I've bookmarked this recipe ever since I started reading the book, so I hope it counts! 


p.s. Uploading photos takes ages! Pheww!!!

Cook.Eat.Delicious- Desserts: Lemon Chiffon Pie

   I've edited this entry a little because I'm submitting this recipe for my first ever event! Which also means that this blog is going public! I feel nervous which is probably silly, haha. Anyway, I hope to get to know more food bloggers through this blog. Hope this is a good first-public-post!

   This event is hosted by Raven at Cook.Eat.Delicious and it's called Cook.Eat.Delicious-Desserts! The first theme is lemons, yum! 

*************************************************************

   It's been a pie of a week!

   Well, I made three kinds in one week. Yeah, I went from brownie-blondie craze to pie craze. I also bought two tins of peach slices. They're waiting for KakYong and KakCik to come home, haha. 

   I think lemons are lovely! Though maybe because the ones I got were rather cheap, the colour wasn't a lovely yellow like I hoped it to be. They still smelled great anyway. I think lemons are the the stars in the citrus world!

   This recipe is another one taken from Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook. Here's a picture:

   It's a lovely book! I look forward to trying more recipes from it. We got it from a carboot sale when we lived in Scotland.

   And here is my one and only decent photo of the pie. We made sure to eat the other half first- because I burnt the crust, haha. I made a 9-inch crust pie, but I provided the recipe for 8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch. I haven't included the recipe for the pie shell though because I'm still struggling with it, so just choose your favourite pie crust and make the filling!

Lemon Chiffon Pie

LEMON CHIFFON PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

8-INCH PIE

8-inch Baked Pie Shell

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp unflavoured gelatine

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tsp grated lemon peel

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/3 cup sugar

9-INCH PIE

9-inch Baked Pie Shell

4 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp unflavoured gelatine

2/3 cup water

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 tbsp grated lemon peel

4 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

10-INCH PIE

10-inch Baked Pie Shell

5 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2/3 cup sugar

4 tsp unflavoured gelatine

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup lemon juice

4 tsp grated lemon peel

5 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan blend yolks, sugar (using quantity first stated), the gelatin water and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat. stirring constantly, just until mixture boils. Stir in lemon peel. Place pan in bowl of ice and water or chill in refrigerator, stirring occasionally, until mixture mounds when dropped from a spoon.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until frothy. Beat in 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Fold in lemon mixture; pile into pie shell.

Chill several hours until set.

Note: I substituted the powdered gelatine with jelly powder because we didn't have the former. Though I'm not sure what difference it made since I'd never made chiffon pie before. It turned out okay though, but the filling could have been firmer I guess. Delicious, all the same!

Chocolate Marvel Pie

   Arrrggghh!!!!

   I already posted this recipe and accidentally deleted it! Both this and the post on the first Chocolate Pie I made! Allow me to scream again!

   Oh well. I'll just re-post the recipe for Chocolate Marvel Pie, but no lengthy descriptions about my blunders this time (fuming).

   Anyway, this was my first successful attempt at a good pie crust, and the filling was very good too! Dad has requested that I make it again! Kakyong and Iman will also definitely love this too, the filling has a mousse-like texture that's really delicious.

   No photos though; there was an incident but I'm too lazy to re-describe it. Huh.

CHOCOLATE MARVEL PIE   

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

9-inch Baked Pie Shell

6 ounces semisweet chocolate pieces

2 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp milk

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan, heat chocolate pieces, sugar and milk over low heat, stirring until chocolate is all melted. Cool. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in vanilla.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff. Fold in chocolate mixture. Pour into baked pie shell. 

Refrigerate several hours or overnight. (which I did for 8 hours)

If desired, garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle with diced almonds.

Serve and enjoy!

Note to Kakyong: Be sure to ask me about The Incident Involving a Slice of Pie and a Container of Rice. Hehe.