Deaf Pagan Crossroads

Blackbottom Pie

First bake a deep dish pie crust until golden and put aside to cool (I buy already made pie crusts and fit them into my pottery pie dish as it takes a lot less time, or you can buy those frozen deep dish pie shells).

In a small bowl put 2 tablespoons pure vanilla, 2 tablespoons water and 1 envelope of unflavored gelatin. Set aside after you stir the contents. (Be sure to stir it well so that you get out the lumps…)

In a non-stick pot blend 2/3 cup sugar with 1 Tablespoon cornstarch. (It really does helps to use a non-stick pot for this. Don’t turn the heat on yet, just mix these together in the pan and make sure you don’t have a lot of lumps in the cornstarch.)

In a bowl separate 4 eggs from yolks. Put aside the whites of the eggs for future use. (You are only using the yolks for this pie – there is no meringue or anything…)

Beat egg yolks, add 1 cup half and half and I cup milk. Mix together to make sort of like an egg and milk batter.

Add the egg-and-milk mixture to sugar and cornstarch slowly. Now turn on the heat to medium, and heat until boiling and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. (You really do need to stir non-stop, or it tends to burn on the bottom. I like to use a whisk and stir it with that to help prevent it from getting lumps. You want to let it reach a boil slowly, so it doesn’t burn and ruin your pudding and your pot!)

Turn off the heat, and then add gelatin mixture to the above hot custard and continue to stir until well blended.

In a bowl pour 1/2 the pot (only half of it! don’t use it all!) of above hot custard mixture and blend well with a 6 oz. pkg. of semi sweet chocolate morsels, so that the chocolate melts and blends well into the custard to make a chocolate pudding sort of thing.

Pour blended chocolate mixture into bottom of your pie crust. (This will not totally fill your pie…that’s okay, because you are still going to put a second layer on top of the chocolate, so don’t worry – that’s the reason this is called Blackbottom Pie…the bottom half is the chocolate, and the upper half is the white vanilla!)

Put pie in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Now you have the other half of the custard. While the bottom chocolate half of your pie is cooling in the refrigerator…

Beat 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, add 2 tablespoons confectioner sugar. Beat with electric Add the cooled left-over custard to the whipping cream and using a rubber spatula or spoon, blend it all gently together.

Spread this whipped cream – custard mixture over the cooled chocolate pie and keep in the refrigerator for at least two hours to allow it all to get a little cool and firm.

If you wish you can decorate with chocolate shavings on top.