German Sweet Chocolate Pie

My parents new better than to ask me what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday. I hated cake, and to this day, I rarely enjoy cake. If I like a cake, it has to be moist and basically have a 1:1 cake:frosting ratio. Otherwise, I’ll choke down a piece to be polite. But I do not enjoy it. This does not apply to German Chocolate Cake, which I am genetically programmed to love.

Pie on the other hand, I love me some pie. My favorites were always fruit pies, namely strawberry, but out of season strawberries are gross, and my birthday is in October. I dabbled in pecan pie, rejected pumpkin outright (come on guys, that’s not a pie, that’s flan… ick). Finally, I found my love. My favorite pie. German Sweet Chocolate Pie. This is a simple, frozen pie with a lovely velvet texture, delicate chocolate flavor, and a slight tang as provided by the cream cheese. Another great thing about this pie, almost all of the ingredients can be substituted with fat free/low fat versions and it is still great.

Please enjoy my favorite pie.

German Sweet Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:

4 oz German Sweet chocolate
1/3 cup milk, divided
4 oz cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups Cool Whip

1 graham cracker crust (you can make it, or buy it)

Directions:

In the microwave, melt the chocolate with 2 tbsp of the milk. Melt on low power and slowly, stirring often. This will take about 2-3 minutes.

In your mixer, mix the chocolate, remaining milk, cream cheese and sugar, then whisk.

Refrigerate 10 minutes to cool. Add the cool whip by folding it in gently. Pour the batter into the pie crust. Cover and freeze overnight.

To serve, remove from the freezer 15 minutes prior to serving.

Espresso Shortbread

These are not a traditional Christmas cookie in my eyes, though I love them so much and they are a favorite of my coworkers, so I had to make them. I love that they are buttery and not super sweet. They have a very rich flavor with delicate chocolate and espresso notes.

This sounds like I am doing a review of a wine, though my knowledge of wine does not extend much beyond “dry” vs. “sweet” and the legs, which is just an excuse to play with your wine, in my opinion.

Either way, these cookies are awesome. Next year I plan to cut them a bit smaller so there are ‘more’ cookies, they are so rich and I made them a wee bit too big this year. Not that anyone complained, that’s just my opinion.

Espresso Shortbread

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder/coffee
1 tablespoon boiling water
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (plain, or a toffee variety), finely chopped
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (optional)
1 gallon freezer bag

Directions:

First, dissolve the coffee/espresso in the hot water and set aside to cool.

In your mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium for about 3 minutes or until fluffy, then add the vanilla and espresso. Turn the mixer down to low and slowly add the flour, though once the flour is in, do not over work the dough. By hand, gently mix in the chocolate.

Place the dough into a gallon sized freezer bag with a seal. Using your rolling pin, roll the dough out to the bottom corners of the bag, then slowly towards the opening. Once the dough reaches the top, press out the remaining air and seal the bag. Continue to work the dough until it is even inside the bag.

You can see from this picture that the dough is a bit loose and crumbly (bag on top) versus the smooth texture after rolling it out (bag on the bottom). Remember that I made a double batch for the cookie platters.

Place the bag in the fridge for 2 hours. Once the wait is over, preheat the oven to 325 and remove the bag from the fridge and put it on a cutting board. Very carefully using a knife or kitchen shears, cut the bag open and place the dough onto the board. Cut into as many pieces as you’d like, I would recommend about 1.5″ squares (the ones I made are much larger).

Using a fork, prick each cookie 3 times all the way to the cutting board.

Place the cookies on to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, silicone baking mats, or aluminum foil sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 18-20 minutes, switching the location of the baking pans half way through. Remove the cookies from the oven and gently transfer to a cooling rack. The cookies don’t get brown but will appear set. Dust with powdered sugar while still warm if you’d like, and allow to cool completely.