Chocolate Pudding Pie

Instructions

To prepare the Chocolate Crumb Crust

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
2. Mix together the cookie crumbs, sugar and melted butter.
3. Press evenly into the bottom and sides of a greased 9 inch glass pie pan and bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely.

To prepare the Chocolate Pudding Filling

1. In the microwave, scald the milk almost to the boiling point.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa, 1 cup sugar and salt. It is a good idea to run this mix through a sieve or flour sifter to ensure that there are no small lumps of cocoa in it.
3. Add the mixture to a medium sized pot over medium low heat and immediately add about 1/3 of the milk, stirring constantly.
4. When the mixture begins to thicken, add another third of the milk and when that begins to thicken, add the final third of the milk. You have to stir this continuously during the cooking time.
5. In a large measuring cup, whisk together the 3 egg yolks.
6. Before adding the whisked egg yolks you have to temper them with some of the pudding to ensure they don’t scramble and produce lumps. To do this, working as quickly as you can, remove the pot from the heat and just add a ladle full of the pudding mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly; then add them all at once back to the pudding mixture, still stirring the pudding constantly.
7. Cook for another two to three minutes, stirring constantly.
8. Pour the hot pudding into the prepared pie crust and cool completely in the fridge. To prevent a “skin” from forming over the pudding as it cools, cover the surface of the pie with plastic wrap if you like.
9. When completely cooled and set, garnish the pie with vanilla whipped cream and grated chocolate before serving.

To prepare the Vanilla Whipped Cream

1. Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract all together until firm peaks form. Spread or pipe onto the top of the pie before garnishing with chocolate if you like.