Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Chocolate (Cream) Cheese Pie, A Recipe From Farm Journal

 I made this creamy, delicious chocolate dessert yesterday:
The recipe actually comes from a cookbook we grew up with,
 Farm Journal's Complete Pie Cookbook, published in 1965:
I have Mother's copy, and the recipes in it are fabulous.
Some of our family favorites were the Frosted Apple-Raisin Pie, Crisscross Cherry Pie,
and the Best-Ever Lemon Meringue Pie, which really IS, by the way; it always got the highest bid when Mother would make one and take it to one of our 4-H Pie Socials.
Does anybody do Pie Socials any more? Our 4-H ones were fund raisers, and they were just plain, good, old-fashioned family fun. They were meant for the whole family to go, and we would bring our pies as donations, and then they were auctioned off. Maybe there was also a pot-luck dinner to enjoy; I can't recall.
But it was neat, and I miss stuff like that!
At our Gold Oak Union Elementary School Halloween carnivals, I remember also having a Cake Walk, and as I recall, working that - or participating - was fun, too.
 (I'm not sure now whether those were a 4-H Club sponsored event or if perhaps it was our 8th grade class to raise money for a class trip? Either way, they were enjoyable!)
 An array of cakes were donated by the club/class members and/or their families, and then we used a record player. There were taped out squares on the floor to walk as the music played, we'd stop the music, and then I guess we picked a number to determine the winning square? Your ticket(s) enabled you to "walk", and if you were the winner, then you got to pick whichever cake you wanted from the table. I mean, come on - how great is that?
All right, yes, I digress!
Those memories came flooding back as I was typing - so back to the topic at hand.
This is a picture of the pie from the cookbook:
And here is the recipe for the Short-Cut version:
 I didn't make the Chocolate Graham Cracker Crust this time, because I had some Cocoa Krispies in the pantry, and I found a recipe for a pie crust using Rice Krispies in an old magazine, so I decided to try that.
And then I also didn't feel like putting it in a pie plate, so I used an 8X8" Pyrex dish instead.
Here's the "crust" recipe, if you're interested:
Melt one cup of semi-sweet chocolate morsels with 1/4 cup of butter in a microwave-safe bowl for one minute or so and stir together until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth and creamy.
 Stir in 2 cups of Rice Krispies or Cocoa Krispies and press mixture into a lightly greased pie plate or square baking dish.
You could fill this crust with anything, of course; like ice cream or pudding, to create any number of refrigerated pies. It was definitely something new to me - and I really like it.
But honestly, this chocolate dream - I mean cream  (or do I?) - stuff is so delicious and so rich and decadent, I actually don't think you even need any type of crust. I think it would best be served as a wonderful sort-of Chocolate Mousse type of dessert in crystal goblets or sherbet dishes.
It's pretty fabulous. I love chocolate and I love rich things - but consider yourself warned, if you do not.
(I previously wrote about this pie back in my inaugural  "Then And Now" post, in June of 2008.
 (Click here  if you would like to go back and read that post.)
 I've also written about the Farm Journal Cookbooks more than once. Indeed I have, and for good reason.
All three of the Gold Country Girls have a collection of these fabulous vintage cookbooks, and I feel that the recipes they hold are worthy of a whole slew of posts!

1 comment:

Tina Dawn said...

Okay, I am gaining weight just reading this, and I love the idea of the cocoa crispies in the crust! Yummy! Love T