Chocolate Pie (1895)

For my next project from Cora’s cookbook, I decided to tackle another pie, and settled rather quickly on her “chocolate pie” recipe. A creamy chocolate pie is rich and simple. Feels like classic Americana to me. Not to mention, it doesn’t require any obscure ingredients, just some basic things I was likely to already have at the apartment.

Initial thoughts on the recipe

Look, I love me an obscure, enigmatic historical recipe. I really do. But sometimes, it’s refreshing to look at one and think, “Ok, I could totally do that.” And hey, this one even has instructions rather than just a list of ingredients. I do wonder what “sweet milk” is…is there sugar added? My biggest hang-up (and admittedly also my favorite part) is “piece of butter half the size of an egg.” I mean, who knows what kind of eggs Great-Grandma Cora was getting on her farm compared to the factory farm eggs available at modern grocery stores. So I guess in true “history re-eats” fashion, I’m gonna wing it (insert shrug emoji here).

Trying it out

This recipe actually involved a lot less “trying” than the others, since it has steps laid out. It’s a straightforward stove-top filling that you cool and top with egg whites. There were only a couple elements that didn’t feel so straightforward.

One was the whole “sweet milk” mystery. It’s not a thing you see in modern recipes, aside from “sweetened condensed milk.” I did consider condensed milk, since I think it was around at the time the recipe was written. But a google search revealed the answer: “sweet milk” was an old-fashioned way to refer to whole milk. I don’t get it, but that’s all right.

Now as for the butter half the size of an egg, I just went ahead and guessed about two tablespoons. The pie turned out fine, so I think this was accurate enough.

Surprisingly, the thing that gave me the most trouble was whipping up the egg whites and sugar to make the meringue topping. The recipe calls for the white of one egg, but frankly it barely covered the pie. Two seems more reasonable.

However, the filling itself was also shallower than I expected. Afterward, I double checked and realized my pie pan is 9.5″, which I guess is bigger than the standard 9″. That might be part of my problem. Unfortunately because it was so shallow, the edge of the crust cracked when I took it out (which explains why it looks a little flat in the picture). At least that doesn’t affect the taste.

The verdict:

This one is a winner. I truly believe you can’t go wrong with chocolate pie. It’s rich and creamy with a nice depth of flavor — what more could you want? It satisfied all my expectations for it. Except, maybe, that it wasn’t particularly thick. Next time I’ll either increase the proportions or use a smaller pie tin. Overall though, I loved this recipe and give it a 5/5.

Chocolate Pie

A historical recipe from 1895 handwritten cookbook

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Cook Time 15 mins

Course Dessert

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• ½ cup sugar scant
• 2 tsp cocoa powder wet with a little of the milk
• 1 egg separated
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tsp sugar

Instructions

 

• Prepare/cook pie crust first.
• Mix milk, butter, and sugar together in a small saucepan; set on the stove and bring to a boil.
• Mix the wet cocoa powder and egg yolk together. Stir in a little of the mixture from the stove to slowly bring the temperature up. When hot enough, add the cocoa and egg into the saucepan and stir to make sure egg does not cook up in chunks.
• Mix flour and cornstarch with a little cold water. Stir into the mixture and let boil a few minutes.
• Pour mixture into pie crust and let cool. Refrigerate to set.
• Beat the egg white and a little sugar to create a meringue. Spread over the pie and broil or use a kitchen torch to brown.