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Chocolate Cream Pie
1 pint milk 1/4 cup health cocoa 1/2 cup sugar 3 tablespoons cornstarch 2 eggs (3 eggs are sufficient for twice this quantity) 1 tablespoon butter substitute 1 tablespoon caramel 3/4 teaspoon vanilla A few grains salt Heat the milk in a double boiler. Mix the sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch. Stir the hot milk into this mixture. Return to the double boiler and cook fifteen minutes. Beat the eggs, stir some of the hot mixture into them, then stir them into the hot mixture, and cook two minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into baked crust.
To one-half cup heavy cream add one tablespoon sugar and one-eighth teaspoon vanilla. Whip the cream and spread it over the pie.
A cornstarch-and-cocoa custard cooked in a double boiler and poured into a pre-baked shell. The only real difficulty is the egg step, and two of the ingredients have names that no longer mean anything at the store.
- "Health cocoa"Plain unsweetened cocoa powder; the qualifier appears to mark it as a plain, unadulterated product of the kind health-food suppliers dealt in, though no particular brand behind the name is established. Use 1/4 cup natural or Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa; Dutch-process gives a darker, milder filling.
- Butter substituteIn a book of this type that means a vegetable shortening or nut-butter product used in place of dairy butter. A tablespoon of butter or a neutral margarine does the same job of enriching the filling.
- CaramelNot caramel sauce or candy, but caramel coloring: sugar cooked to a dark bitter syrup and thinned with water, used for color and a faint burnt note. A tablespoon of dark molasses or strong brewed coffee is closer in effect than modern caramel sauce, or leave it out.
- MeasuresA pint of milk is 2 cups. "A few grains" of salt is a pinch, at most about 1/8 teaspoon.
- The hinge: temper, then finish brieflyBeat the eggs, slacken them with some of the hot starch mixture, return the lot to the pan, and cook only the stated two minutes. Longer over direct heat curdles the eggs; the starch has already done the thickening.
- The fifteen minutesCornstarch needs a few minutes at a full simmer to lose its raw taste and reach maximum thickness, and the long spell over water is the safe way to get there without scorching. In a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, three to five minutes after it bubbles is enough.
- Mixing orderWhisk the dry sugar, cocoa, and cornstarch together thoroughly before any liquid touches them. Cocoa clumps badly, and lumps that form here will not stir out later.
- Crust and coolingThe shell must be fully baked and cooled. Pour the filling in warm, press plastic wrap directly on the surface if you dislike a skin, and chill at least three hours before adding the whipped cream.
- YieldNo pan size is given; the quantity suits an 8- or 9-inch pie, six to eight servings. The whipped cream quantity given is modest, enough for a thin covering rather than a piled topping.