Chocolate Fudge Pie

   I do feel rather guilty actually. I intended my entries to be more on information and reviews on Islamic matters, but what I've done most so far is write all my dark and gloomy thoughts on life as well as about food. I actually have several entries on my baking adventures pending their posting, but I've held back because it seems rather frivolous to think and write about food all the time!

   But when you're wolfing down vanilla ice-cream topped with home-made chocolate sauce at the unearthly hour of 12.00 am, you don't stop to think much. I'm afraid I don't have any fat to worry about any fat building up by eating in the middle of the night, and if I get indigestion I'll just bear with it when I do.

Vanilla ice-cream + homemade chocolate sauce @ 12 a.m.

   

   After finishing two cups of irresistibly delicious vanilla ice-cream, I decided to share this lovely recipe for chocolate fudge pie!!! Oh it isn't mine of course, but it's lovely so there you are! It also happens to be one of the easiest thing to make in the whole world wide world, which is perhaps exaggerating a bit but oh well.

Chocolate Fudge Pie

Ingredients:

(Can I add it's so easy that I remember the ingredients without having to look at them again?)

2 cups sugar

1/cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 all-purpose flour

1 cup butter (I used margerine. Worked out okay.)

4 eggs (beat 'em in a bowl first using a fork)

How to do it:

(Can I say it's so simple you can practically do it with your eyes shut? Well, maybe that is going a little too far)

1. Whisk sugar, cocoa powder and flour in a bowl

2. Melt butter (or margarine) in a saucepan over medium heat. 

3. Cool butter a little, then pour into dry ingredients (or the other way round. Doesn't matter [I think] as long as they're mixed. Hah!) 

4. Beat in eggs. Beat using a whisk or whatever comes in handy (not your hand!!!) until well mixed. 

5. Pour into 10-inch pie pan (I used a 9-inch tart pan) and bake at 170 C until a crust forms on top.

(Or you could stick a cake tester or toothpick into it, and when it comes out clean and dry, it's done!!!)

[You can get the original recipe and instructions here]

   What did I tell you? Easy as a pie. Oh, I forgot. It is a pie! Well, sort of anyway. It's actually a fudgy kind of brownie, stickier. And very, very sweet. Too sweet, actually for me, though Dad loves it of course. He's got a sweet tooth. Mum though, says I should halve the sugar next time. I think I will, or at least only use 1 and 1/2 cups instead of 2.

   I would advice using granulated sugar or castor sugar because you're just mixing everything by hand. Otherwise you can taste the sugar in the pie while eating it (at least I did). And yes, one of the lovely things about this dessert is you only need one measuring cup, one bowl, a hand whisk and a saucepan. Cleaning up was a breeze, as of of the reviews said!

   The centre of the pie will puff up a bit even though there's no baking powder used, but it'll sink back down once you take it out. At least mine did.

My Chocolate Fudgy Fudge Pie. Hah!

   Hold on! We're not done. You have to make the chocolate sauce that goes with it! Actually, I came across this recipe when I searched for a chocolate sauce recipe that did not use chocolate bars. We've run out of those, but we have plenty of cocoa powder. Too much of it, actually, I've used quite a number of recipes using cocoa powder and the one packet we have hasn't run out just yet!

   Anyway, I found a nice and simple recipe for the sauce on www.food.com which is a pretty cool site where home-makers share recipes with each other. This particular sauce got pretty good reviews from the people who've tried them, and one recommended making them to be eaten with the fudge pie above. I was delighted out of my wits when I saw the recipe. Just 5 ingredients! And all easy-to-be-found ones too! The chocolate sauce looked pretty simple too.

   Okay, I'll stop and give you the recipe:

Dark Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 pinch salt

How-to-dos:

1. Whisk and combine cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a deep pan or pot.

2. Gradually pour in water and stir until well combined.

3. Stir over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil. Boil for three minutes while stirring continuously; reduce heat if mixture looks like it wants to jump out of the pot.

4. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

5. Strain through a fine strainer into an airtight container. Keep in fridge and use when needed (how practical that sounds!)

[You can get the original recipe and instructions here]

   Easy!!! Make sure you use a pot that contain three times as much as the whole ingredients after they've been mixed before you cook them. I used a pot that could carry only twice the amount, and when the sauce started boiling I nearly lost half of it because so much had boiled over! It was a mess, and one that I had to clean up or little critters would be all over it in the next hour. But it was worth it! I'd never made chocolate sauce before (or at least as far as I remember) and this one was really good- not too sweet, and the consistency just fine! Not too thick or too watery. You can keep it in the fridge for quite some time. We still have a lot left since we didn't too much of it.

My Version of Dark Chocolate Sauce

   And here's how you eat 'em!

Well, okay, this was taken from the original recipe. Not mine.

This is mine. Not bad, huh? Haha.

   Delicious! 

   I think I'll go and have another helping of ice-cream. They say vanilla ice-cream is excellent for toothache. I don't know how true that is, but I say excellent!  It goes so well with the chocolate sauce and the fudgy fudge pie. And just as excellent with just the sauce.

   Happy trying!