Recipe #4: Chocolate Cream Pie

Lately I have been craving chocolate like no one's business so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to find a recipe that was simple and choco-licious. I am still laughing with hindsight when I decided this recipe would be fast and be as easy as pie. The recipe said the total time would be 10 minutes. It took me an hour. Unfortunately, I did not foresee the need for a mixer, which would have been beneficial to me for these reasons:

First, I needed to make the chocolate cream and seeing that I was using an entire 8 oz package of cream cheese I could have cut the time from 15 minutes of intense manual mixing to maybe a minute. Secondly, the whipped cream could have been whipped a bit more sufficiently and/or properly if I only had a mixer.

Well, sadly for my arm, I had to do it all by myself. The likelihood of this recipe coming together the way the recipe explained seemed frustratingly slim. Ian was halfway out of the front door to go to the grocery store to purchase some already prepared whipped cream when I decided to give the cream one last go. I picked up the mixing spoon and gave it everything I had left. I yelled out loud in amazement that the cream was whipping! But out of my excitement I accidentally over-whipped the cream and it ended up looking like cottage cheese. But I did it!

I have to say, and rather embarrassingly, that transforming cream into real whipped cream without a mixer made me feel like Tom Hanks in the scene from Cast Away when he made fire for the first time. Perhaps an over-dramatized example but that is exactly how I felt. This dessert has been, by far, the most challenging and adventurous recipe I have made yet!

I got this recipe from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/chocolate-cream-pie-recipe/index.html. If you have a mixer, which I highly recommend, you should be able to follow the recipe without running into any issues. You should also be safe staying in the estimated prep time. Better luck to me next time but good luck to you!

Ingredients: 

* 8 oz of softened cream cheese
* 1.25 Tbsp of Vanilla Flavor ($4.00 difference, couldn't resist!)
* 3/4 cups of sugar
* 1/3 cup of milk
* Chocolate Pie Crust
* 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
* 1/3 cup of Cocoa Powder

Cooking Directions:

First mix together the cream cheese, milk, cocoa powder, 1 Tbsp of Vanilla Flavor, and a 1/2 cup of sugar into a large bowl. Blend together with a mixer, if you have one. (If you're poor like me or if you are just trying to work on your right hook, mixing everything manually can be a great alternative.)

After the mixture is smooth pour it all into the chocolate pie crust and set aside.

Then mix together cream, 1 tsp of Vanilla Flavor, and a 1/4 cup of sugar.  Mix on medium high. If stirring in a mixer it should only take about a minute to make whipped cream. (If by hand, it will take a while longer. I did not time the process but it will become whipped cream around the time your arm feels like it is about to fall off.)

(A sad and not at all close representation of how the pie is supposed to appear...but, it still tastes like pie.)