Mississippi Mud Pie

My latest endeavour was a recipe that I have had my eye for a while. This called for an ingredient that I have never used before: chocolate extract. I had never come across it before in my baking so far, so I was intrigued at a recipe that included it. I found the recipe in the Rosie's Pantry Baking book and it seemed like an easy enough task to make this pie.


First task was getting all the ingredients together:

Pastry -

• 225g/8oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 2 tbsp coca powder
• 150g/51/2oz unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1-2 tbsp cold water

Filling -

• 175g/6oz unsalted butter
• 350g/12oz brown sugar
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 150g/51/2oz plain chocolate
• 300ml/10 fl oz single cream
• 1 tsp chocolate extract

To decorate -

• 450ml/15 fl oz double cream, whipped
• Chocolate flakes and curls

Lots of lovely ingredients.

First I made up the pastry. I started by sifting together the flour and the cocoa powder.

Flour and cocoa powder.

Then I rubbed in the butter until the mixture looked like fine breadcrumbs.

Butter.

Then the sugar was stirred in, followed by the cold water.

Pastry nearly there.

This was all mixed together to create a soft dough, which was wrapped in clingfilm and left to chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.

Mmmm, chocolate pastry.

The dough was then rolled out on a flour- and cocoa powder-covered board, before being pressed into a 23cm/9 inch tart tin.

Pre-blind-bake.

The pastry was first blind-baked (lined with baking paper and filled with baking beans) at 190°C  for 15 minutes with the baking beans, and then for 10 minutes uncovered. Once the pastry case was out of the oven, the oven temperature was reduced to 160°C.

Baked pastry.

As the pastry was cooling, I made a start on the filling. This was made by beating the brown sugar and the butter together.

Sugar and butter.

Then the eggs and the cocoa powder were gradually beaten into the mixture.

Adding the eggs and cocoa powder.

Whilst the eggs and cocoa powder were being beaten in, I was melting the plain chocolate, which was also then added in to the filling mixture.

Adding the melted chocolate.

After the melted chocolate was added, the single cream and the chocolate extract were beaten in, and this was then poured into the pastry case.

Ready for the oven.

The pie was then baked in the oven for 45 minutes at 160°C, until the filling was just set.

Nicely baked.

One thing I will mention is that the recipe I used made double the amount of filling that was necessary. Unwilling to waste/throw out such a lovely filling, I poured half the mixture into the large pastry case, and saved the other half. Whilst the first pie was baking, I quickly made another batch of pastry, which I used to line a ceramic pie dish and two tartlet cases. The remaining filling was then divided up between the three pastry cases.

Mississippi Mud Tartlets.

Once the filling had cooled down completely, the whipped cream was added on top of the pie.

Adding the whipped cream.

The whipped cream was then decorated with plain chocolate flakes and curls. The decoration was the same for both of the large pies, but the small pies had only a small tablespoon's worth of whipped cream on top, and no extra chocolate.

Garnished with chocolate.

Pie for Miss Sarah and family.

I took the first pie into work, where it went down a storm with everyone. One of my colleagues even claimed that it was her favourite of my baking projects yet! I was very pleased indeed with the feedback.

The second pie was taken to Miss Sarah's house, and was much appreciated by Miss Sarah and her parents.

Ready to eat!

Messy but good.

Nice cross-section slice.

The pie was absolutely lovely. It was nowhere near as sweet as I thought it would be; I think the use of brown sugar rather than caster sugar meant that the sweetness was limited somewhat. The whipped cream was also unsweetend, which meant that there wasn't a total overload of sugar. The pastry was also not too sugary or sweet.

I can definitely recommend this recipe. It was relatively easy to make, and the results were excellent, and very much appreciated by my colleagues and friends.

Beckie.