Chocolate Cream Pie II

I posted one of my favorite pie recipes recently, but last week I stumbled upon an easier, quicker and even more delicious chocolate pie. The answer: cream cheese. We made dinner for our friends who just had a baby and I wanted to include a dessert. Nothing says "welcome to this world" like chocolate, right? Well it was already the middle of the day when I thought about chocolate cream pie and I knew it wouldn't be ready in time, but that little morsel of logic wasn't fending off my now pulsing craving to have a slice of it immediately. So, a quick little search for "quick chocolate cream pie" and boom-my new go-to pie recipe.

Now, there's a time and a place for that other recipe, because it's smooth and velvety and classic. And way more impressive when you tell people how long it took you to make it. This pie has a bit more tang to it, (thank you, cream cheese) and is really rich and awesome. And takes less than a half hour to complete.

I found this recipe on Foodnetwork.com, but it didn't include a crust recipe and was a little bit more runny than I wanted, so I added a few steps to make it smoother and more stable and used Martha Stewart's crust recipe.

 
Ingredients:

25 chocolate wafers (I used gluten-free "Oreo" cookies and twisted off one side)
4 tablespoons melted butter
8 oz of cream cheese (softened and slightly warmed)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (optional but important for a stable pie)

1. Pulse the chocolate wafers in a food processor until they form coarse crumbs (or crush in ziplock bag). Stir in melted butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Press the mixture into an ungreased 9x9 pie plate and bake at 350 degrees or until pie is fragrant. Set aside to cool completely.

2. Stir the unflavored gelatin and 1 tablespoon of very hot water together until crystals dissolve in small bowl and set aside.

3. Beat together cream cheese, sugar, cocoa powder, milk and vanilla extract until smooth and fluffy. (It's important for the cream cheese to be slightly warmed up so it breaks down better as you mix it. I microwaved mine in a bowl for about 20 seconds.) Stir in the gelatin until well-combined.

4. Press the pie through a sieve to eliminate any remaining cream cheese particles into the cooled pie crust and cover with plastic wrap before placing in the fridge to set. I served up this pie about two hours later and it was perfect and ready to eat! The original recipe says it's ready to serve immediately, but since I added gelatin in, I wanted to give it time to solidify.

Top with homemade whipped cream and garnish with chocolate shavings. And then bring it over to your friend's house and shamelessly take home a few slices for yourself. (Hey, she understood. She was very recently pregnant as well.)

Yum!