The Carson Crew

So, Troy has been requesting a chocolate pie for some time now. I made what I called a chocolate pie a few weeks ago, which consisted of the instant pudding mix that was sugar-free and fat-free, on a store bought graham cracker crust and topped with fat-free Cool Whip.

OK, now that I'm describing this in detail it really doesn't sound that great. And it wasn't all that great. I mean, if you're trying to eat less sugar and less fat, you sometimes take what you can get, right? So maybe you convince yourself that it's great. It wasn't.

He sensed this "lack of greatness" from the initial pie and never had any. I finally threw it out.

Because I am madly in love with my man, I want to make him this pie. So I searched several cookbooks and settled on one from Richland Springs, my parents' hometown and the area where my grandmother still lives. If those ladies don't know how to make a fabulous chocolate pie, no one does.

Turns out, there are many chocolate pie recipes in this cookbook. One might be from Mrs. Thomas, several from Billie Perkins, a couple from Dorene Mills' Aunt Fae, etc. I'm making up names here, but it was an interesting mix of submissions. I just picked one at random.

I thought it was going to be a disaster. In the first batch of chocolate filling I tried making actually scrambled the eggs as I added them to the mixture. Who does this? I've always laughed at the thought, but here I was scrambling eggs in my chocolate pie. Guess I was rushing too much. I actually thought about leaving it that way and seeing if anyone would notice, but thankfully my better judgement won out. I threw it out and called my mom for advice.

Her main suggestion was to add more corn starch than it called for so it would be sure to thicken. Makes sense to me...who likes a runny pie? So I added a TON of cornstarch. So much, that after this thing cooked, I really felt certain we could insulate windows with it. I know she didn't mean to add that much. Thought it was going to be awful, but we had to try it.

Guess what - it was so good!!! We all loved it and if the process wasn't so painful, I'd make this on a regular basis. Maybe someday I'll try again. All my respect goes to those who can succesfully bake chocolate meringue pies.

I wonder if I could make a chocolate meringue cupcake...