Chocolate (Molasses) Oatmeal Pie

The darling wife being out of town on business last week, I decided to welcome her back with a pie of her choice. She said, as she often does, merely one word: "chocolate".

So I looked for something chocolatey and exciting. Since I've had good luck with Four & Twenty Blackbirds recipes lately, I was pleased to find this: not an official recipe of theirs but likely to be as good as if it were.

The recipe is available at the above link, but also here (with my modifications and notes). The pie dough recipe I made was also Four & Twenty Blackbird's recipe, as described on this previous post.

The outcome? Bizarre. This, if I hadn't made a couple ridiculous mistakes, might have been one of the most glorious pies I've made yet. But two inexplicable dummy moves on my part made it sort of bizarre, and borderline inedible. Still, it has a certain charm that makes me not want to call it a failure.

Basically: I used agave nectar instead of corn syrup. This might have been fine; but I also used more than double the amount of molasses called for. This was not fine at all, and resulted in a runny pie that tastes more of molasses than anything else. If you say to yourself, hooray, a molasses pie with chocolate!, well, then, fine. Come over and have the last couple slices. Because I have trouble finishing one... :(

One of these days I'll try it again, and strictly limit the amount of molasses.

On the plus side: the crust came out quite good. Firm and crisp and flaky. Though my standards keep climbing, and I've got a long ways to go on this front still before I achieve flaky pie crust perfection.

Ingredients

One pie dough, shaped and chilled in a pie plate

5 ounces dark chocolate

5 ounces heavy cream

Pinch of salt (I over-pinched this, making the ganache salty. Honestly, that was not a bad thing. Yum.)

6 ounces Lyle's Golden Syrup (or dark corn syrup) (I wound up using dark agave nectar, because that's what I had in the house. Note to reader: this was stupid. It's not the same thing. Not in this context.)

2 ounces molasses (2 oz is not very much. Do not do as I did, and add 5 oz, misreading the recipe badly and ruining the pie as a result.)

3 ounces light brown sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 egg

2 yolks

Pinch of nutmeg (I fresh-grated about three pinches' worth, because I love nutmeg) 

Pinch of salt

9 ounces Old Fashioned oats (not quick-cooking)

Procedures

1. Prepare the crust: Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line the bottom of the chilled pie crust with foil or parchment paper and fill it with pie weights (I reuse dried beans for this purpose) and bake for 15 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven, rotating halfway through. Remove the weights and liner and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until the bottom of the pie begins to brown. Remove the shell from the oven and allow it to cool.
2. Make the ganache: Finely chop the chocolate and place in a bowl with the salt. In a medium-sized saucepan, set over medium heat, bring the heavy cream just to a boil. Remove from the stove and immediately pour the cream over the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to sit for 2 minutes, then stir until the ganache is completely smooth. Pour the ganache into the bottom of the cooled pie shell and place in the fridge until the ganache has hardened, at least 1 hour.
3. Make the oatmeal topping and bake: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, whisk together the syrup, molasses, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg and yolks, then add to the ingredients in the large bowl, and whisk to combine. Add the oatmeal stir well. Pour oatmeal mixture over the top of chilled ganache and spread it evenly. Bake until the top of the pie is a golden brown, 15-20 minutes. If the crust becomes too dark, place patches of foil around the edges to protect it from the heat. Allow the pie to cool completely before serving.  (Note: I left the pie in the oven a good 25+ minutes, and it was still very very gooey in the middle, almost liquid. After cooling for several hours, it solidified pretty thoroughly, except for the too-gooey molasses).

And, now for the pictorial section: The dough, ready for rolling.

Rolled out and placed in the pan.

 Trimmed and shaped.

 Pre-baked, and looking good (though my edges collapsed a bit).

Chopped dark chocolate. 

Heavy cream, heating. 

Mixing with the chocolate:

Fully mixed.

 Ganache in the pie crust, looking delicious.

 My agave-molasses mixture, with nutmeg. Sigh. Waaaay too much molasses.

Now, the oatmeal!

The filled pie:

 And, the baked pie.

On a plate:

 The cut pie, oozing chocolasses.

Until next week. In the meantime, readers, may you eat lots of pie with your friends.