{"id":810,"date":"2012-02-16T23:20:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T04:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recipephany.com\/?p=810"},"modified":"2023-08-14T12:26:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T16:26:25","slug":"oscars-2012-the-help-yourself-to-another-slice-of-chocolate-pie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/recipephany.com\/?p=810","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2012: The Help (Yourself to Another Slice of) Chocolate Pie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve seen The Help<\/em>, you know that Minny\u2019s famous chocolate pie has to headline this year\u2019s Oscars menu. I found what purports to be the recipe, but I had to test it before posting. After all, it was a movie prop. I was afraid it would look good, but taste crappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After some adaptation (adding lots more cocoa and vanilla, and simplifying the baking), I\u2019m pleased to report that my Minny’s pie recipephany below rates 5 out of 5 stars, with a dark filling that tastes like a melted chocolate bar. Neither cream, nor custard, nor chiffon, it\u2019s a firm pie that would not lend itself to tossing. It poses no danger of a chocolate flood in the oven because the filling stays comfortably below the line of crimpage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This variation of a classic Southern chocolate chess pie is a good movie choice because it must have held up well under the Klieg lights. When I was growing up in North Carolina, chocolate angel pie with its heavenly chocolate cloud on a thin pecan meringue crust was the hands-down best Southern pie ever. Now that\u2019s <\/em>Oscar material. But it would never have lasted beyond the first take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And considering how hard it is to make a chocolate angel pie (at least for me\u2014I have yet to get it right), Minny\u2019s pie has the edge because you can dash it together from ingredients you have around the kitchen. (Especially if, like me, you still have that can of evaporated milk left over from Thanksgiving.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blues Food Tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband and his college friends created \u201cBlues Food\u201d themed dinners many years ago, the intersection of good food, puns, and conceptual art. Once we put saut\u00e9ed chicken livers with red wine gravy into a baked pie shell, and topped it with squares of baked pastry with perforated edges\u2014a dish my husband called \u201cShit or Get Off the Pot Pie.\u201d This Oscars menu humbly bows to that fine tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2012 Oscars Menu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n