Chocolate cream pie recipe for two, made in a mini 6" pie pan. Scroll down for a chance to win a mini pie pan! Don't miss the how to video to the right!
I don’t get to say THANK YOU enough around here.
And before you write this off as some blanket ‘thanks for visiting my site’ letter, please, sit and stay awhile.
While I am grateful you are here, there were a lot of people here before you.
Mainly, my grandma. She small-batch baked. She was forever cutting recipes in half because it was just her & my grandpa. Even when my Mom was in the house, she made small batch recipes because 3 people don’t need 3 dozen cookies.
This small batch dessert thing is in my blood.
This mini 6” pie plate pictured in these photos belonged to my grandma. My mom grew up in the 1950s; I want you to know that someone else was small-batch baking and buying mini pie plates even back then.
So, while it seems like a mini pie plate is something kitchsy found in a hobby store, I’m here to tell you that it’s been around for a while.
I was a single grad student when I created this site. I started it because I was scaling down my mom’s dessert recipes while living far away from home in California.
The first recipe I ever scaled down was her Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake into 2 oversized ramekins. They’re 10-ounce ramekins, and I don’t even know how they found their way into my kitchen. I certainly didn’t purchase them with the intent of ‘blogging’ about it and taking pictures. They just appeared in my kitchen.
It took me 3 tries to scale the recipe down. I ate the first successful attempt while reading The Pioneer Woman’s blog on my green IKEA couch, and thought, "Hey, I wanna share recipes too! Maybe someone else out there wants a small cake instead of a big one".
It was very humble in the beginning. It was honest, pure, and from the heart.
And, I don’t exactly know what happened, but this site here brings me a lot of heartache. Whether it’s the nature of owning your own business or the comparison trap, this site floods and haunts my brain all at once.
Sometimes I need a big glass of wine and a benedryl to get some relief. Sleep is the only relief because spending time doing something else besides working is ineffective because of guilt. I can take my kid to the playground but if mentally, I feel like I need to be working, it’s not the same.
I do want to be working. I want to be here.
I’m good at scaling down recipes and it is a true source of joy for me. When I make a giant recipe for cookies or a big 3-layer cake, it makes me angry. I hate having to scoop the cookie dough so much, in and out of the fridge, washing the baking sheet between batches (because a hot pan makes cookies spread too much while baking, you know). And while I do like making big cakes on occasion, the amount of ingredients astound me. Three cups of flour is a mountain to me. It doesn’t feel right in my hands. I can’t even count that high when I’m baking; I have to count out loud and even then, I mess up frequently.
Anyway, I’m here to say thank you to my grandma for instilling in me the love of small-batch baking. Though I don’t remember her doing it much as a kid, I know she’s the source of all things.
I don’t talk about it much (and I have no idea why), but my grandma and her sister ran a very famous restaurant in Dallas. When my mom was little, Rose’s Bluebonnet Sandwich shop was the place where all downtown Dallas workers stopped by for a plate lunch. Rose got up early and flipped the barbecue in the smokers; her arms and hands were black from the smoke. When Bonnie & Clyde was being filmed in Dallas, she was tasked to feed the crew during filming. Rose fed people well. And my grandma helped her during her entire life.
My grandma helped her fend off the celebrities and press that wanted to sing her praises of the best hamburgers ever, because the two of them really couldn’t handle any more business. I remember my grandma counting tickets at the end of each day, and I think 75-120 burgers was the usual amount. When D Magazine would write about her, the two of them would groan and complain as the line formed out the door. When Don Henley (Dallas resident!) dedicated a song to her burgers at a concert my parents attended, we laughed because we knew Rose was gonna be pissed.
We called her restaurant Rosie’s, never Bluebonnet, and none of us has ever had a better burger anywhere.
Rose passed when I was in college. I didn’t quite know that the the summers I spent working in her restaurant would mean anything to me later in life. I only knew that all of the adults around me talked frequently about how she should retire and take a break from feeding and serving people. She’d been doing it 'too long,' in their opinion.
But she didn’t. When she called for an ambulance on a Friday afternoon (after lunch service and cleaning up the kitchen), she knew if she went to the hospital, she wouldn’t be coming home. She was right.
The thing is, 2018 isn't shaping up to be the year I wanted it to be, so I’m here to deal with it. To face where I come from, why I do what I do, and what I want out of it.
But really, we can’t ask for the things we want so directly in life: We can ask for a job, but we cannot ask for the amount of money we want with it. We can ask for a certain type of life partner, but we cannot ask for the way they will change us and force us to face the bad parts of ourselves. We can ask for a baby, but we cannot ask for the skills to raise that baby perfectly.
I can’t ask for anything. All I can do is what I want to do...what makes my blood pump in the morning, even though there are ugly sides to it.
This is the very first recipe I posted on my site in 2010. Even though the first recipe I ever scaled down was Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake, I chose to share this recipe first as a way to honor to my grandparents.
Here's the old photo from 2010! Yikes!
I wrote exactly 46 words about why I chose to make it, including a few lines about why you should make it too—like I was so certain anyone was reading and that I could convince people to do things in their kitchens.
(I chose this recipe to share first because it was my grandpa’s favorite pie that his step-sister Stacey made for him. He served in Pearl Harbor. He was a medic in the Army who very much wanted to go to medical school but the stock market crash had something to do with his cotton farmer daddy not having enough money to send his kids to college. His daddy had two families because my grandpa’s mom passed away early in life and he remarried. When my grandpa came home from the war, Stacey made him this chocolate pie. He ate the whole pie in one sitting. He said the food was awful in the Army, as I imagine most farmer’s kids found out when they served).
Much like I can’t understand now why 2018 is going the way it’s going, I couldn’t predict how much this choice of first recipe to share would give me a foundation today. A place to start over in 2018. A place to draw the line and figure out how I feel and how much I’ll let other people affect that.
I took new photos and we made a quick video (it's at the top of the post)...because I’m still in the business of trying to convince you to do things in the kitchen.
I actually updated the recipe too, because the original recipe had a pudding filling that was too much like pudding. It was delicious, but this is 2018 where food photos count, and pies must hold together in one pretty piece, or else! Only sort of joking, we added an egg yolk and an extra tablespoon of cornstarch. It’s still the best chocolate pie recipe I’ve ever had.
There are still remnants of Rose in Dallas. I’ve just moved back here after 12 years away, and I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin in this town. I love Texas. It’s an identity for me.
There’s a restaurant in Dallas called Mesero that has a burger dedicated to her (The Rose Burger). My parents found it by accident while eating there, and listened to the owner describe his love for Rose and her food.
She was a beacon. And she did it all with her sister (my grandma). And neither of them are here anymore to help me out of this mess I’m in now.
But as strong women, they would tell me that women don’t really need help, we just need time to figure things out.
I've been told that I cook like Rose. I'm a mess in the kitchen. I just throw things together and somehow, it works. I cook with a lot of confidence--I generally know what I'm doing in the kitchen and how it will turn out. I'm not afraid to fail, because I'm confident that even my failure will be passable. I'm the person that makes new recipes for company. The stress and anxiety it causes is never worth it, but I do it anyway.
Thank you for being here. Truly.
I hope you enjoy the recipe video with this post. Let me know if you have any questions; I'm here to help.
Makes 1 small 6" pie.Mini Chocolate Cream Pie
Ingredients
Crust:
Filling:
Whipped Cream:
Instructions
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4
Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 392Total Fat: 22gSaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 144mgSodium: 165mgCarbohydrates: 42gFiber: 1gSugar: 23gProtein: 8g
Jacqueline says
You don’t know how bad I needed to read this post right now. I absolutely adore you and your authenticity. Thank you for being you and sharing your life/love of cooking with us.????
Melissa says
Love this post Christina! Sending lots of good vibes your way! Love your blog and the stories and your recipes! Can’t wait to try this!
Joyce says
Love your recipes. Small batch is everything! It’s not just you, 2018 is challenging. Truly, not the best for me. Looking fowRd to making this pie.
Aurelie says
Your post really moved me and I want you to be all right! I've been reading your blog and trying your recipes for more than 2 years now here in France, and it changed my life: I love dessert but my partner doesn't, and when I found out about your site, I had an epiphany. I immediately ordered mini pie pans and actually dreamt about small-batch dessert that night. In these 2 years, you've inspired me to start scaling down other recipes, and I've been cooking more and more as a way to take care of myself and to regain balance in my life. Cooking for other people is an act of love, and so is cooking for oneself! But it's not just your recipes: I love your words as much as the desserts you give us. So thank YOU Christina !
Mackennea says
What is it with Texas women and chocolate pie?? The first recipe I ever learned to make was my great great grandma Ruby’s chocolate angel kiss pie and since it’s just me in college, this is the perfect way to not make an entire chocolate pie but still have a slice (literally) of family. I might try to swap the whipped cream for a meringue with the extra egg white so it gets the angel kisses ;-) Thanks so so much for sharing your story and this recipe!!
Susanna says
It's been an awkward 2018 so far... I totally agree. I totally understant how you feel. Each year when it starts you sort of the the feeling that this will definitely be THE year you have always expected... and when you see that months go by and not all things turn out as expected it can get frustrating and sort of sad...
I have come to learn that was much as we want things to turn out, in the end you need to find joy in the smallest things that happen everyday. I started having the hardest day yesterday but in the evening some really good thing came across my way and this it what made the day count for me.
It's all about find the good persepctive of things I guess though it gets pretty hard most of the time. And this is me talking the "why do things in life need to be so hard to get?" kinda of person... this is the sentence that rounds my head most of the time. But then again something real good happens that makes me realize that after the heard stuff some good can come across my way.
Anyway, as I said, I see myself reflected in your words... so much.
I just can say hang in there and keep the good stuff in your life! You have a gift for backing and cooking so GO FOR IT girl!! it makes me happy at least! hehe
I love seeing your recipes and see that I'm not the only crazy woman who loves ramekins on top of any other serving or baking dish you can find in a kitchen!
Lots of love and lots of chocolate cream pies!!
Caitlin Wallace says
Thank you so much for sharing. I love your recipes, but honestly can't make most of them in my dairy-free, egg-free, red meat-free kitchen. I come back time and time again because I love your voice and your stories. xoxo
Megan Algazzali says
Love you, your family and your page! Please know we are all so grateful to you and all the hard work you put into these recipes. I follow your Instagram daily, and look forward to seeing your posts. Thank you for sharing your life with us!
Cindy says
I grew up with a fairly large family and learned to cook for crowds. But there's just the two of us and this site has been a lifesaver. Baking dessert and having to eat the same dessert all week is frustrating. Finding your site has been so very helpful. It took a while to learn to cook meals for just too people but I was having a problem with desserts for two. Thank you.
Jenna McGW says
I started reading your blog because I love dessert so much that I want it every day and you convinced me that I could! But the real reason I continue to read is because you feel like a friend. I'll be making your chocolate cream pie this weekend and sending friendly thoughts your way. Even though I don't know what you're going through, I know you have the smarts, grace and drive to push past this.