Black Bottom Pie!!!



My lovely Aunts Pointing out the hole Charlot poked in the pie



The amazingness I barely got a picture!

I haven’t posted in a while I guess the holidays are catching up with me. But today I wanted to share with you a weird delicious pie that I brought to our family Thanksgiving. When my aunt sent me the invitation to Thanksgiving I quickly asked her what I could bring. Her first response “black bottom pie.” I said ok I’ll whip one right up.


Well it might have helped if I had any idea at all what in the world a black bottom pie was. So from internet, cookbook, and asking friends and family, a pie was born. You see when my mom and her sisters were little their mom ran the historic Arrow Rock Tavern and apparently one of the cooks their used to make an amazing Black Bottom Pie. So I knew I had high standards to live up to.

The pie was weird in the process of making it for me but the end result was worth the effort. Oh my goodness delicious. I don’t think it was quite the pie my aunt had in mind but she liked it just the same! So if you want a different dessert for your next gathering whip up this here pie. Then sit back and enjoy the praise. HA!

Black Bottom Pie

1 single-crust pie shell

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1/4 cup water

1 cup sugar (divided)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 cups milk

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 tablespoons rum (or 1/2 teaspoon rum extract)

4 egg whites

Step One: Prepare one single-crust pie shell. (Try My Momma’s!) Prick all over, the more the better, with a fork. Bake at 450-degrees for about 10 minutes. Cool.



Step Two: Soften gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water and set aside.



Step Three: In a small saucepan, combine 1/2 cup of the sugar and the cornstarch. Stir in milk and egg yolks. Cook and stir over medium heat until bubbly. Cook and stir two minutes more. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.



Step Four: Pour half of the milk mixture into a medium-size bowl. (Keep remaining mixture in saucepan warm with the lowest setting on your stovetop. It is very important that you keep the saucepan mixture warm while you are working with the chocolate in this step.) Add chocolate to the half in the bowl and stir to melt. Pour into baked pie shell. Chill while continuing the rest of the pie preparation.



Step Five: Stir softened gelatin mixture into the warmed saucepan with the remaining half of the milk mixture until gelatin dissolves. Stir in the rum. You can taste the rum first if you need to. Or want to. Or have some Coke. Or don’t. You just go ahead and have some rum. Okay, don’t get too distracted here. Chill the milk/gelatin/rum mixture until it is about the consistency of syrup. Do not get distracted at this point. I can’t say this enough. Put down the rum. If you let it chill too long, it will gel into clumps and you will be so so so sad. Actually, that’s not true–even if you let it get clumpy, the pie will still work, but it won’t look as pretty, so don’t do it. Put down the rum! Just check it every 5 minutes to see when it thickens up to syrupy texture and take it out then. (This will depend on your fridge temp, but should probably be less than 30 minutes.)

Step Six: Beat egg whites till soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, continuing to beat till stiff peaks form. To get it right beat until you can’t beat anymore then BEAT SOMEMORE!!!



Step Seven: Fold beaten egg whites into the prepared, syrupy-textured milk/rum mixture. Spoon over chocolate bottom in pie shell. Chill overnight (or like 8 hours).

Step Eight: Eat half the pie prior to taking it anywhere. Ok so maybe you should double this recipe.