This family favorite recipe comes from the cookbook our mom (Hi Mom!) made for us. Our mom got it from her sorority sister, Margaret Batson, when she was living in Fort Collins. Margaret was the dietician for the Poudre R-1 school district and it is thanks to her that the children enjoyed delicious sweet rolls with their chili every Thursday (and dill pickles, go figure). 

 

Our brother used to request this every year for his birthday and one year, after our sister's recent return from an exchange trip to France, my mom asked Melissa how to it would be pronounced in French. Melissa replied "Chocolat Pee" with a French accent, and guess what? The name stuck.

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We love this recipe because of its melt -n-your-mouth texture of basically chocolate butter with the salty crunch of a pie crust. We recommend either a regular or a short-bread type pie crust—the flakiness of a regular or pate brise is really nice, but a sweeter shortbread would be great too. It would also be good with a chocolate cookie crust, or maybe even a graham cracker crust (you can use this one from our 4th of July dessert). We have found it to be a very reliable recipe, a crowd pleaser, and you can make it ahead of time. You're also likely to have most ingredients in your larder! If you're worried about using raw eggs, you can use pasteurized eggs. For Bootie's crust recipe, she uses the same one as her Tarte Tatin but she bakes the crust and cools it. Preheat the oven to 400, roll out your crust, crimp edges and line the pie pan with it. Then put a sheet of aluminum or parchment paper on the shell and fill with ceramic pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove pie weights, prick with a fork, then bake for an additional 7-8 minutes. Bootie followed these instructions (but used her own recipe for the ingredients).

               

Ingredients (the filling can be doubled for extra decadence):

1 stick butter

¾ c. sugar

2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate (one ounce is a four small squares of Baker’s unsweetened chocolate), melted and cooled

1 tsp. vanilla or coffee or liqueur

2 eggs

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Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla to the butter and sugar and then beat in eggs, one at a time, beating with the whisk attachment for 3 minutes after each egg and scraping down the sides frequently. Scoop into a baked pie shell and refrigerate until firm. Top with whipped cream.

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