Guess what Mom just told us? We are hosting Thanksgiving! While we were all excited, her face showed us she felt a bit differently. Was that stress in her expression? I am not sure what all of the fuss is about when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, there are about a thousand side dishes, and if one of them does not turn out, there is always something else to make up for it. What really matters at Thanksgiving is dessert. Now, that is pressure. There are usually only a few options, and in our opinion, it is the most important part of the whole meal. So to make things easier for Mom, we decided we would be in charge of making the desserts. What did we get ourselves into? Since we did not want to be winging it on the actual day, we set out to see if there was an easy Thanksgiving chocolate pie for kids to make.
How Easy Is This Chocolate Pie:
Now when we say easy, we mean kind of easy. Dad says we should just buy some pudding mix and throw it in a pre-made pie in a tin. Although he would be happy with this, I think our Mimi might have a problem with that kind of “easy.”
Separating the Egg Yolks:
Since dessert is the most important part of the meal, we decided to with a bit more of a sophistication with this recipe. Right away, we were intimidated by the egg yolks. How in the world do you get those to be separated?
Turns out there is a fancy kitchen tool that will do this for you, but of course, we don’t have it. So after some instructions, we broke our eggs over a bowl and poured the yolks back and forth while the white goo fell out. This was so entertaining, and not as hard as we thought it would be.
Preparing the Filling for the Thanksgiving Chocolate Pie:
We then added our dry ingredients to a small pan and slowly added the milk as we stirred.
The directions say to stir for a couple of minutes until the mixture starts to thicken to look like pudding. We thought for sure that we had done something wrong as it just was not working! But then, all of a sudden it turned thick within about 10 seconds!
After pulling it off of the heat, we added the butter, chocolate, and vanilla. Wow, this looked so good!
The Pie Crust Debate:
While we love to try new things and push ourselves to make things from scratch, the pressure of Thanksgiving might just win out here. For this first experiment, we used a pre-made pie crust. We may try to make our Uncle Ben’s oil pie crust, or possibly try one of these tutorials:
We will keep you posted.
Final Preparations for the Pie:
One of the hardest parts about making desserts is allowing them the appropriate time to chill in the refrigerator. We have learned our lesson, however, and there is really no choice but to allow this to come together for about 4 hours.
We had a little bit of extra filling, so we made some cute little cups of the filling. With, or without the crust, this pie was delicious. We could see the stress melt off our Mom’s face as she ate the entire thing.
An Easy Thanksgiving Chocolate Pie for Kids to Make
Dessert is the most important part of a Thanksgiving meal! So making it should not be left to the adults! This recipe is an easy Thanksgiving chocolate pie for kids to make.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cup Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Cornstarch
- 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
- 3 Cups Whole Milk
- 4 Egg Yolks
- 6 1/2 Ounce Finely Chopped Bittersweet Chocolate
- 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 Teaspoon Almond Extract
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 1 Pie Crust of Your Choice
- Whipped Cream for Topping
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, stir or whisk together 1 and 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cornstarch, and 1/4 tsp salt. Pour in 3 cups milk and 4 egg yolks, whisking to combine. Stir over medium heat until the mixture just barely comes to a boil and becomes thick, about 6 to 8 minutes (maybe less, maybe more; just watch it). The second it starts to bubble and thicken (it should be thick like pudding), remove it from the heat. Add 6 and 1/2 ounce chocolate, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp almond extract, and 2 tbsp butter, and stir until everything is combined.
- Pour the pudding into the pie crust (if there is extra, spoon it into small dishes) and place in the fridge, uncovered, to chill for 4 hours.
- Cut it into slices and serve with whipped cream!
Notes
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman