Candide Coating Creations: Chocolate Cream Pie

Since my pie crust recipe calls for two crusts, I made another single crust pie - Chocolate Cream. The recipe is from my Kitchenaid book, but I was unable to find it with a google search. It is a recipe for Vanilla Cream Pie with a list of variations at the bottom, the first being Chocolate.

So...here is my recounting of the Chocolate version of that recipe (with photos!)

1 cup sugar, divided
6 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp, plus 1/8 tsp salt, divided
2 & 1/2 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tsp vanilla
2 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 baked 9" pie shell

Combine 1/2 cup sugar, flour and 1/4 tsp salt in heavy saucepan. Add milk and cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low. Cook, covered, about 10 minutes longer, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
(this looked really gross. I took photos of it, but I deleted them. It was *very very* thick)

Place egg yolks in mixer bowl.

Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Turn to Speed 8 and whip 1 minute. Slowly stir small amount of milk mixture into yolks.
Add yolk/milk mixture to saucepan.

Cook over medium heat 3 to 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add margarine, chocolate and vanilla:

Set aside to cool. (I put it in a room temperature bowl with saran wrap and placed it in the fridge until it was cool to the touch throughout.)

Pour into baked pastry shell. (I stirred the chilled mixture before spreading [not pouring] it into the prepared pie crust)

(Note the lovely and oft mentioned Kitchenaid book on my recipe stand in this photo)

Place cream of tartar, remaining salt and egg whites in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and wire whip to mixer. Gradually turn to Speed 8 and whip about 1 minute or until soft peaks form. Turn to Speed 4. Gradually add remaining sugar and whip about 1 minute, or until stiff peaks form. (It took me almost three minutes to get stiff peaks, but boy was the result worth the extra time!)

Lightly pile meringue on pie and spread to edge.