Minny's Famous Chocolate Pie From the Help

Sometimes in life, you get what you deserve. Minny's Famous Chocolate Pie is a perfect example of that. If you have read the book, or seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This recipe is obviously the clean version, missing just one essential ingredient to being the perfect piece of rich, decadent, karma pie.


I wanted to make a traditional Chocolate Southern Pie and researched many recipes. It's totally worth making your own crust, and it's really not that hard, so don't cut corners when making this one.



Recipe adapted from http://www.theeverythingsoapblog.com/2011/11/recipe-southern-chocolate-pie.html

Ingredients & Prep:

Perfect Pie Crust:

1 1/3 Cups All Purpose Flour

1/2  cup chilled vegetable shortening

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 Tbsp ice cold water

Minny's Pie Filling : Clean Version

4 Tbsp good quality cocoa powder

1/4 tea kosher salt

5 Tbsp all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp butter

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups whole milk

Meringue Topping:

2 egg whites

1/8 tsp salt

4 Tbsp sugar

To make the crust, mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add the chilled veg. shortening and incorporate the mixture together with your hands. When the mixture is almost ready, add three tbsp of ice cold water. Form dough into a ball and wrap with saran wrap. Place in the fridge for an hour to chill.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place a piece of parchment or wax paper down on the surface you wish to roll out the crust. This will allow for easier clean-up. Lightly flour surface of wax paper. Using your rolling pin, start from the center of the ball and roll out to a 11'' circle. Gently fold crust in half and then in half again. Place the crust into your pie plate and gently unfold. Using your fingers, form crust into the pie plate and trim edges to desired finish.

Using a fork, poke the crust all over, including the sides around 50 times to prevent the crust from blistering.

Place pie in oven for 15-20 min until edges and center are golden brown. Remove crust from oven and set aside.

Lower the heat on the oven to 350 degrees.

Make sure you lowered the heat on the oven to 350 degrees.

Create a double boiler by adding water to a saucepan and place a heat proof metal bowl on top. Temperature on the stove should be med. to medium low to prevent scorching.

To make the pie filling, separate your yolks & whites. In a small bowl, mix together yolks and milk. In a medium sized bowl, mix together flour, sugar, salt & cocoa. Add the dry ingredients to the double boiler. Then whisk in milk/yolk mixture. Continue to whisk 10-15 minutes until mixture becomes thick in consistency and resembles pudding. Remove from heat and add vanilla & butter.

To make the meringue topping, add egg whites and salt to Kitchen Aid mixer. You can also do this by hand using a whisk, but I recommend using the mixer. It will cut the time in half and save your wrists from hurting. Once soft peaks form, add the sugar. When you have stiff peaks, pour meringue over chocolate pie filling.

Place the pie in your 350 degree oven for 15-20 min or until the meringue is golden brown.

Remove pie from the oven. Please allow pie to cool for an hour before indulging. Saran wrap and keep it in the fridge for maximum freshness.

We all know someone who deserves a piece of this pie. Probably, multiple someones. Kindly share!