Martha Stewart Living (November 2014)
When Martha Stewart Living's November issue hit newsstands last month, there was Drama with a capital "D" in the online food world.
In the issue, Martha (supposedly, depending on which headlines you read) "mocks," "disses," "takes another dig at," "shades," "attempts to murder" (okay we made that last one up) Gwyneth Paltrow in a feature about Thanksgiving pie. Why all the shade? Because the headline of the feature, which was focuse on pairing different flavors, was "Conscious Coupling," a reference to Gwyneth's announcement earlier this year that she and husband Chris Martin were "consciously uncoupling," AKA getting a divorce.
There are a few ways to look at this:
You might be the sort of person who believes Martha Stewart herself is using Martha Stewart Living as her personal burn book, angrily scratching through the writers' commentary about pie and instead scrawling scathing things about Gwenyth into the margins. ("Drop this nonsense about the virtues of pie -- I WANT GOOP TO FEEL PAIN." ~ MS)
Or you might be the sort who dismisses this whole supposed controversy as a play on words (and a slightly lame one at that), because you can't get over how drop-dead gorgeous all the pies are in the feature, so you sit, paralyzed looking at them, thinking you will never taste pie that beautiful, because no one has ever made pie so stunning.
Or there's the way we wanted to look at it: We just went ahead and made one of Martha's pies.
The entire feature is full of pies we would eat in a heartbeat. After much deliberation, we selected this Chocolate Mousse Pie with Phyllo Crust.
The delicious and rich part? That's the decadent chocolate mousse.
What's unusual? The crust, which is made of sheets of phyllo dough that you butter and fold and overlap and scrunch until they make a crazy-looking pie crust. And when it's all finished, it's pretty heavenly, with the silky chocolate filling and the crunchy, flaky crust.
But (and this is a big but) there's a downside to this pie that is not to be discounted: We could not get it out of the pan to save our lives. That, friends, is a problem on Thanksgiving, when you're deep in the process of serving dinner to 24 friends and it is go-time for dessert.
Here's our question: How, pray tell, can something with this much butter stick so badly to the pan? With the pre-buttering of the pan and the brushing of each piece of dough as you layer it in, the final crust seems almost like it's half butter. But we had to hack and hack this thing to wrench it out of the pan. (The strips of parchment paper, which are intended to allow you to elegantly lift the pie straight out of the pan? Yeah, we ripped those trying to pry the pie free.)
Thankfully, this pie was so freakin' delicious that nobody cared what a mess it was on the plate. But believe us, it was a mess. (Our photo up top was the one single piece that made it out alive, and even then we had to semi-reconstruct it.)
Would we try this pie again? Yes. Would we suggest you make it for Thanksgiving? Maybe. If you're willing to accept that it might not look great when you serve it. (Or hey, maybe you'll have much better luck than we did!)
Do we want to invite Martha and Gwyneth over to broker a truce over slices of pie? You bet.
>> Read the full Thanksgiving 2014 recipe index
>> Read about this year's biggest Thanksgiving trends
Chocolate Mousse Pie with Phyllo Crust
Martha Stewart Living (November 2014)
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(This photo: Martha Stewart Living/Kate Mathis)
INGREDIENTS
Crust
1 stick unsalted butter, melted, plus more for cake pan8 sheets thawed frozen phyllo dough (each 17 by 12 inches)
2 to 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 1/2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted
Filling
4 large egg yolks1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
3 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (about 3/4 cup)
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
Chocolate shavings, for serving (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by-2-inch cake pan, then line with two 17-by-2-inch strips of parchment, forming an X in center and leaving a 2-inch overhang. Butter parchment.
Place 1 sheet of phyllo on a work surface with a long side facing you, keeping remaining phyllo covered with plastic wrap. Lightly brush entire surface with melted butter, then sprinkle some of granulated sugar on right half of phyllo. Fold left half over to enclose sugar. Brush top lightly with butter. Press folded phyllo into pan, buttered-side down, leaving a 1/2-inch overhang on one side; gather and crumple dough slightly as you go to make fit and to create a ruffled edge. Repeat with remaining phyllo sheets, overlapping to completely cover bottom of pan and create a 1/2-inch overhang on all sides. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes.
Brush melted chocolate over bottom and 1 inch up sides of crust. Refrigerate 10 minutes.
Filling: Meanwhile, in a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a pot of simmering water, whisk together yolks, granulated sugar, and salt until sugar is dissolved. Whisk in bittersweet chocolate until melted. Remove from heat. Let cool 10 minutes.
Beat 1 cup cream until medium-stiff peaks form. Whisk one-third of whipped cream into chocolate mixture. Gently but thoroughly fold in remaining whipped cream. Pour mixture into cooled crust. Refrigerate at least 3 hours.
Beat remaining 1 cup cream with confectioners' sugar until soft peaks form. Dollop onto pie, sprinkle with chocolate shavings, and serve.
