This French Silk Pie is the most creamy and smooth chocolate pie you’ll ever have, with a traditional pie crust, and a chocolate mousse filling, this pie is the ultimate pie for chocolate lovers.
I’ve been watching The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. It’s the perfect thing to have playing casually while I try and get work done. I love seeing all the different creations they make, and I love realizing how I’ll never be as good of a baker as any of the contestants on the show.
Have you ever watched the show? They’re are 6 seasons on Netflix right now, so head on over if you haven’t started them already.
I found an episode where on Season 3 Episode 5, where they make “American Pies” and Paul Hollywood goes on to say why he doesn’t like American pies because they are too sweet. As far as I can tell, the classification for them on what an American pie is, is that the British are used to savory pies, like minced meat pies, and ours are typically dessert pies.
The history of the French Silk Pie was created in 1951 by Betty Cooper, when she made the pie for the Pillsbury Bake Off. The pie was the runner up. Thus, it seems as though it’s actually not french at all, it’s exactly what the British would classify as an american pie, haha.
Because of how silky and smooth the chocolate is, the name french silk stuck. Once you taste a bite of this pie, you’ll completely agree with me, this is the smoothest and best chocolate pie you’ll ever taste.
Anyway, this pie starts with a traditional pastry pie crust. You’re more than welcome to buy a pie crust from the store though, and honestly I buy a store bought pie crust a lot of the times when I am making pies, because I don’t want to take the time to make one, and they always work great too!
The pie crust is blind baked, which means that you bake it before putting the filling in the middle. Since this pie filling isn’t baked you’ll need to bake the pie crust on it’s own. If we’re being honest, I make really good pie crusts, but really ugly pie crusts, just fyi 😉 I’ve made this pie with both homemade and store bought pie crusts.
You’ll put the pie crust in the pan and crimp the edges. Then you’ll fill the pie crust with pie weights or dried beans, or uncooked rice, which help weigh the crust down and keep it from bubbling up in the middle. It’s baked for about 15 minutes until it’s nice and golden and then you’ll let it cool while you make the delicious chocolate filling for the middle.
The chocolate filling is made with melted chocolate, sugar, butter, vanilla, salt, and eggs. The filling isn’t cooked, so you’ll want to use pasteurized eggs if you can. Though, most people don’t get sick from raw eggs these days.
To be extra safe I recommend using fresh eggs, washing the egg shells before you crack them, and if possible using pasteurized eggs. I pasteurized my own eggs following these instructions.
You’ll want to get ultra fine sugar to make this, since it’s not baked, you want to make sure to get the filling nice and smooth. You’ll beat the whole thing for about 30 minutes by the time you’re all done, but the ultra fine sugar is also necessary to get the filling nice and silky like you want. The first time I made it with regular sugar and even after it set overnight in the fridge it was still gritty. It tasted amazing, but was gritty and didn’t have that silky smoothness I expected in the pie.
Pour it into the prepared pie crust and top it with whipped cream and if you want, chocolate shavings. This chocolate silk pie is chilled for a few hours and voila.
This pie is creamy smooth, silky, chocolatey, and delicious. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s the perfect chocolate pie. The pie is rich, and sweet, and you’ll love every bite of it. You may even go back for a second slice, it’s that good.
It’s so much better than french silk pie you’d get from the freezer section of the grocery store, but also even better than the pie you might pick up from somewhere like Village Inn, or Marie Calendar’s.
It’s the perfect chocolate pie to make for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or any celebration or otherwise. But honestly, after you try it, you’ll want to eat this pie every single day.
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French Silk Pie
Ingredients
- 1 9 inch pie crust (homemade or store bought)
- 6 oz bittersweet, unsweetened, or semi sweet chocolate
- 1 cup butter (softened, 2 sticks)
- 1 1/2 cups ultra fine sugar (regular sugar will most likely cause the pie to be gritty)
- 1/2 TBS vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs (eggs will not be cooked so it's best to get fresh pasteurized eggs)
For the Topping:
- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (or 8 oz cool whip)
- 4 TBS powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- chocolate curls shavings
Equipment
- Large Mixing Bowl
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Spread your pie crust into a greased 9inch pie pan. Place a piece of parchment paper over the crust and fill it with pie weights, dried beans, or dried rice.
- Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges start to turn golden.
- Allow to cool completely.
For the Chocolate Filling:
- Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals, till you can stir it smooth. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
- Cream together the butter and sugar with an electric stand mixer on medium high with a whisk attachment. Whisk for 6 to 7 minutes until the sugar starts to dissolve and the mixture is light and fluffy, and turns white.
- Add in the melted chocolate and vanilla extract and mix till totally smooth.
- Add in the eggs, one at a time, and beat on medium high for 5 minutes after you add each egg. (So 20 minutes total)
- Spread chocolate filling into the prepared pie crust.
- Place in the fridge for 3-4 hours, or overnight.
For the Whipped Cream Topping:
- Add the heavy whipping cream to a stand mixer, or large bowl with a hand mixer. Whisk with the whisk attachment on high until stiff peaks form.
- Add in the powdered sugar and vanilla and mix on high.
- Transfer to another bowl and set in the fridge till needed.
- Spread whipped topping over the chocolate filling.
- Top with chocolate shavings or curls if desired.
- Serve cold. Store extra pie covered in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Judie says
This recipe has been in my family since the 50’s. Identical! I have been making it for years. All of a sudden it has been separating when the eggs are being added.
I missed the part about using the whip beater. I suspect I had been doing that forever, until I “forgot”. At 84 that has been a problem of late. 🙂
Anjela Roberts says
PEEEEEERFECT Recipe! Little tip that made a huge difference…throw your granular sugar in a blender and blend till it’s like a powder. (Didn’t want to use powdered sugar in case it changed the taste. )
Aimee says
Great tip!
Katie Higginbotham says
I love chocolate but I’m not a huge fan of pie, anyways I thought I’d try out this recipe and ended up loving it!
Harriet says
Excellent! I rarely take the time to rate a recipe but thought this one was worthy of my time! It turned out great even though I didn’t follow the instructions precisely. I mmised the part where it said to whip 5 minutes after each addition of an egg. Oops! It still came out great! I was looking for a recipe that didn’t have both butter and heavy cream in it and I found the one. Thank you!
Ellen says
Thank you so much for the great review. I am so glad that the recipe turned out great for you and that it was just as you wanted.
victoria says
I made this pie as a teen many years ago and have forgotten about it! I don’t remember using sugar other than what mom would have had (back in the 80s). Is extra fine sugar powdered sugar? If not, is it something that should be found at my normal, non-fancy grocery store?
Aimee says
I couldn’t find it at Walmart, but I found it at another local grocery store, that isn’t a specialty store, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find. This is the one I used and they have a product locator at the bottom. https://www.chsugar.com/products/bakers-sugar
Keeley says
We are excited to try this French Silk pie tomorrow for Thanksgiving! Quick question: Our filling looked nice and fluffy while adding the first two eggs, but after the third egg, it fell and went more liquidy. We only used medium eggs. Is this normal, or do you have any insight on why this would happen? Thanks!!
Aimee says
It might have gotten too runny if the eggs were whipped too quickly, but also more eggs will be more liquid so it will thin a little more with each addition. But you should be able to fix it, if you think it’s too runny then I’d put the filling in a bowl and stick it in the fridge for a couple hours. Whip it up again on medium to re-fluff it all and then pour it in the pie crust. Either way, hopefully it tastes delicious!