‘Don’t you mean German Chocolate Cake?’ Nope! This delicious recipe from Chocolates El Rey combines a thick, fudge-like filling with a crunchy pecan topping to create a scrumptious winter treat!
The real secret behind this Texas-style twist on a classic European recipe is the 2:1 combination of milk to dark chocolate used in the chocolate filling. At 4 times the average cacao percentage of a normal milk chocolate, El Rey’s Caoba 41% dark milk chocolate (2015 winner of Best Milk Chocolate in the Americas), is hearty enough to stand on it’s own in baking.
However, when combined with just enough of our darkest chocolate available, 73.5% Apamate, it soars to a whole new level of richness and decadence!
Ingredients
Pie Crust:
- 1 1/3 cup flour
- 1 1⁄4 stick butter
- 2 Tbs shortening
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup cold water
Filling:
- 4 oz caoba chocolate
- 2 oz apamate chocolate
- 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup pecans
- Topping:
- 1⁄2 cup brown sugar
- 1⁄2 cup heavy cream
- 1⁄4 cup butter
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 cup flaked coconut
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1⁄4 cup pecans
Directions
- To make the pie dough, combine the flour and salt. Cut the butter into about 1/2 size pieces and mix into the flour/salt mix with the shortening until combined and the butter is evenly dispersed in small, pebble-like pieces. Add the cold water and stir until just combined. Don’t overwork!
- Cover and let the dough rest for 1 hour.
- Preheat to 400.
- Roll out dough to 1⁄4 in thickness and place in pie dish. Cut off excess and crimp edges with a fork.
- Use parchment paper and uncooked beans or rice to weigh down pie crust. Par bake pie shell for 10-12 minutes or until the dough doesn’t look raw anymore. Remove weightand continue cooking until the crust is light brown. Remove from the oven and let the crust cook while you make the filling.
- Reduce heat to 350.
- To make the filling, melt the chocolate, stirring until it is smooth. Cool slightly.
- Whisk in milk, egg yolks and vanilla.
- Stir in pecans.
- Pour into cooled pie shell
- Bake 16-19 minutes.
- Cool 1 hour.
- To make the topping, combine brown sugar, cream and butter in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Remove from heat.
- In a small bowl, whisk a small amount (about 1⁄2 cup) of the the hot mixture into the egg yolks. Return it all to the pan, return to heat while whisking constantly. Cook 2-3 more minutes or until mixture thickens and reaches 160 degrees F.
- Remove from heat and add coconut and vanilla, cool 10 minutes.
- Pour over filling and sprinkle with pecans.
- Chill at least 4 hours