Chocolate Pie

There is a commercial in Greece that says “more chocolate is not possible” – this is how I would describe this cake!

Everything of this cake is just chocolate! It is sweet, it is juicy and it is chocolate.

The first time I had a cake like this was at a long week-end in Sitia with my family. The evening before we wanted to return home we past by a cafe and bakery shop after a great dinner in a local tavern to take something sweet back home the next day. We decided to take this chocolate pie. Even we were already full after dinner we tried the pie back in our hotels’ room and we could not stop eating! It was the best chocolate pie we ever had! Right the next morning, before we left, we went back to the cafe to buy some more pie.

Unfortunately, Sitia is a three hours drive from our home, so it is quiet a long way to be able to buy this pie again. We tried several pie in our neighborhoods’ cafes. But no-one could make it the way as in Sitia.

So I decided to make the pie myself. Here is the result which is quiet near the one we love.

Remark: this chocolate pie tastes best when prepared one day before to soak all the syrup!

What you need:

For the pie:
5 eggs
150 gr sugar
1 vanilla sugar
100 gr butter
400 gr all purpose flour
1 baking powder
100 gr cacao
300 ml milk

For the syrup:
250 gr sugar
100 gr cacao
500 ml water

For the frosting:
200 gr couverture 65-70% cacao
200 ml whipping cream

How to prepare it:
Separate the yolk from the white of the eggs. Beat the whites until stiff and set aside. Melt the butter and set aside to cool.

In a bowl beat the yolk with the sugar and the vanilla sugar until creamy. Add the butter stirring continuously.

Mix the flour with the baking powder and the cacao and sieve. Add slowly to the egg-sugar batter. If the dough is getting to thick add some milk until all flour is mixed in.

At the end fold under the egg whites.

Bake in a tin (20×30 cm) at 170ºC for appr. 30 minutes.

For the syrup combine the sugar with the cacao powder and the water in a high pot and bring to boil on high stirring well to dissolve the cacao well. When boiling reduce the heat and do not stir anymore. Let boil for 5 minutes.

When the pie is ready remove from the oven. With a wooden skewer pierce a few holes into the pie. Pour the hot syrup over the still hot pie, moving the tin to spread out the liquid evenly over the whole pie. Let cool.

In a pot add the couverture chocolate with the milk and heat until the chocolate melts. Do not bring to boil. When the pie cooled down pour the frosting over the pie. Let stand until the frosting cooled down.