Chocolate Bavarian Pie
Cook Time 30 minutes plus overnight chilling
Servings make 1 pie
Ingredients
Cocoa Crumb
170g plain chocolate cookies
20g Dutch cocoa powder
Pinch of fine sea salt
60g unsalted butter, squidgy soft
Bavarian Filling
40g good dark chocolate (60–70% cocoa), chopped
40g caster sugar + 20g for the meringue
7g Dutch cocoa powder
½ tsp (3g) gelatine powder
10g cornflour
¼ tsp (1g) instant coffee powder
Pinch of fine sea salt
2 eggs, separated
190g/ml full-fat milk
Pinch of cream of tartar
320g/ml cream (45% milk fat)
5g vanilla paste
Cooking oil spray
Topping
50g good dark chocolate (60–70% cocoa)
Method
Place the chocolate into a large bowl and set aside. Whip the cream and keep chilled until later.
In a small bowl, mix the sugar, cocoa powder, gelatine, cornflour, instant coffee and salt. Add the yolks and enough milk to whisk a smooth paste. Pour in the remaining milk and whisk well to combine. Scrape the mix into a saucepan and whisk constantly over a medium–high heat for about 2 minutes until the custard is thick and just starts to bubble. Scrape the custard over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate melts. Then whisk occasionally and scrape down the side of the bowl from time to time until the filling cools to 25ºC.
While the filling cools, whizz the chocolate cookies with the other crumb ingredients until it feels like damp sand. Press it firmly into the base only (no sides) of a 24 cm loose bottomed tart tin, sprayed with cooking oil.
When the custard is almost cool, whip the cream and keep chilled. Make a meringue by whipping the egg whites, cream of tartar and 20g sugar together for 2 minutes until stiff and glossy.
To complete the filling, fold the meringue in then fold in just 120g of whipped cream (the rest is for the topping) and vanilla until the mix is a uniform chocolate brown colour. Scrape onto the prepared crumb base – the filling should come to just under the top of the tin. Smooth the top lightly and spray with a bare mist of cooking oil. Lightly press a piece of plastic wrap on the top of the filling to prevent a rubbery skin forming. Chill to set overnight.
Remove the plastic wrap and smooth the reserved whipped cream on top to completely fill the tin. Whizz the chocolate to make a fine chocolate rubble and scatter on top. Remove from the tin and serve chilled.
