Aaron's (upstairs) Birthday Dinner

Aaron's 29th birthday gave us the perfect reason for a delicious family dinner. Beef Bourguignon (well, my simple version of Julia Child's slow-braised beef in red wine), Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes, Garlic Roasted Broccolini, and the star of the show...Chocolate Silk Pie. This was Aaron's request for his birthday "cake" and since I'd never made Chocolate Silk Pie before, I dove into cyberspace and began the search for a good recipe. Most of the recipes I found used raw eggs in a mousse-like filling, one recipe even included marshmallow cream. Since none of those appealed to me I kept searching and came up with this recipe from Cooks.com which is baked, then cooled and topped with whipped cream. It was easy, festive, and sinfully delicious. Next time I will cut back a little on the sugar (from 1 cup to 3/4 cup) I know that baking is a science so I'm not sure how this will affect the pie...if anyone tries the lower sugar version, please let me know how it works out. The posted recipe calls for a standard pastry crust but I made a chocolate graham cracker crust instead. Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE SILK PIE
from Cooks.com (submitted by:Judy Dennert)

1 unbaked single pie crust (or my chocolate graham cracker crust: 8 chocolate graham crackers-crushed, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup melted butter. Mix all together and press into pie plate...easy!)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 eggs
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In large, microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate chips and butter at 50% power for 2 minutes until butter is melted; stir until smooth. Whisk in salt, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs, evaporated milk, and vanilla extract, whisk until well blended. Pour chocolate mixture into crust.

Bake 30 minutes or until filling has puffed, but center still wiggles. Cool completely, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate shavings or mini chocolate chips

Note: I found it took about 38 minutes for the filling to puff. It's not very pretty unadorned so I topped the whole pie with lightly sweetened whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.