French Silk Pie
My little brother A came to Boston for a visit a couple weeks ago. Although, I suppose calling him my little brother is a bit misleading. He’s growing up fast and just graduated high school this past May. And he towers over the entire family at 6’4″.
As with most people who come to visit, I asked A if he wanted me to bake him something while he was here. He immediately responded “French Silk Pie”. Now I’ve never actually had French Silk Pie let alone baked one. Apparently, it’s A’s favorite dessert though. He’s even baked them himself in the past.
After I found out he had baked his own French Silk Pie, I decided it would be more fun to bake the pie together than for me to bake it for him. I figured we could get some quality sibling bonding time in the kitchen.
A and I had a good time making this pie. He had never made a crust from scratch before and this one was really easy. You just crush up some nuts, mix in some butter, and press it into the pie plate. It can’t get much easier than that!
We whipped up the mousse and filled the shell. Then came the painful part, letting it set. We ended up letting the pie chill in the fridge overnight. The next night after dinner, we topped it with some freshly whipped cream and chocolate shavings. I can’t comment on how this compares to other French Silk Pies out there, but everyone really enjoyed this pie. I’m pretty sure A had 3 pieces himself before heading back to the Midwest.
One Year Ago: Buttermilk Cupcakes with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Two Years Ago: Red White and Blue No-Bake Frozen Cupcakes
French Silk Pie
Yield: 8
Ingredients:
For the Crust
8 Tbsp chilled salted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for pan
1/3 cup pecan halves
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
For the Filling
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
Whipped cream, for serving
Chocolate curls, for serving
Directions:
For the Crust
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9-inch pie plate; set aside. Grind pecans in a food processor, or chop very finely with a knife. In a medium bowl, combine flour, pecans, sugar, and salt. Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press firmly into prepared pie plate. Bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
For the Filling
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. With machine running, gradually add melted chocolate and the vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating at medium speed for five minutes after each addition. Pour filling into cooled pie crust. Cover with plastic wrap, and transfer to the refrigerator to cool for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.
Just before serving, top pie with whipped cream, and decorate with chocolate curls.
Recipe from Martha Stewart
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These look fantastic and are so festive!
Oh my, these look divine! I recently made something similar, but with no chocolate – just a pumpkin batter with cream cheese topping. But I definitely think I must try these too.
These are absolutely beautiful!
Look wonderful!
These look awesome. I just wish it made a bigger pan!
They’re pretty rich, but I would imagine you could just double it and make it in a 9×13 pan if you wanted!
I made pumpkin spice brownies on Friday and they were delish so I bet these are EVEN BETTER! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be following your tweaks!
~ingrid
i always make a pumpkin cheesecake in the fall with a ginger cookie crumb crust, but i’m liking the chocolate component in your recipe even more.
oh yum – love pumpkin, and the chocolate/pumpkin combo looks wonderful!
These look great! Is there a way I can make them non-dairy? Something I can sub the cream cheese for? Thanks!
Heather – I’ve had great luck subbing Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese in cheesecake recipes in the past. I think that would definitely work and you could use Earth Balance in the brownie portion. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Hi Jenn! I just wanted to let you know that you won the giveaway on my blog last week. I emailed you, but never got a response. Could you email me your mailing address to jennharton@paducah.com. I have to pass it along to myblogspark so they can send you your prize package!
Thanks, Jen…I’ll let you know how they come out!
OH wow these do look delicious! I love all that swirled pumpkin…yum!
Those look amazing!
Wow, I love these! My husband would die of happiness of I made these for him – pumpkin cheesecake is his favorite thing for fall.
They look like tiger fur – very cool! What an interesting flavour combination.
We love these at my house! I like your idea of dark chocolate – I will have to try that next time.
beautiful! And they look so delicious!! I agree I don’t normally think of pumpkin with chocolate… but you have me convinced!
The tops of these are a work of art! Love it!
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
hi.. just dropping by here… have a nice day! http://kantahanan.blogspot.com/
The side-view shot totally won me over. These look delicious!
This looks so yummy.
I now know what to make for the office potluck!
Those look amazing. I love pumpkin with chocolate, I plan on making these soon.
Your brownies look delicious! I am curious since I would like mine to taste more like pumpkin pie than plain pumpkin should i add pumpkin pie spices or follow your recipe for the spices?
Thanks!
fawkes – There are a decent amount of spices in the pumpkin portion of the batter. I would recommend making is as the recipe states, then taste it before you pour it into the pan. Maybe then add some pumpkin pie spice if you’d like.
I made these over the weekend and they were scrumptious!! I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin but this recipe is now a fall staple. I plan on making them for the family on Thanksgiving…thanks for sharing this!
I made these the other day and they were great! a hit at work! yum! thanks!
I stumbled across your blog from a Facebook friend and made these brownies last night. DELICIOUS!! I doubled the recipe and it does just fit in a 9×13 pan and took about 60 mins to bake. It’s worth the wait for them to be chilled in the fridge. The flavors are even more delicious that way.
Oh YUM! And gorgeous, to boot. I never thought pumpkin and chocolate go together either, until I tried it! 🙂 Now I’m hooked. Good idea to double up on the cheesecake layer…you can never have enough pumpkin cheesecake after all!
Thank you so much for participating in our event! These brownies look amazing. They say Halloween to me for sure!
I made these– now I love them! Will be repeated each fall 🙂
Amazing! I loved these so much I played with them a bit and made cranberry cheesecake brownies for my christmas baking.(I didn’t stumble on to these till christmas.) I’ll let you know when I put those up on my blog! With credit to you of course!
Lexi – cranberry cheesecake brownies sound very intriguing. Can’t wait to see them.
Hi Jen! I made these for Heather@BFM’s (comment listed above) birthday and she loved them! Unfortunately I could not find the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder (I tried 3 stores) so I had to make them with the regular cocoa powder. Can you tell me where you found the Hershey’s Special Dark??
Kasey – I have actually had a hard time finding it as well. I had actually all but given up on it until one day it caught my eye at the grocery store. I proceeded to buy all three containers. I would say just keep an eye out for it and good luck!
1/2 cup of flour seems like very little. Is that correct?
Pup – Yes, that is the correct amount of flour. Most brownie batters have very little flour in them.
Just made these- delicious! I only had the milk chocolate powder, so I’m excited to try it again with the special dark powder.
I doubled the recipe and it perfectly filled a 13×9 pan so you might try it. 🙂 And they are amazing. Also I used margerine not butter and found they were more moist. Happy Baking!
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I made these with my nieces and over all they were pretty good, but something about the pumpkin part tasted off. Still, fun and festive to make!