I came across Alissa’s wonderful blog, Girl Makes Food earlier this year via Instagram, I believe. Her beautiful photos of her delicious creations always look so amazing and would constantly leave me drooling! Alissa and I seem to have similar tastes in food and so often I find myself checking her site and seeing a newly posted recipe similar to something I have been working on or playing with, thinking she beat me to it :). Besides making incredible healthy recipes, Alissa is also a certified in holistic nutrition counselor and she brings an incredible knowledge about food and eating with every post. Alissa practices a holistic approach to health and wellness and the connection to all areas of our lives. Today Alissa is sharing an incredible looking recipe for a vegan gluten-free Chocolate Cream Pie that is definitely more than drool-worthy (that she somehow made, photographed and got to me without having power at her NJ home, in the wake of Sandy). Enjoy!
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I am so excited and honored to be guest posting for Beth today!!!! I am the “girl” (aka Alissa) over at Girl Makes Food. I am a culinary school grad turned holistic nutrition counselor. I am a big fan of healthy, quick, and easy meals, so I try to focus on ease and simplicity with my recipes. All my recipes are vegetarian, a lot of them vegan.
In the spirit of quick and easy, this pie is just that. Super cinchy, and super yummy!!
I love pies, and my Thanksgiving dessert spread is usually all about pies. But my favorite one by far is a chocolate pie I make every year. It is super rich but full of dairy, so I decided to try my hand at a plant-based version!!
It turned out really well, firm enough to slice and serve with ease, and no one will ever suspect the main ingredient is tofu!! I also love that this pie is rich (just like the original), and also pretty filling so a small slice goes a long way.
I fed it to friends and got the stamp of approval, which makes me jump around with excitement!! Jumping when I get excited is a normal thing for me, and this jumping led to hubby installing an earthquake strap to our TV. True story.
Health highlight of chocolate: Being a serious chocoholic myself, I love reading the studies about how healthy chocolate is for you. 70% cocoa solids or higher is best, as it means less sugar and other non-chocolate additives in there (the percentage refers to the cocoa solids meaning the stuff that comes from the bean – 100% is unsweetened chocolate). Research suggests that people who eat chocolate regularly tend to have a lower BMI. Chocolate can help lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease. It also contains healthy antioxidants and flavonoids, and has been shown to have a beneficial effect on cholesterol.
[print_this]Chocolate Cream Pie – Gluten-free + Vegan
Ingredients:
Crust:
- 1 cup Oats
- ½ cup Coconut (unsweetened flakes)
- 2 tablespoons Coconut Oil (plus extra to grease the pie plate)
- 2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
Chocolate filling:
- 1 lb Silken Tofu (drained) (look for non-gmo)
- 8 ounces Unsweetened Chocolate (chopped)
- ¼ cup Maple Syrup (you can add more a tablespoon at a time if you like it sweeter)
- I served with Vegan Coconut Whipped Cream
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350
- To the bowl of a food processor add the oats and coconut and process until the texture of graham cracker crumbs
- Add the coconut oil and maple, process until evenly mixed
- Grease up a 9 inch pie plate with coconut oil (with a brush or paper towel)
- Add the crust to a pie plate
- Press the crust using your fingers, the back of a spoon, or the bottom of a measuring up until evenly coated on the bottom and up the sides and well pressed
- Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown
- Set aside to cool
- While the crust is cooling, rinse the food processor bowl and then add the tofu
- Process until smooth
- While the tofu is processing, melt the chocolate in a microwave safe medium bowl
- Add the melted chocolate quickly to the tofu while the processor is off, then turn it back on and let run until completely incorporated (you need to work quickly to prevent the chocolate from hardening)
- Add the maple and process until incorporated
- Pour the chocolate and tofu mixture into the crust and spread it evenly
- Cover and refrigerate (about 1-2 hours or overnight)
- Slice and serve!!!!!!
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11 Responses
my 2 and 4 year old boys made this with me tonight for dessert…amazing. I didn’t feel guilty giving it to them either since its pretty healthy overall. My husband and I also agreed that the crust was the best and will replace our usual rolled flour crust for other pies. Thanks for sharing!
This is so great to hear Heather. So glad your boys loved it. Thanks for stopping by.
This was NOT good! UNSWEETENED chocolate and only 1/4cup of maple syrup? I added an extra ‘splashes’ of maple syrup and it was still bitter.
The texture was GREAT however – real THICK – so I’ll try it again and use SEMI-SWEET chocolate.
The whipped topping was NOT good either. Tossed the whole batch!
Patricia, sorry to hear you didn’t like this. Everyone has different levels of sweetness that they prefer, if you normally eat sweeter things, this might not be sweet enough for you. That’s why I always test as I go, with new recipes, so I can add more of something, if need be. I have made this several times and have always found it to be plenty sweet. But I consume very little sweetener/sugar these days, so maybe that is why.
Why was the whipped topping not good? I have found that not all coconut milk produces the same results for whipping. Some just doesn’t come together and get thick and whipped. What brand of coconut milk did you use? I use Organic Full Fat Coconut from Native Forest and it works wonderfully, but the same cannot be said for many other brands that I have tried. I would love to hear what didn’t work for you so I can maybe offer some suggestions. Thanks for your feedback.
I just didn’t like the taste and texture of the whipped topping. The hubby made it so that could be a factor. Wasn’t really whipped like a whipped cream. I do believe it was full fat but not the brand you mention above.
I eat levels of sweetness except ‘too sweet’. I also use pure maple syrup. I made the pie again today and my husband tasted one bite and said ‘in the trash’. This time I used semi-sweet Ghiradelli chocolate….I kept taste testing…and could not get rid of that bitter taste and I used about a 1/2cup of maple syrup. I even sprinkled in some powdered sugar to see if that would help. I even weighed the tofu to make sure I had 1 lb exactly. Are you sure the recipe is supposed to be 8 oz? That’s TWO bars of chocolate.
I expect a chocolate cream pie to have NO bitter taste at all.
Sadly with whipped coconut cream, it really depends on the brand. The brand that I use, literally creates a topping that is soo similar to whipped heavy cream, that dairy eaters rarely believe me that it is just coconut milk. I encourage you to try it again sometime.
I will check in with Alissa, who shared this recipe on my site, to see if she has any suggestions she can make for you on the sweetness factor. I will have her comment on here, if she does. If you did make it again, I might just suggest tasting the filling as you go and adding more sweetener, I think, as I mentioned, we all have varying levels of sweetness that we prefer. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and leave specifics, that always helps. Have a wonderful day.
I was just in the kitchen, working from 10 PM to 12 PM to bake this pie. I got imagine it would be absolutely perfect. But now, I’m confused on what I got.
I didn’t use the crust in this recipe. I used a different gluten-free crust I found. The crust was fine. But this pie was not. I was really, really hoping for a good pie. The first thing I did was open the coconut milk can. I have made coconut milk whipped cream several times before, and I was using a new brand, and, as suspected, that brand didn’t work. That was the first thing to go back in the fridge.
The second thing was the pie. I took one small testing slice, and I ate it all. Because I didn’t want to waste it. Here comes the important part: It tasted like tofu. Like a big pile of tofu. Honestly, I’d rather have it taste like it isn’t sweet rather then taste like a block of tofu that is brown for some reason. I guess I should of suspected it, though, from the white specks in the pie. So now, rather than throwing the pie away, I’m hiding it in the back of the fridge. Not because I want it for myself, only because I had everyone in my family’s hopes up for an amazing, decadent pie. I was literally bragging about how amazing it was. Before I even tasted it.
I don’t want to blame you, because this was probably the tofu’s fault. But I just couldn’t taste anything else then tofu, not even the chocolate, even though there was so much in there. I am not experienced with tofu. I didn’t know what silken tofu was, so I assumed it ought to be best if I got medium tofu, medium hard.
Kyla I am so sorry to hear that this didn’t work for you. While I didnt create this recipe, I have made it myself once or twice and I can tell you 100% that the problem is that you didn’t follow the instructions and buy silken tofu. Medium hard tofu does not act the same, it is much firmer and has a more distinguishable flavor where as silken tofu is more mild in taste and literally has a silky, creamy type texture and consistency. Silken tofu is almost always right next to where the medium and firm tofus can be found. With silken tofu, just a few pulses in a blender or food processor and you have a pudding texture. In the future I would highly recommend following the recipe exactly and you will absolutely LOVE it.
Additionally I recently shared on how-to on whipped coconut cream, including brand comparisons here: http://tasty-yummies.com/2014/03/04/make-whipped-coconut-cream/
Sadly these days with coconut milk, they aren’t all created equally. Hope all of that helps.
Hi! Thank you for the reply, I definitely should have used silken instead of medium hard. Also, thanks for the link– I always have trouble figuring out with brand I should get. I’ll try to find some time soon to try it again. (:
No problem, I am so sorry it took me so long to reply. Your comment got lost in the great abyss of spam comments. Thanks.