A Thanksgiving pie

Double Chocolate Cream Pie
The Best of Cooking Light Copyright 2004

Crust:
1 cup reduced-calorie vanilla wafer crumbs (about 30 cookies)
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
Cooking spray

Filling:
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups 1% low-fat milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 ½ ounces semisweet chocolate, grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. To prepare crust, combine first 3 ingredients in a bowl, tossing with a fork until moist. Press into bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, cook crust on a wire rack.
3. To prepare filling, combine sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt and milk in a medium saucepan; stir well with a whisk. Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute, until mixture comes to a full boil. Gradually add 1/3 cup hot milk mixture to egg; stir well. Return egg mixture to pan. Cook 2 minutes or until the mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add grated chocolate, stirring until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Stir in vanilla. Spoon mixture into pastry crust. Cover surface of filling with plastic wrap, spread whipped topping evenly over filling. (I grated some semi-sweet chocolate over top.)

Yield 8 servings. 265 calories, 7.3 g fat, 3.9 sat fat, 4.8 g protein, 44.8 g carbs, 38 mg cholesterol, .3 g fiber 237 mg sodium 95 mg calcium per serving

My sister-in-law seems to prefer low-fat desserts so I made this for her but she didn’t show up for Thanksgiving dinner this year. I couldn’t fairly critique this pie since I was incredibly full by the time I tasted it. I did think the crust was a bit soggy, even for a cookie crust. The filling was firm and intensely chocolately which wasn’t something I could appreciate after a full meal and several other pie samplings, but I do think the filling was good, the best part of this pie. I usually don’t go below Lite Cool Whip but I stuck to the recipe. I think this would have been better with Lite Cool Whip or better yet, whipped cream, even lite or fat-free whipped ‘cream’ from a can would have been an improvement.

Another recipe from the Best of Cooking Light. I do believe that their recipes are very good for light recipes but at the end of the day, they’re still light recipes.