French Silk Brownie Pie

Prepare the brownie batter according to your recipe or according to the box instructions (using the required additional ingredients—typically water, eggs and oil). Pour the batter into tart pans, making just a thin layer (about 1 inch) of batter. I made 4 of these in a tart pan, but I had some extra filling and a lot of extra brownie batter. There is easily enough batter and filling to make 6-8 tart-sized pies or a full pie. See note below for more details.

Bake according to package (or your recipe) temperature specifications for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how gooey you want the crust. Remove from oven and allow to cool. When completely cool, if they puffed up a little bit you can press them down with your hands to make more room for the filling.

For the filling: In a medium sized bowl, use a mixer cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the melted and cooled chocolate. The mixture will look kind of grainy—that’s ok.

With your mixer on low, incorporate the eggs. As soon as they’re just incorporated, start gradually turning your mixer to a faster setting, scraping the sides of the bowl as you go. Beating it faster will fluff the whole thing up and it will become a wonderful, fluffy chocolate mousse.

Pour the mousse over the brownies and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. When ready to serve, top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Notes:

If you do want to make a full pie, I’d recommend making either 1.5x or 2x the amount of filling. It depends on how much filling you want, but I think it’s better to have a little extra than not enough! Also if you do a full pie you’ll need to make the crust about 1-2 inches thick (so you might not need all the brownie batter, depending on how much you make) and bake it a little longer (30 minutes).