In My Kitchen: Chocolate Raspberry Pie

After picking two heaping pailfuls of fresh raspberries last week I've been trying to work them into just about every meal. It's been a lot of berries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner around here and I for one am loving it. There's been raspberries in my yogurt and in my salads, handfuls stashed in take away containers to nosh on throughout the day. Brett made a yummy raspberry syrup that I put in my prosecco the other evening as a delicious twist on a kir royale. Lastly I made a very decadent, and very easy to make, chocolate raspberry pie with a graham cracker crust. It certainly packs a punch in butter, cream, and sugar content but what kind of chocolate pie worth eating doesn't? Read on for this super simple recipe...

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 7 ounces of graham crackers (about 13 or 14 of the full sized crackers)
• 1 1/3 cups of heavy cream
• about 2 and a half cups of raspberries
• 12 ounces of semi sweet chocolate (I used Baker's chocolate but chocolate chips would work just fine too)
• 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter (chilled)
• 1/2 a teaspoon and 1 pinch of coarse salt

Preheat your oven to 350. 

For the crust: If you're lucky enough to have a food processor, combine graham crackers, sugar, and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt in there. If you're like me and don't have one just chuck all of those ingredients into a zip lock bag, seal tightly, and get out a rolling pin. Bash and roll out that sucker until you get a very fine crumb. Transfer cracker crumbs to a mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a pan and then stir into crumb mixture until it just comes together. Press crumbs firmly into a 9 inch pie dish; you can use a flat bottomed drinking glass or measuring cup to really flatten it in there. Bake until the crust is dry and a bit brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool in the fridge.

For the filling: In a large saucepan, bring cream to a low simmer over medium heat. Add in the chocolate and a pinch of salt. Stir until melted and combined. Take the pan off of the heat, break up about a cup of raspberries with your fingers and stir them into the chocolate mixture. Pour chocolate into cooled pie shell and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Before the pie is completely set, arrange the remaining berries on top and then return to the fridge to cool and set completely, about 1 hour.

This pie would go great served with whipped cream or maybe even some vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!