Chocolate French Silk Pie with Pretzel Crust

I present you with my all time favorite pie. Yes, it is indeed my favorite. This pie is modeled after a certain pie that I fell in love from this quaint pie shop in Dallas. I discovered this pie about 3 years ago when my mom and my sisters and I traveled to Dallas for a day-trip and were told to go to this adorable pie shop. I can truly say, my life has been greatly improved upon the discovery of this pie at the pie shop. It is a Chocolate French Silk Pie with a Pretzel Crust and within the first bite, I was hooked. I have had this pie at my birthday and many other celebrations. After a few years and many chocolate pies later I knew I had to try to find a recipe to recreate it. After a long time looking, I stumbled across a recipe from Oleo Recipes (http://oleorecipes.blogspot.com/2012/03/dark-chocolate-caramel-french-silk-pie.html) and I made the recipe and it tastes incredibly close to the original! (With this recipe, I made a few adaptations. For example, their recipe calls for caramel but I chose to not include that). This pie is so incredible because it truly is the epitome of sweet and salty. With a rich, dark chocolate french silk filling and a salty pretzel crust, it is balanced perfectly and you will come back wanting more and more…and more and more…and more. And even better is that this pie takes no time to make and tastes like a professional made it. Y’all I’m not exaggerating. I take the art of pie-making seriously. Please let this pie bless your life and your tastebuds like it has mine.

**WARNING** This pie is not particularly for people on a diet so if you are on a diet just pretend this pie is healthy. You won’t regret it. Hey, maybe eat it on your cheat day. Every day is a cheat day for me;)

Chocolate French Silk Pie with Pretzel Crust

yields: 12-16 slices        cook time: 10 min        total time: 4-5 hours

For the crust:

• 1 1/2 cups very finely ground salted pretzels
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick)  unsalted or salted butter, melted (salted butter adds a bit more saltiness with the pie which is nice given the pie itself is very rich)
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt

For the filling:

• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted or salted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 4 eggs (**this recipe does contain raw eggs, consume at your own risk**)

Directions:

1. Grind up pretzels in food processor until completely crushed just before powder form
2. Combine crushed pretzel “meal”, melted butter, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl
3. Pour into pie pan and press to form to sides of pan and bake at 350 degrees for 10 min
4. While crust is cooling, microwave heavy cream until hot and add chocolate chips to make ganache
5. Set ganache aside to cool. While it is cooling, cream the softened butter and sugar together
6. After beaten, beat in cocoa powder, vanilla, and room temp. ganache and beat until smooth
7. Add in eggs, one at a time, and beat after each egg is added
8. Once all combined, pour filling into baked pretzel crust
9. Let set in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours (the longer the better!)
10. ENJOY!