Hannah's Chocolate Meringue Pie

When you mention 'Meringue Pie', most people will think of lemon meringue pie, which is a classic. I'm not a big fan of said classic, and so went for a lesser known chocolate meringue pie. I was a bit hesitant with this month's bake, due to my complete lack of experience with using meringue, but it was actually quite a simple dessert to make. I also wouldn't like to use the word cheat when it came to my pastry case, i'm not sure of a more suitable word, but cheat seems a bit mean.

Ingredients
Filling

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 tablespoons cocoa
• 3 tablespoons corn flour
• 2 cups milk
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pie shell

Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 6 tablespoons sugar

Instructions
In a saucepan I mixed the sugar, cocoa, corn flour and salt; whilst gradually adding milk. This cooked over a medium-high heat until it bubbled and thickened. This needed to be stirred constantly, which i found out after ignoring it for a few seconds and returned to a thick, lumpy mixture. I reduced the heat and stirred it for quite a while until the mixture was smooth again. The mixture was remove from heat and I stirred about 1 cup of the hot filling into the egg yolks, returned it to the saucepan and brought it to a gentle boil for approx 2 minutes. I then removed the pan from the heat and stirred in the vanilla, before pouring the hot filling in to the pie crust.

For the meringue, I used my electric hand whisk to beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks formed. I then gradually added the sugar and continued to beat until stiff and glossy. I spread this evenly over the filling, and made sure to go right to the edges to seal the meringue and minimise leaks/explosions. This then went in the oven at 150c (fan) for 12-15 minutes.

I have to say that it did look pretty impressive and the smell of the pie was really yummy! The chocolate mixture was very similar to that of chocolate custard, but wasn't overly sweet and went really well with the meringue.

Chocolate filling

End Result