Chocolate Caramel Pie

I know. I fail as a blogger. Well life has been a little too fast-paced here at chez tart reform. Between school work, work, student judiciary and law school applications, I feel privileged to be getting any sleep. That said, I made this baby spur of the moment a few weeks ago. Roomie needed some heavy cream for her coffee, but the mini-mart nearby only had some huge size
that would surely not fit in her coffee, even if it was going to last a month. So, what to do with a lot of extra heavy cream? Well, the Daring Bakers did do a Milk Chocolate and Caramel Torte that required heavy cream...

And so it was decided. I would have to improvise...a lot. It really was NOT the daring bakers' recipe, but it sure was good.

Worth the effort? I dunno. But it used up some of the excess cream and was really impressive. "Yes, we made caramel from scratch using the dry method...not a big deal."

Tips for next time: Check pantry and ingredients list before starting next time. Heavy cream is different from whipping cream and we only had 1 of the 2, so I used whipped cream... Yaaa.. Oh well, It worked.
Spur of the Moment, Improvised Caramel and Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 chocolate pie crust
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
  
• ¼ cup butter
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 ½ tablespoons flour
• 1/2 can whipped cream
• 1 cup melting chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 325 °F (160 °C).

2. In a saucepan, caramelize 1 cup granulated sugar using the dry method until it turns a golden caramel color. Stir constantly using a non-plastic utensil. This will Take a while.3. Incorporate the heavy cream then add butter. Mix thoroughly. (At this stage, your caramel will likely seize up. Just keep stirring for a long time over low heat and it will smooth out) Set aside to cool.

4. In a mixing bowl, beat the whole eggs with the extra egg yolk, then incorporate the flour.5. Pour this into the cream-caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.

6. Spread it out in the pie shell and bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.7. Prepare the milk chocolate mousse: Melt the milk chocolate and fold in the whipped cream. Cool slightly.8. Pour the chocolate mousse over the cooled caramel mixture, smoothing it with a spatula or pipe it on with a pastry bag. Chill for one hour in the refrigerator.