Autumn and a pie

As the leaves turn and winter approaches here in Colorado, we are spending more time indoors and less time outside exercising.  On the plus side, a snowy weekend afternoon spent crafting and making soup and bread is hard to beat.  This is our last winter in Colorado, so we are aiming to get a lot of skiing in, but hopefully we can still fit in some lazy weekends at home.

I am defending my PhD thesis in one week.  In some ways, it seems like we have been here forever, while in others, I feel like we just arrived.  It's strange, I don't feel like I am a different person than I was before I was a doctor.  I have learned a lot, mostly about how to screw up in a non-catastrophic way.  Luckily, whenever I felt like a failure, I could always bake.

When I was a child, I loved french silk pie.  And I would usually eat it by mashing everything together into a taupe-colored mess before eating it.  I didn't know it was easy to make until a friend brought it to a fakes-giving party next year.  Now, after almost a year of thinking about it, I finally made it.

French Silk Pie
adapted from Colorado Cache Cookbook

Crust

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about one sleeve)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix ingredients together in a 9" pie plate and press onto the edges and bottom to form a crust.

Filling

• 1/4 cup butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup cream cheese
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa (or 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips)
• 3 eggs at room temperature

Cream the butter, cheese, and sugar until slightly fluffy.  Stir in the cocoa or chocolate.  Add one egg at a time and whip the crap out of it after each addition - about 5 minutes each time.  It should be very fluffy and should hold peaks.

Pour filling into crust and refrigerate.  You can top it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings for a little extra flair.