Chocolate Marshmallow Pie

I made this around Thanksgiving and it truly is an American pie. It came from Jamie's magazine and I have to say mine looks very much like the picture! I love how they use crumb bases, rather than faff around with pastry bases, most of the time. This appeals to me. Plus this pie allowed me to blowtorch marshmallows – always a pleasure.

This pie went to the top of the favourites list for many of my work colleagues, which is not to be sniffed at. It’s very rich so only a small slice is needed per person. I’d encourage you to make this is a pie dish as the heavy weight of it lends something to the whole experience. I’ve found that TK Maxx has great deals on bakeware and the one near me always had a selection of pie dishes in various sizes.

Ingredients

Base

225g digestive biscuits

1 tbsp plain flour

Pinch of salt

115g melted butter, cooled

Filling

75g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

75g dark muscovado sugar

100g butter

100g dark chocolate – no more than 60% cocoa

150ml cold water

1 egg

Topping

Make your own marshmallows – recipe here – or just buy a pack

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.
2. Put the biscuits, flour and salt in food processor and pulse until fine. Then add the melted butter, whizz and put the resulting crumb in the pie dish (mine was 23cm). Chill for 20 minutes. (You can always bash the hell out of the biscuits using plastic bags and a rolling pin, doing the mixing in a bowl).
3. Once chilled bake the base for 10 minutes.
4. Now for the filling. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl.
5. In a saucepan put the sugar, butter (chop up) and chocolate (broken into pieces) with the water and heat gently until melted and smooth. Take off the heat, add the dry mixture and the egg, then mix together well.
6. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes. Don’t worry when you take it out – it should look wobbly. It will firm up as it cools.
7. Once cool, or just before serving, arrange the marshmallows on top and blowtorch!!! Serve.