Chocolate Pie Served With an Uncomfortable Silence

Recreated from 'Kings of the Wyld' by Nicholas Eames

Poor Gabe looked as though he’d been stabbed. Clay half-expected that disbelief to boil over into anger, but Gabriel just shook his head and returned his attention to the untouched plate before him. Kallorek called for a servant to take Valery to her room. The three of them ate dessert (a chocolate pie topped with chopped almonds and whipped cream) and sipped sweet red beer in mildly uncomfortable silence.

For a moment, let’s pretend I have an enchanted hat that will give me food on demand (a delightful fantasy). As appealing as the many dishes of Nicholas Eames’ ‘Kings of the Wyld’ sound – rabbit and mushroom stew, breakfast banquets at the table of a king, thick slabs of salted pork belly, crispy-skinned chicken, a staggering variety of jams – this chocolate pie would have to be my first choice out of the hat, even accompanied by the most uncomfortable of silences. I put a strawberry ‘Rose’ at the centre of mine just to make sure I didn’t lose sight of what’s important beyond my favourite brother-in-arms, chocolate. ​

Ingredients (serves 5 very hungry bandmates or 8 regular people)
For the pastry:

• ​110g butter, melted and cooled
• 50g sugar
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• a pinch of salt

For the chocolate filling:

• 360ml double cream
• 400g good quality chocolate (at least 50% cocoa)
• 2 medium eggs, whisked
• a handful of sliced almonds
• 1 large strawberry shaped into a rose (optional)

To serve:

• Whipped cream

Special equipment:

• a 23cm fluted tart tin with a loose bottom plus a bit of butter for greasing it

Instructions

1. ​Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F) fan assisted. Grease the tart tin with butter, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies, and set aside. 
2. Using a wooden spoon, combine all the pastry ingredients in a large mixing bowl to form a dough.  
3. Press the dough into the tart tin to form a pastry case (base and fluted sides) a few millimetres thick. You'll probably have some dough left over but it's better than being caught short. 
4. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven until the crust starts going golden brown. 
5. While the case is baking, heat the double cream and sugar together in a pan until they're boiling, then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and stir until fully melted and combined. 
6. Right before the pastry case has finished baking, add the whisked egg to the chocolate mix and stir to combine. This filling is now ready to be baked (see step 8).
7. Remove the baked pastry from the oven when 15 minutes are up (see step 4) and turn the oven off. Reshape the case (the sides will have slumped a little but it's easy enough to fix). 
8. Pour the filling into the baked pastry case. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and add the strawberry 'Rose' if using. Put the assembled pie into the (switched off) oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the tin. 

This pie is best eaten the day after a night in the fridge. Remove from the fridge an hour before eating and serve with whipped cream. Or any cream. 

If having to chew your chocolate just seems like too much effort, try my chocolatl from Philip Pullman's 'The Book of Dust'.