Thanks! I forgot to ask you before - what brand of unsweetened chocolate do you use? I bought some a while back and it was labeled 'bitter'. I don't think I was supposed to get that one, . I want to follow this recipe to the 'T' so I don't screw it up too bad. 'preciate your help.

I don't know that much about cooking either. I use Hershey's unsweetened Chocolate. Bitter is probably fine. But if you have any concerns about it, just go find some baking chocolate that says it's unsweetened.

Hey,
I made this but the raw egg thing got to me. My daughter kind of like it but said it was to salty. My husband thought it was ok but I didn't tell him about the eggs. Isn't there concern for salminella (sorry about the spelling)?
Don't want to Zima

There is concern about the raw eggs, as noted earlier in the thread. Feel free to use pasterized eggs.

I tried this last weekend and found it was too salty for my taste. My Hi Carb (sugar) version calls for unsalted butter, so I think I'll try that next time.

Also, the texture was much firmer than I expected. Wonder if adding some cream might soften it just a bit?

I'll keep experimenting and let y'all know if I discover anything.

It's suppose to be firm. But yeah, use unsalted butter. I can't think of a good reason why it needs to be salted. That's just what the recipe I found called for. And for some reason, they STRESSED it. Doesn't seem like it makes much difference to me.

Hi, everyone -

I've made this recipe a few times now and thought I'd share what I've found using cocoa instead of unsweetened chocolate (that you need to melt) and using a mix of sweeteners. My latest experiment turned out with the perfect level of sweetness (IMHO!), no artificial aftertaste (tested by 3 people), and an absolutely silken texture.

When using cocoa for unsweetened chocolate, you can use 3T cocoa plus 1T oil as an equivalent to one square of unsweetened chocolate. So that would be 9T (or 1/2 cup plus 1T) cocoa plus 3T oil for this recipe.

The first time I did this, I used only about half the oil because of all the butter in the recipe. I found the final result to be too dry. The flavor was fine, but I didn't care for the texture. The next time I used the full 3T of oil (Crisco veggie oil, but any "flavorless" oil would work). This time, the texture was like a superb buttercream frosting. Absolutely wonderful.

I got the best results when I sifted the cocoa into a bowl, then added the oil and THOROUGHLY mixed the two together. This creates a kind of crumbly pasty mixture. Then I added the cocoa mixture to the butter/sweeteners in 3 or 4 steps, thoroughly mixing between each one. The cocoa I use is a 24% butterfat cocoa (high quality) that I buy in bulk from Penzey's Spices. (I don't have any affiliation with them, I just love that company. Great products and prices. Check them out at penzeys.com .) I think you can also get this high-quality cocoa from King Arthur Flour .

For the sweeteners, I had found that the artificial sweetener aftertaste was too strong for me with the original recipe. I'm very happy with the flavor (very natural) of the latest experiment which used:
3/4 C Splenda
15 packets Equal
1.5T Sugar (Yes, real sugar. I figured with all the maltodextrin and dextrose used in the Splenda and Equal, that 1.5T of sugar wasn't going to make much of a difference in the level of high-glycemic carbs.)

Note: I also paid very close attention to making sure the butter/sweeteners were thoroughly creamed together. This is not just a step of "mixing" the two together. They need to be "creamed" to make sure that each grain of sweetener is fully coated with fats. You will notice that the longer you beat the butter/sweeteners together, the lighter in color the mixture gets. I think I beat mine for 2 -2.5 minutes and frequently scraped down the bowl.

And, for what it's worth, I also beat the mixture for about 5 minutes after each egg is added. What I look for is to see if the color of the mixture is continuing to change as I beat it. Whenever I stir down the bowl, I keep a little of the mixture on the spoon. Then I beat the mixture some more, and if the color/texture of the mixture is continuing to improve after a minute or so (compared to the "sample" I kept on the spoon), then I know that I'm not wasting my time. (Remember that the process of "beating" the mixture actually changes the mixture's structure. It does this by forcing the proteins and fats and sugars to become more and more intimately bound. The clumps of protein molecules get broken up and emulsified with the broken clumps of fat molecules which then wrap around the sugar molecules. The smaller these tiny "clumps" get, the smoother and lighter the texture will be.)

So, that's my version of this wonderful contribution (THANK YOU Azure!). I realize everyone's taste is different, so sweetness and aftertaste "requirements" may be different for you. (BTW, I used a mix of salted/unsalted butter, and I reduced the vanilla extract to about 1/2tsp.) Wow, this turned out longer than I thought. Sorry!

Penny

I just made this using the original recipe but I used "All Whites" a 100% liquid egg white product that is pasturized. It comes out of the container like watery milk and I thought it ruin the pie but when I beat it, it behaved beautifully. My pie is chilling now. Oh, and based on peoples comments herein, I used one stick of unsalted and 1/2 stick of salted butter. It didn't taste too salty when I licked the beaters but I did notice the fake sweetener taste. Maybe that will soften a little with chilling.

Azure, how much peanut butter did you add? That sounds like a great addition to this.

Hmm. For some reason, I didn't get the email when you responded to this thread. Sorry that I'm taking so long responding. I added 2 tbs of all natual peanut butter. I'm actually gonna be making one of these tonight, which is why I'm here. Couldn't find my recipe.

G'day Azure, no one is getting emails at the moment. Here is the explanation. I just go straight to "profile" at the top right to check my posts.

I have to make a couple of desserts for a family "do" on Good Friday, and was looking for something suitable when I came upon this wonderful looking recipe. This plus Karen's New York style cheesecake should keep everyone happy.

Thank you so much for posting it! And to everyone else for their comments. Making something that has been so well tried and tested is a bonus.

Rosebud

Aah. didn't know about that. Thanks for the update, Rosebud.

Yeah, this is still one of my favorite recipes. And my friends ask me to make it all the time. Still freaks me out that it's basically just butter

I've been following this thread and I plan to make this, but I was wondering how to make the whipped topping. I'm new to low-carb cooking and used to buy cool whip.

Thanks,

Use a cold metal bowl. Pour in your heavy cream. Whip until you have the consistency you want. Also, add some splenda and whatever flavorings you want, all to taste of course.

I love Martha's recipes. I have a large cookbook of hers and so many many things are either already lowcarb or can be converted. I also have the joy of cooking, which does a lot of teaching/explaining. Down to explaining each and every veggie. Well since I am more in tune now to different veggies and meats than your standard Amercian diet, I've found this book amazingly handly. It explains how to cook almost any meat on earth, which I needed serious lessions in.

I haven't made this pie in awhile so I decided to make it but I wanted a crust this time. I used the directions on Martha's site for the crust for this pie but I just substituted Atkins Baking mix for the flour. It turned out really well, I was surprised. Even my husband liked it(he isn't LC'ing).


Thank you
Candice