Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Pie

Today, Sisters and Brothers, is "National Pie Day" which means for us here in The Chocolate Cult it must be chocolate.  Originally my plan was to try something from one of the two cookbooks I have on my reviews shelf but my assistant, our own Chocolate Fruit Acolyte, was ill so I tried something I had all the necessary ingredients on hand for.  I used one of my older cookbooks, "Nestle Recipe Collection" from 1987 and published by Crescent Books.  The book had been a gift from my first roommate in college.

I changed this recipe so while I'm crediting it as appropriately to the "Nestle Recipe Collection" I am going to give you the recipe below.  I added more chocolate because I just felt it needed more.  So in place of a traditional crust I used a pre-made chocolate crust from Wholly-Wholesome that I bought at our local food co-op when it was on sale.  We can't use tree nuts here, too dangerous because of an allergy, so I substituted more chocolate chips for the chopped walnuts and the raisins -- the raisins simply because I just didn't think it sounded very good.  The chips were from Oppenheimer which I found on clearance at our local Kroger plus two ounces of left over chips of the store brand variety.

Here's the list of ingredients I use:

1/4 C Splenda Brown Sugar
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/2 C Egg Beaters
1 tsp real vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
dash of chocolate chili powder
1/2 tsp orange extract
12oz chocolate baking chips
1/2 C quick oats, uncooked
1 9 inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  In my mixer I beat together sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and orange extra, and cinnamon and chocolate chili powder.  I beat it all for about two minutes.  Then I added in the chips.  Please note that these are a bit smaller than some baking chips and I think that works better in bread, cakes or pies.  Finally add in the oatmeal until it is all blended.  It will be sticky.

Pour into pie shell.  I had to use a spoon to get it all out because it was so sticky. Please note that it almost filled the crust to the rim but was just a tad under that.  Which is good because it rose just a tad as it baked.  Then you let it bake for 45 minutes in my oven at least.  I wish we could afford a better oven but our dish washer's motor has died so we must save for a new one of those first.

This is what it looked like right out of the oven.  You can see that it rose up in the middle but that sunk down as it cooled.  I made sure it was firm but not crisp to the touch before I removed it because sticking a touch pick in it was only coming out chocolate.

We let it cool for 30 minutes and then my husband, our Milk Chocolate Acolyte, cut it into 8 pieces.  He and I split one then I fed my Ghoul gaming group the rest. 

Check out that dark, googy, chocolaty inside.  The top was nice and crisp, the inside a bit sticky but very rich. The crust was a bit too hard but over all it had a good cocoa flavor.  Over all impressions seemed quite positive.

So how are you celebrating "National Pie Day" today, Sisters and Brothers?