This easy sundae pie features ice cream and thick chocolate sauce in a crunchy, nutty crust that needs only a few minutes of baking to toast the nuts. The sauce sets upon contact with the ice cream.
If you like, substitute chocolate chip, vanilla, coffee or rum-raisin ice cream for the chocolate. Instead of topping the pie with a sauce, you can serve it sprinkled with chopped flavored chocolate. You can keep the pie, covered tightly, up to 1 month in the freezer.
Triple chocolate sundae pie in a pecan crust
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
1 1/4 cups pecan halves
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
7 to 9 pecan halves (for garnish)
1 1/2 pints chocolate ice cream
3 ounces 60 percent dark or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whipping cream
For the cocoa-pecan crust: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly butter an 8-inch pie pan. In a food processor chop pecans, sugar and cocoa using quick on/off pulses until nuts are finely chopped but small pieces remain; do not grind to a powder. Transfer to a bowl. Add butter; crumble mixture with your fingers until well blended. Press mixture in a thin, even layer on base and side of buttered pan, using the back of a spoon. Bake about 6 minutes or until light brown. Cool completely. Freeze for 10 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Toast pecan halves for garnish in a small shallow baking pan in oven 7 minutes. Remove and cool. Slightly soften ice cream in refrigerator until spreadable. Spoon into crust in pie pan, mounding ice cream slightly towards center and quickly spreading it smooth. Freeze about 2 hours or until firm. Cover if not serving immediately.
For the chocolate sauce: Melt chocolate in cream in a small heatproof bowl over nearly simmering water. Remove from water; stir until smooth. Cool sauce to room temperature or until thick enough to pipe. Using a pastry bag and small star tip, pipe a little sauce in center of pie, then in lines radiating outward like spokes of a wheel. Pipe a ribbon of sauce about 1/2 inch from border. If any sauce remains, pipe a dot of sauce between each “spoke.”
Set toasted pecans on pie at equal intervals near edge and 1 in center; press so they adhere. Serve immediately; to serve later, freeze about 15 minutes or until sauce is very firm, then cover.
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