Gluten, Corn & Soy-Free German Chocolate Pie

The ingredients for a German Chocolate pie have been in my pantry for a long time. Apparently, I halved the recipe and baked one pie about two years ago. Yesterday, having moved half a bag of coconut and a premade Pillsbury pie crust from one side of the freezer to the other for the hundredth time, I decided it was time to bake a pie.

After six+ months of avoiding wheat, corn, and soy, I'm starting to reintroduce those things to my tragically sensitive system. Most days though, I try to keep it "clean" which means I bake my own stuff to avoid the most unavoidable food trifecta in existence. After procuring a gluten-free pie crust mix, the only problem with my original German chocolate pie recipe was the corn starch used to thicken the filling. Coming off of a food fail where I used rice flour to thicken vanilla pudding, I was hesitant to try that again. Rice flour adds a really grainy texture to things and I wanted my pie to be just like I remembered it. Google revealed that people are pretty "meh" about using buckwheat flour as a thickener. I decided to roll the gluten free dice, risking not one but two pies. Buckwheat it is!

German Chocolate Pie Recipe

I bought this baby when I wasn't even supposed to be eating cocoa because it smells like love. I was unable to discern how many squares were in one ounce, but a serving size is three squares (1.3 oz) so I used twelve squares in the recipe. That's a bit of extra chocolate. More chocolate is always better.

4 oz. Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate
1/4 cup butter

13 oz. can of evaporated milk

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup buckwheat flour (or 3 T cornstarch)

1/8 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/3 cup baker's coconut

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

2 unbaked pie crusts (Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pie Crust Mix works well. Follow package instructions. Use the butter-only option if you're avoiding soy.)

In a small saucepan over low heat melt chocolate and butter. Combine well. Slowly add evaporated milk, stirring constantly. In a separate bowl combine sugar, buckwheat and salt. Mix well. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Slowly add warm chocolate mixture. Pour half into each pie crust. Sprinkle half of the coconut and half of the nuts over each pie.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pie Crust Mix makes two nine inch crusts. I had that old Pillsbury premade crust in the freezer, so I made one G-free and one regular. This is the first time I've ever baked something gluten free that is better than the wheat version. Bob's pie crust is perfect!

The nuts and coconut cover the top until the delicious chocolate mixture puffs up and magically absorbs them into deliciousness.

Bake for about 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven. The buckwheat flour thickened faster than cornstarch. Add about 15-20 minutes to the bake time if you use cornstarch as your thickener.

The gluten free crust is on the left. I didn't taste the freezer burned alternative, but the g-free one is a perfect pie crust. I can't imagine it being any better. I froze the second gluten free crust for the future. Hopefully I'll remember to use it soon.

The pie was absolutely scrumptious! With or without a little scoop of ice cream... yum! And I'm sure there's no better recipe around, even those that use corn, wheat, and soy.