Gary's Chocolate Cream Pie

Gary’s trick for a chocolate cream pie that slices clean and tastes like far more than the box it came from: make the pudding extra thick, then lighten it. A double batch of chocolate pudding sets up dense and sliceable, and folding in half a batch of sweetened whipped cream loosens it into something closer to a chocolate mousse, airy but still firm enough to hold a fork.

Because that pudding is so stiff, reach for an electric mixer to work the whipped cream in evenly. Doing it by hand is a wrist workout nobody needs.

The rest is pure assembly. Spoon the lightened filling into a baked shell, pipe the reserved whipped cream over the top, and shower it with shaved bittersweet chocolate. Then comes the only hard part: waiting. A two to three hour chill lets it firm up so slices come out tidy instead of slumping onto the plate.

Pro Tips

• Make sure the pudding is fully chilled and very thick before folding in the cream, or the filling stays too loose to slice neatly.
• Whip the cream just to firm peaks. Overwhipped cream turns grainy and won’t pipe smoothly.
• Run a vegetable peeler along a block of bittersweet chocolate for quick, pretty shavings.

Variations

• Swap a graham cracker or chocolate cookie crust for the pastry shell for an even faster build.
• Use butterscotch or vanilla pudding for a different cream pie entirely.
• Fold a spoonful of espresso powder into the pudding for a mocha edge.