However, as Josh's best friend Adam is an Iowa fan--and Iowa fan who had stated he'd give into our repeated demands that he come out to LA if Iowa made it to the Rose Bowl--Josh and I both had a vested interest in this game. So, I donned my favorite Iowa tee shirt ("Des Moines. French for 'The Moines'.") and we headed to Tricia's house in Pasadena.
The pros of Tricia's house are plenty--literally. She has, at last count, 7 pets--two bunnies, 3 very portly cats, and 2 enormous mastiffs, which by my count totals somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pounds of animals for me to play with while everyone else pays attention to boring things like who punted what to whom.
The cons are that everyone there, save for Josh and me, were Ohio State fans - of the most rabid variety. The thing about it is, as I have said before, I don't really give a crap about sports. Yet I was in a room full of people who gave every crap they have ever had about sports, specifically Ohio State sports. They live and die by this shit. They were riveted to the TV, and really, really cared a LOT about what happened.
At one point, when it looked like Iowa might pull it out, Tricia even went outside and burned her Ohio State underwear out of superstition that her wearing/having OSU garb during the games causes them to lose. I sat around quietly, amusing everyone by asking Josh if he would 'bring me a cat' when he went into the kitchen for some beer (hilarious, evidently), and neglected to let anyone know that not only was I there rooting for Iowa, but that I'm a University of Michigan alumna - lest they take me outside and send me the way of Tricia's underwear.
Thus, I contented myself with playing with the various animals and plying everyone with German Sweet Chocolate Pie. The recipe was from Josh's parents' good friends the Renzis. As I'm not generally a big chocolate person, I thought it would be perfect to bring to a big event and hopefully get everyone else to eat it. The 'good' desserts I tend to hoard so when we have them leftover at home I can eat them for breakfast. It's all about creative breakfasts.
The Renzis' Sweet German Chocolate Pie calls for German sweet chocolate, which was a little harder to find than I bargained for. That is to say, there wasn't any in the baking section at the ghetto grocery. Josh and I stopped by another grocery and there wasn't any there, either, at which point I declared we were going to have to go to a fancy grocery. But he wasn't having it and marched us into the candy aisle, where, it turns out, they keep the German sweet chocolate - in the form of chocolate bars.
We looked at all of them, as I was insisting the chocolate had to be German. Luckily - and surprisingly - it turns out that Godiva chocolate is, according to the package, 'a product of Germany,' so Godiva it was. Then were was discussion on how dark/how sweet, blah blah. I'm not sure that really matters, but I believe we used the 85% chocolate dark chocolate. We also discovered that a package is actually 3.5 ozs, so we got a second (milk chocolate) package and I broke off and measured around a half ounce so I could get the official 4 ozs. At home. Not in the store. They don't like it when you do that in the store.
I also lost my mind and neglected to do a thorough search of the house when it came to the alcohol for flavoring the whipped cream. That is to say, I bought a whole bottle of Kahlua even though it appears we already had a nearly full one hiding downstairs. So now if you want white Russians you know where to come.
Shopping stressors aside, the pie was pretty easy to put together and came out looking quite lovely, dare I say so myself. This pie is basically like chocolate mousse pie, very rich and chocolate-y, but not so much so that it is hard to eat, like some deep chocolate things can be. Everyone at the party loved it and ate it all right up, so I think if you are a chocoholic, like 99% of the world, you should obviously make yourself this pie. Plus, really, it looks extremely impressive. Don't you think?
Too bad the pie didn't make Iowa win. Damn it.Cos & Jackie Renzi's OSU-taming German Sweet Chocolate Pie
1 package (4 ozs) German Sweet Chocolate (AKA get 2 bars of Godiva dark chocolate)
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tbsp sugar (optional)
1 pkg (8 ozs) original cream cheese softened at room temperature
1 pint heavy cream whipped stiff
Kahlua liqueur (or another of your choice)
1 graham cracker crust (or, if you want to make your own, 12 double graham crackers, 1/2 cup melted butter and 1/4 cup sifted confectioner's sugar)
Make graham cracker crust per Ginny's instructions in her Easy Cheesecake recipe, with the following addition: grease pie plate first before patting in the crust. As you learn when Josh admonishes you later as he tries to cut the pie, homemade graham cracker crusts are pretty damn impossible to cut up properly (read: completely impossible) when serving a non-baked pie. Perhaps pre-greasing the pan will help? Perhaps if you are not going to bake the pie it's just a lost cause so you should get a pre-made one and save yourself the trouble?
Beat heavy cream until stiff, add some Kahlua to taste. Or, get your Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook out and following their whipped cream recipe, which also includes sugar and vanilla, because you don't bother to read through this recipe and realize that whipped cream is going to become part of the pie, not pie topping. Whoops. Well, it turned out okay anyhow, but in future, do not do this, and just whip the cream and add in some Kahlua like a good girl. Or do it the other way since it came out fine. Whatevs.
Unwrap chocolate bar #1 and toss into pot. Weigh out .5 ozs from chocolate bar #2 with trusty kitchen scale (gadgets!) so you get a total of 4 ozs, although now that you think about it, 3.5 probably would have done just fine. Put .5 ozs into pot with chocolate bar #1.
Heat chocolate and 2 tbsp of whole milk in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until chocolate is melted. Wonder how come the chocolate doesn't burn? Didn't you learn in 7th grade Home Ec class that you were supposed to use a double boiler or something? Miraculous!
Beat sugar into cream cheese, or don't because you already put sugar into the whipped cream and by now you have read the rest of the recipe and realized you will be using a sum total more sugar than was recommended. Add remaining milk and chocolate mixture and beat until smooth.
Fold in whipped cream (doh!), blending until smooth. Spoon into crust, realizing you have more than you need. So really spoon most of it into the crust, and leave some in the mixing bowl for Josh to enjoy. Swirl the top around like a woman in an icing commercial in an attempt to make the pie look proper.
Read that you are supposed to 'garnish with shaved chocolate.' Oh shit. You did not buy shaved chocolate. There is no mention that you will need shaved chocolate in the ingredients list!
Break off some more chocolate from bar #2 and grate it into a bowl using a cheese grater and then sprinkle onto pie. Voila. Shaved chocolate. Works quite well, really. Not bad.
Freeze until firm (about 4 hours). Feed to Ohio State fans, enjoying the few minutes of pie talk in lieu of football talk. Now that's interesting.
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