Weekly Dish

One of the challenging things about cooking during the holidays is that you’re also trying to do a million other things at the same time: shop, wrap, decorate, plan, attend parties, not to mention whatever other daily activities you have that don’t stop just because the holidays are near. For us, besides the daily what-to-fix-for-dinner dilemma, that busyness also can interfere with one of the things we love to do, which is to have people into our home for meals.

This pie serves two major functions for me: it gives me something quick but yummy to take when we’re invited to dinner and something to make in a hurry when guests are on their way and I haven’t planned dessert. The best things about this recipe are that you almost always have everything to make it in your pantry and you can mix it up in about 10 minutes and pop it into the oven to bake while you’re having dinner.

I got this recipe from my Aunt Cindi, who wrote it on one of those brightly colored index cards in the Aunts’ Recipe Book; she cites Cotton Country as her source. I’m pretty sure it’s the Monroe Junior League version, but I can’t be sure (this is how recipes develop in the South: very organically!). At any rate, I’ve amended the original Fudge Pie recipe to dress it up a bit for the holidays.

Almond Fudge Pie

1 cup sugar

1 stick butter, softened

2 eggs

1/2 cup flour

Dash salt

1/3 cup cocoa

1 1/2 t. almond extract

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 refrigerated pie crust

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Cook the pie shell for 5 minutes. Reduce the oven’s temperature to 300 degrees. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until combined thoroughly. Add everything else except the almonds, and beat until the mixture is thick and creamy. Pour into the pie shell; sprinkle almonds on top. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the center jiggles only slightly. If you want to be really fancy, you can serve the pie with a dollop of amaretto-spiked whipped cream. It’s also rich and delicious enough to stand on its own, especially with a strong cup of coffee. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2005 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Family, Something Sweet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.