Black Forest Pudding Pie

Today is National Pie Day, and to mark the occasion, I have a pie recipe to share. I made this pie over the New Year celebrations a few weeks ago when I saw that we had a leftover pie crust in the freezer from when I made a Candy Cane Fudge Cookie Pie for my birthday. I based this pie from a recipe I did earlier in the year though, which I called a Fudgy Vanilla Pie, but instead of vanilla, I wanted to try out chocolate. I’ve always loved cherries, and black forest is one of my favorite cakes, so I thought I would come up with something that had those similar flavors. For the cherry aspect, you can experiment with quite a few options. You can use the canned dark sweet cherries like I did, or you could try maraschino cherries, frozen cherries, as well as cherry extract or juice. I thought the canned dark sweet cherries would look bit more natural and pretty. While I don’t think they had quite the bold and bright “cherry” flavor you might imagine, it was still a very yummy pie to ring in the new year with.

Oven prep: Preheat oven to 375˚ F (for the pie crust)

What You’ll Need:

• Frozen pie crust 

• Jar of hot fudge

• One package of instant chocolate pudding mix (3.4 oz)

• 3/4 cup heaving whipping cream

• 1/3 cup milk

• 1/4 cup sour cream (I used light)

• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

• Cherries, some rinsed well and diced (I used one can of canned dark sweet cherries, and also opened another can using about 8 whole cherries for decoration) 

• Whipped topping (I used light Cool Whip)

• Chocolate bar/chips for shaving or drizzling

Directions:

1. Bake your crust according to instructions on package. It is a good idea to poke the crust before baking with a fork to prevent the crust from puffing up/bubbling too much. After your crust is baked, cool it completely before beginning to mix together the filling.

2. Begin your filling by washing and drying your cherries. Whatever cherries you chose to use you want to make sure they are not overly wet. I rinsed my canned cherries, set them out to dry for a bit, and then patted them down. I also kept some of the juice from the can to drizzle on top later.

3. After the cherries were drier, I then diced them. To add a bit more sweetness, I sprinkled a bit of sugar over the diced cherries and stirred them around.

4. Combine the dry pudding mix, heavy cream, sour cream, and vanilla into a medium sized bowl. Use a mixer to blend everything together until completely combined and creamy. 

5. Warm your jar of hot fudge for about 30 seconds in the microwave and use a spoon to evenly spread on a thin layer onto the bottom of your pie crust.

6. On top of your hot fudge layer, spoon your diced cherries. You can choose to add the cherries directly to your pudding mixture, but I thought the taste would be more noticeable if they were in a layer of their own.

7. After the cherry layer, pour all of your chocolate pudding mixture into the pie crust. Spread it around evenly and as smoothly as you can.

8. With your pudding layer finished, dollop about a cup of whipped topping on top and spread it around until smooth.

9. To finish up the pie, use a grater to shave some chocolate on top or drizzle some melted chocolate. To decorate further, I also put a few full cherries around the pie, so each slice would have one on top. When I served each slice, I also drizzled a bit of the cherry juice that I saved from the canned cherries.

Here are some photos of the final product: