Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

This amazing Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie is where two of my biggest dessert loves meet– chocolate and pie! It doesn’t get any better than that! This pie is a beautiful and impressive crowd pleaser that everyone will love. AND it’s super easy to make! It’s the perfect dessert to bring to holiday gatherings, pot lucks, or to your next dinner party!

What is a chocolate chess pie? Although it is kind of blurry how chess pie got its name, we do know that chess pie originated in the South and is a very popular dessert! The classic chess pie does not have chocolate and it actually includes cornmeal. It’s creamy, buttery, and luscious! All of which are also true about my take on the chocolate chess pie!

What You’ll Need

Equipment

• Food scale
• Mixing bowls
• Rolling pin
• Bench scraper
• Whisk
• Parchment paper
• 8- or 9-inch pie plate
• Pie weights such as uncooked rice or dried beans

Ingredients for Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

• All purpose flour
• Granulated sugar
• Salt (preferably kosher salt)
• Unsalted butter
• Ice cold water
• Dark chocolate
• Nutella
• Eggs
• Cocoa powder
• Pure vanilla extract
• Espresso powder (optional)

How To Make Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

Make Pie Crust

The foundation of a successful Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie is a good pie crust, literally. It not only holds the delicious filling in place, but its buttery, tender, and flaky profile makes this pie a real winner! The star of this pie is definitely the luscious chocolate filling, but if paired with a tough, chewy, and thin, flake-less crust, it can never shine as bright!

This is why I’ve written an entire blog post on how to make the most flaky and tender homemade pie crust! And once you get the hang of it, it’s SO simple and easy!

Split up your work flow: Whenever I’m making a dessert I like to plan ahead (when possible!) and break down the steps as much as possible to make for an easier and cleaner work flow. Some recipes like brownies or certain cookies don’t require too many steps, so they don’t need much planning. But desserts like pies and pavlovas include many steps that may make the recipe seem intimidating or too complicated at first. This is why I like to split up the work to at least 2 days:

• First day: make pie dough and chill it in the fridge overnight, or up to 3 days.
• Second day: roll out dough and blind bake pie crust. Whisk together the filling ingredients, pour into pie crust, and bake. This last step could’ve been extended to a third day is desired.

Splitting up your work like this not only makes everything easier and faster, but it leaves you with a lot less mess!

Blind Bake Pie Crust

This Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie calls for blind baking the pie crust first. Unlike apple pies, pies with a wet custard-like filling require you to “blind bake” the pie crust first. This means that the pie crust is a fully baked shell before the filling is poured in and then baked again.

To blind bake the crust, roll the dough out bigger than your pie plate. Then place the dough into the plate and crimp the edges to sit firmly on top of the pie plate lip all around the edges. Place parchment paper or aluminum foil in the crust and fill with pie weights. I like using a mix of uncooked rice and small dried beans. Use enough pie weights to fill up the entire pie crust, all the way to the top. This helps the crust keep its shape and keep from shrinking.

Bake the crust at a high temperature (425 degrees F) for about 20 minutes, until the edges are golden. Remove from oven, carefully remove pie weights, poke holes into the bottom of the crust, and bake for an additional 25 minutes at 350 degrees F until the entire crust is golden brown.

Make the filling and Bake Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

This super easy nutella chocolate chess pie filling comes together in a snap!

• First, melt the butter with chopped chocolate and Nutella in the microwave in 20 second intervals until smooth.

• In a separate bowl, whisk together to sugar, eggs, cocao powder, vanilla, espresso powder (optional), and salt.
• Whisk in the butter/chocolate mixture, pour into baked pie crust, and bake for about an hour!

Other recipes to try:

home sweet (potato) home hand pies
perfect apple pie w streusel topping
Asparagus Mushroom Galettes

Yield: 1 9-inch pie

Nutella Chocolate Chess Pie

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 2 hours

Rich, decadent, fudgy, and oh-so-good, this Nutella chocolate chess pie is basically like the best brownie in a pie! The crispy meringue-like top makes it even better!

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Ingredients

For Pie Crust

• My Best Flaky Pie Crust Recipe- You will only need HALF of this recipe

For Filling

• 1/2 c (1 stick or 113g) unsalted butter, cubed
• 4 oz (113g) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/3 c (100g) Nutella
• 1 1/3 c (266g) granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsp espresso powder (optional)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

For the pie crust

1. Make half of the Best Flaky Pie Crust Recipe (or make the whole recipe and save the other half of the dough for another project-- it freezes well too!)
2. Prep to blind bake the crust: Preheat oven to 425°F. Remove chilled dough from fridge, unwrap, and place on a well floured surface. Start rolling out the dough, picking it up and turning it a few degrees after every few rolls to prevent sticking. Sprinkle flour on the top of the dough as needed. Roll out dough to about 1/8 inch thick circle. Flip over your pie plate and hold it over the dough to make sure the dough has at least a 1 inch excess border all around.
3. Gently place the dough into the pie plate. Without stretching the dough, fit it into the plate, gently pressing it into the bottom of the plate. Tuck the excess border under itself so that it's sitting on top of the lip of the pie plate and press down gently, doing the same all around the border. Then with your thumb and fingers, crimp the edges (look at photos above). Place entire pie pan into the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.
4. After dough has been chilled, take a piece of parchment paper that is larger than the pie plate, crinkle it into a ball and then flatten out again (this makes it more malleable). Place parchment paper on top of the chilled dough, pressing it slightly into the pie plate then fill with pie weights ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP, spreading the weights around with your hands to make sure it's gotten into all the crevices.
5. Place pie plate on top of the baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges are catching a golden color. Remove from oven and lower the temperature to 350°F. Carefully bunch up the corners of the parchment paper and lift the weights out of the pie dough (be careful-- weights will be HOT) and place into a large bowl.
6. Using a fork or knife, poke vent holes all over the bottom of the pie dough and place back into oven and bake for an additional 25 minutes, until the entire pie crust is cooked and golden brown all over. Remove from oven and set crust aside to cool slightly.

Make the filling

1. Place butter, chopped chocolate, and Nutella in a medium microwave safe bowl and microwave on 20 second intervals, giving it a bit of a mix in between each interval until it is all smooth and combined. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine sugar, eggs, cocoa powder, vanilla, espresso powder, and salt and whisk well. Stream in the slightly cooled butter-chocolate mixture as you whisk until all of it is combined.
3. Pour filling into the pie crust and bake for about 60 minutes. It is done when the top is set and only the center of the filling jiggles slightly. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Enjoy!