Ann Leckie

Perhaps you recall the events of last week, wherein I found myself obliged to find an Ancillary Sword Pie recipe.

This week, I set out to test some pie recipes, and perhaps alter them to suit. And for my first experiment, I tried a recipe from Lipton they call “Luscious Chocolate Tea Pie.” Here’s the result:

Here you see demonstrated the reason I do not make my living as a photographer. Here also you see clearly that I did not get a chance to take a picture before the family got their hands on the pie.

So. Lipton’s chocolate tea pie is actually very, very good. It’s a basic custard pie–I got through the instructions as far as putting it in the oven and went, “Oh, I’ve just made a quiche. With sugar, and half a bag of chocolate chips melted into the half-and-half.” Oh, and tea in the half-and-half. The recipe called for six bags of Lipton orange pekoe tea. I used loose-leaf Benefit instead, on the theory that the chocolate would probably drown out the tea anyway and the orange in the Benefit might be nice.

The result–a very slightly orangey chocolate pie with very slightly orangey tea-infused whipped cream on top. Quite good, but I question the purpose of adding the tea to begin with. I am half considering making this again but without the chocolate. And a different kind of tea, since I used the last of the Benefit and cannot justify ordering more tea, even if I have to go without Benefit for a while.

This is a perfectly nice chocolate pie. If you wanted to keep the tea in the recipe, I’d consider something strongly flavored–Earl Grey, or perhaps Rosepetal Black, or a very strong Jasmine. Or, ooh, maybe blackcurrant.