Chocolate pie on a health site?!

Yup! Don’t get thinking I’ve lost my mind. This is still a healthy eating site and that is no ordinary chocolate pie.

I’m just doing things a bit differently today. I was rustling through my best posts from this year and there was an ongoing theme. Every time I posted a healthy alternative to a sweet treat, my views increased three-fold. I’m thinking… now, hear me out, I reckon, we all have a sneaky sweet tooth but don’t want to feel bad about indulging in it.

Sound like you? 

Not to worry, this pie isn’t really as bad as it sounds. It’s filled with healthy alternatives, no sugar and no naughties. Don’t let the silky chocolate pictures fool you, this is vegan. No real chocolate was harmed in the making of this pie, no animals and no gluten either!

*Que heavenly music* *Birds sing & Angels cry*

I know, I know. All I’ve heard for the past week is how I must’ve snook something naughty into this pie. “It tastes too good”, who said vegan food didn’t taste good? Who’s spreading these lies!?

I will say it time and time again, vegan and gluten-free foods have to work extra hard to push the flavours forward, making them ten times more flavour full than any alternative I can think of. As you may or may not know I’m new to veganism and my gluten-free lifestyle comes and goes, but I want to combine the two for a sweet treat.

Everyone deserves one! No matter what the diet. I was having a well-deserved break on Friday night and all I came across was naughty food, so I typed in vegan pie and I had a few options to work with. The only problem was…

I’m poor.

I don’t have the money to buy 500g of arrowroot powder, 50g of tapioca starch or 250g of agave honey. Plus I’m still relatively new to vegan so I have honey in the cupboard that should be used up. I needed to find a way of replicating it all the recipes I found but non could do the job to my satisfaction. I took to my notebook and wrote down all the replacements for each ingredient and tried my best to interpret quantities for each thing. Eventually, I had a rough Idea of what I could do.

It’s not until you’re in the kitchen that you realise you’re missing a tonne of ingredients that recipes like this fall into your lap. I am so lucky that this one did, the pie was gobbled up by all four of us in the house by that evening!

I’ll leave my recommendations for decorations and alternatives below!

Vegan Chocolate-Icecream Pie

For the crust

• 1 cup of Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
  
• 1 cup of sweet potato
• 2 TBSP cocoa powder
• 4 tbsp of coconut oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2tbsp of water

For the filling

• 1/2 a can of coconut milk, water removed
• half a cup of sweet potato
• 1 whole banana
• 2 TBSP
• 2 TBSP of honey* Or Vegan, Natural Sweetener
  
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 TSP of almond essence
• Optional: 1 tsp of Blueberry
  or Cranberry
  for a seasonal red flare.

Not Gluten-free?

Bake your crust like this: 

• 2 cups (272 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• (160 g) coconut oil, scoopable (not liquid)*
• 3-6 Tbsp ice cold water
• Or traditional pastry dough but I recommend this gluten free version!

The pastry is soft, like cookie dough. The pie is smooth and creamy like icecream, once thawed it’s like a ganache.

I have tried this pie in a few different ways, my favourite for flavour, has been a mix of vegan and non-gluten free. Meaning I used traditional plain flour,sorry tummy. The blackberry powder added a slight purple sparkle to the filling, it doesn’t show up in the photos but it was an added bonus to this beautiful desert.

It initially was made to be a plain chocolate pie but after fiddling with the filling recipe and knowing my love of cranberry and hazelnuts, I just had to decorate it! I was waiting, impatiently for the chocolate mouse to chill but it just wasn’t fast enough and daylight fading, I needed to chill it quicker for my photographs!

Popping it in the freezer was a strike of genius, it chilled the filling so it was firm enough to remove from the pan and also gave a really nice chill to the dessert. Hence the newly titled “Icecream” pie. The blast in the freezer really topped this off, it made the flavours so much sharper.

The pie crust is filled with cocoa, honey and sweet potato. It’s perfect enough to turn into brownies or cookies, I will write up a recipe for cookies next week, just you wait and see. They will be amazing! You could eat the pie crust alone. The pie as a whole though? You could eat it to yourself, it is so decadent and luxurious.

Eat it with a chocolate sauce,fruit sauce, with hot custard or just with your hands if you’re savage.

Vegan or not, gluten-free or not. This pie will knock your socks off. Honestly, I’m not just saying that.

*Affiliate links are included for vegan and gluten free alternatives.