Toll House Walnut Pie
One of my favorite pies comes from an old cookbook my mom has, with a few modifications. The main modification being to add more chocolate – like garlic, chocolate is best measured with the heart, so adding more is rarely a bad idea. More nuts are also added, to balance things out, and Mom also has some notes about replacing refined sugar with less-processed alternatives if you prefer.
I made a few other substitutions, mainly to avoid going back to the grocery store so I could make this with ingredients I already had. In particular, while I generally have most baking staples, I almost never have eggs, or brown sugar. When I do have eggs, I often get nervous they will go bad, so I use them quickly…and then no longer have eggs again. A quick review of common egg substitutes shows that you can use 1tbsp (10g) chia seeds and 3tbsp (45g) water in place of an egg as a binder, so I now keep a jar of chia seeds in my pantry as a backstop. Brown sugar is basically white sugar before the molasses has been removed. Mixing a tablespoon of molasses per half-cup of sugar back in is a suitable replacement, but lacking molasses, any similar dark, sweet syrup will work in a pinch: I used blue agave syrup to make “blue sugar”.
The mixing and baking is the same regardless of substitutes: you whisk your eggs/egg substitutes to a light froth, incorporate flour and sugar, followed by butter, and then the solid additions. Baking for an hour will set the pie, I found I had to bake a little longer to brown the crust to the degree I wanted, though one of the crusts I used was a little wetter than intended which could have impacted that.
Ingredients
The original recipe calls for ingredients measured in customary US units, mainly by volume:
| Qty | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 2 | eggs |
| 1/2c | unsifted flower |
| 1/2c | sugar |
| 1/2c | firmly-packed brown sugar |
| 1c | butter; melted and cooled |
| 6oz/1c | Nestlé Semi-Sweet Real Chocolate Morsels |
| 1c | chopped walnuts |
| 1 | 9-in pie crust |
| - | (optional) whipped cream or ice cream |
My mother’s amended ingredients:
| Qty | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 0 | sugar |
| 1/4c | honey |
| 1/2c | sucanat |
| 18oz/3c | chocolate morsels |
| 2c | chopped walnuts |
For my version, I have added weights in grams, and percentages using the amount relative to the greatest ingredient, the chocolate. This is similar to baker’s percentage used in bread baking, where ingredients are measured relative to flour, and makes for easier scaling:
| Qty | g | % | Ingredient |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2+6tbsp chia+water | 110 | 22 | chia seed (20g)+water (90g) egg substitute (or 2 eggs) |
| 1/2c | 80 | 16 | flour |
| 1/2c | 100 | 20 | white granulated sugar |
| 1/2c | 130 | 25 | blue sugar*, packed |
| 1c | 227 | 45 | butter (2 sticks), melted and cooled |
| 18oz | 510 | 100 | semi-sweet chocolate (50% or more cacao) |
| 2c | 240 | 47 | chopped walnuts |
| 1 | - | - | 9-in pie crust |
* 1/2c (110g) sugar + 1tbsp (20g) blue agave syrup. There is slightly more sugar in this 1/2c due to it packing down after adding agave.
Recipe
If you are using chia-egg, you will need to mix that first, and wait about 20-30 minutes. You can measure and prepare the other ingredients while waiting.
While waiting for the chia to set, preheat the oven to 325°F, mix the flour and sugar, and melt butter. Use an ice bath to cool the butter back to room temperature if needed.
When the chia-egg is set, whisk lightly, then add the flour and sugar mixture. Fold in the melted, cooled butter, and add the chocolate, and chopped walnuts.
Scoop and pour into the unbaked pie crust, then bake for about 1 hour, or until crust is nicely browned. It is excellent warm, with fresh whipped cream or ice cream, but also great leftover straight from the refrigerator.
The little ramekins are about 1/10\th the volume of the larger tin, so I just multiplied everything by 1.4 to make enough. The big pie went to a Thanksgiving get-together… I ate one of the small ones, and brought the rest to share at my local brewery.