Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie
Dark chocolate and warming spices? Yes, please! Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie brings it. Plus, it is easily modified to be dairy-free or vegan.
The crust is extra delicious because it is made from the cookie of the skies.
Biscoff
The spiced cookie known as Biscoff appeared as an in-flight snack on Delta flights starting in the mid-1980s. Come fly with us, the cookie seemed to say, because you won’t get these anywhere else in North America. They became an airline staple and soon American and United were serving the little red packages as well.
The crisp, cinnamon-y, temperature-resistant cookie makes it a perfect travel snack. Delta now serves over 80 million of them each year!
Before their appearance on airlines, these cookies were only available in Northern Europe. You may have seen them labeled speculoos. I recently discovered there is a difference between speculoos and speculaas.
Speculaas is a popular spiced cookie from the Netherlands that uses the speculaas spice blend of anise, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and white pepper. However, Biscoff is a speculoos cookie that is popular in Belgium that uses just Ceylon cinnamon instead of a spice blend.
Biscoff is now available at many grocery stores and Target. They are perfectly delicious on their own and with a cup of coffee. But crush them and combine them with butter, and you have a super yummy pie crust.
The filling? Why, chocolate, of course.
Mexican Hot Chocolate
Have you had the warm and chocolatey drink from Mexico called champurrado? It contains bittersweet chocolate, sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes other spices like chile or cayenne. Corn flour and hot milk are blended in to make a steaming mug of goodness.
Cacao is chocolate in its rawest form and is something that has been around for centuries in Central America. The Mayans and Aztecs drank a cacao concoction considered the drink of the gods. Its ingredients are similar to the Mexican hot chocolate of today: crushed cocoa, chile pepper, and cornmeal.
It’s easy to make your own, but there are also several brands to purchase. Abuelita, Hernan, Ibarra, and Taza are all popular. The chocolate comes in tablets that you break into pieces and dissolve in hot milk.
The cinnamon and spice flavors of Mexican hot chocolate marry well with Biscoff crust to make one of the best chocolate pies!
Looking for a chocolate tart instead? I got you: Chocolate Tart with PB Pretzel Crust.
Lessons Learned
- The filling is already dairy-free. To make the crust dairy-free, swap out the butter with coconut oil, vegetable shortening, or vegan butter.
- Want to make this vegan? I know someone will ask. Sub out the egg in the filling for one of the following: either ¼ cup of aquafaba (liquid from a can of chickpeas) OR a cornstarch roux (one or the other, not both). To make a cornstarch roux, combine 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water and whisk into a solution. Use this to replace 1 egg in the filling recipe.
- This pie slices nicely if left to sit overnight. If you are eating this the same day that you baked it (like I did), the slices will not be as neat but it will still be every bit as delicious.
Hat Tips
Many thanks to The Subversive Table for the Mexican hot chocolate pie recipe and Salt & Baker for the Biscoff pie crust recipe.
Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 10 slices 1x
Ingredients
Crust:
- 2 ½ cups Biscoff cookies, crushed
- ½ cup butter, melted
- ½ tsp salt
Filling:
- 1 cup full-fat coconut milk
- 1 cup bittersweet (60 to 70%) chocolate chips
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp chile powder
- ¼ tsp salt
Garnish:
- 1 cup mini marshmallows
Get Recipe Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F/177C. Move the oven rack to the center slot.
- Make the crust by plonking the cookies in a food processor or blender and blitzing for 30 seconds or until they are fine crumbs. Pour the crumbs into a large bowl. Add the salt and the melted butter. Stir to combine. It should look like wet sand.
- Tip the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan. Press using the bottom of a measuring cup (or your fingers) to cover the bottom and sides of the pan evenly.
- Bake the crust for 8 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool.
- Make the filling by pouring the milk into a medium bowl. Heat in the microwave until it is hot but not boiling, about 1 minute. Tip the chocolate chips into the hot milk and let them sit for a few minutes to melt. Whisk the chocolate and milk together until it is smooth and shiny.
- Now, whisk in the egg, vanilla, cinnamon, chile powder, and salt. Stir until well incorporated. Pour the filling into the prepared crust.
- Bake for 25-ish minutes or until the edges are set. The center will still be slightly jiggly but not overly so. Remove from the oven. Allow the pie to cool completely on a wire rack for about 2 hours before slicing.
- Just before serving, pile on the marshmallows. Use a kitchen torch to brown the tops or place the pie under the broiler in the oven just until the marshmallows are melty.
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