Gluten-dairy-free Milk Bar Mondays Brownie Pie Love…

We’re baaaaaaaack!

Sometimes inspiration for making something sweet comes from a new pan or a road trip to someplace spooky with friends. And sometimes it comes from a group of ladies you’ve met via the interweb, and have agreed to bake your way through a cookbook with!

I’m tickled pink that the Milk Bar Mondays ladies are back after a hiatus so that we could take care of a few small things; members moving and graduating college and having babies, the little beautiful details of life like that! Every time I get wiped from the mess of internet madness that makes me want to head for the hills — where wifi and mobile service are replaced by oak trees and crickets — I stumble upon the picture of one of my beautiful lady friends with their growing belly, or growing child, or growing dreams, and my heart fills up and I am so thankful to this crazy bit of technology that’s helped me find such talented, lovely people.

And together it’s brought us on a trippy journey, baking our way through Christina Tosi’s Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook, me adapting as I can to fit my dietary needs. We’ve had some incredibly yummy ones — the Compost Cookies I can’t stop making, the decadent Chocolate Mallow Layer Cake that sent me swooning, the Blueberry and “Cream” and Chocolate-Chocolate cookies and Birthday Layer Cake and Chevre Frozen Yogurt with Beet-Lime Ganache… love.

And here we are again, with a dangerously rich chocolate Brownie Pie nestled in a graham crust. And, for you and moi, this version is gluten and dairy free.

The fresh-from-the-oven pie.

The recipe calls for a crust made from crushed graham crackers, milk powder and butter. Because I hadn’t planned well (and don’t generally buy boxed sweets), I made my own grahams using Shauna’s recipe from Gluten-Free Girl as my base, substituting with my flours and only using xanthan gum. Texturally they were not my favorite thing in the world — I’ve actually never successfully baked a gluten-free graham cracker that brings me the joy of the gluten-full ones I remember of yore — but that was the problem of my meddling and adapting, not hers. What I did love was that they were just-sweet, and therefore perfect for a pie crust. And while they rolled and cut and baked perfectly, since they were getting crumbed anyway the texture wasn’t vital.

Since I couldn’t use butter or milk powder, I pulled the crust together with an increased amount of graham crumbs and melted butter-flavored Earth Balance. Again, the texture wasn’t my favorite on its own, but it did the job when the brownie filling was baked on top! It held up to slicing as a crust and provided some surprising texture/flavor bursts when sprinkled in the filling.

For the filling itself, I subbed butter and cream with more (full fat) coconut milk, and used my basic cookie flour blend instead of APF. Because of this I’m guessing my version was denser than the ladies, but I adored it.

The completed pie is really, really intense. It’s a lot of chocolate. But in small slices and cold from the fridge, it’s a little bit of heaven. If I were presenting it for a dinner party I’d top it with a seasonal ice cream and maybe a spiced whipped cream or sprinkle of gingerbread, but alone it was damned tasty. Indulgent, romantic, and comforting.

My adapted version is below, and check out Audra at The Baker Chick for the original recipe, as well the decked out version from Erin at Big Fat Baker. I guarantee they’ll have mouth-watering photos and fun insight. And for more Milk Bar Monday love check us out our board on Pinterest and our posts on Twitter!

{gluten and dairy-free) Brownie Pie

Graham Crust

• 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 Tbsp white sugar
• 2/3 Tbsp kosher salt
• 4 Tbsp Earth Balance, melted and cooled slightly
• 1/4 c cold milk

Toss the graham crumbs, sugar and salt together with your hands. Whisk the butter and milk together. Add to the dry ingredients and toss to evenly distribute. The butter/milk mixture should act as a glue, so that you can work the ingredients together with a fork or your fingers into small clusters that will hold their shape if you squeeze them into a ball in the palm of your hand. If they’re too dry, add a touch more milk as needed.

Press 3/4 of the graham crumbs into your pie plate to completely cover the bottom and sides, and set the rest of the crumbs aside. Wrap the pie plate in plastic wrap and refrigerate (for up to one month) while you prepare the rest of the pie.

Brownie Filling:

• 4 1/2 ounces / 125g 70-72% chocolate (I used Divine 70%!)
• 6 Tbsp coconut milk (full fat!)

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• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup turbinado / raw / white sugar

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• 1/4 cup gluten-free cookie flour mix (or your own)
• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

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• 1/2 cup coconut milk

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine the chocolate and coconut milk in a microwave-safe bowl or Pyrex, and gently melt them together in the microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between bursts with a rubber spatula and nuking until there are still small bits of chocolate visible, which you can finish melting by stirring together (this should only take one minute or so). Set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the eggs and sugar together on high for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is yellow (it’ll be a dark yellow / brown if using raw sugar), fluffy and at the ribbon state (remove the whisk and wave the batter across the bowl as it falls — if it leaves a “ribbon” before melting back together, it’s good. If not, keep whisking).

Replace the whisk with the paddle attachment. Dump the chocolate/coconut mixture in and mix on low, then increase to medium and paddle for about 1 minute, until there are no longer and dark chocolate streaks. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the flour, cocoa and salt and paddle on low for 45-60 seconds, until there are no visible lumps of dry ingredients. Scrape down again.

Start again on low, and stream in the rest of the coconut milk, until there are no more white streaks. Scrape down one last time.

Fold in the remaining Graham Crust crumbs, gently, so that they’re evenly dispersed.

Pour the batter into your prepared pie plate (putting it on a sheet pan first helps keep it level in the oven), smoothing the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the pie has puffed slightly and starts to develop a crust on top. Mine was very minimal, but I could tell it was set when the center was no longer giggly.

Cool the pie on a rack until completely cool, or speed up by putting in the fridge or freezer.

This was equally delicious day one as day five, and freezes well up to two weeks.

Serve with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, a smear of chocolate sauce and crumbs, a quenelle of a tart ice cream, or anything your happy heart desires!