Chocolate Pie Crust

This Chocolate Pie Crust is made in a food processor using only five ingredients and results in a cookie-like chocolate pastry crust perfect for sweet pies.

Sometimes it's fun to switch up the typical standard pie crust and use something a bit more unique, like this chocolate pie crust. It's more elegant than an Oreo Pie Crust, but just as equally delicious. It's also much sturdier, making this more versatile with a wider variety of pies filling options.

This chocolate crust is basically a chocolate cookie (a bit like these Chocolate Shortbread Cookies) baked in a pie tin. It also comes together quickly in a food processor and requires only 5 ingredients. Doesn't get any easier than that!

So, let's get to making it, shall we? The article below is jam packed full of useful information. You can jump around using the menu below, or skip to the end of the article for the full recipe.

Jump to:

• Ingredients Needed and Substitutions
• Step-By-Step Recipe Overview
• Tips for Rolling Out Chocolate Pie Crust
• How to Use It
• Tips for Blind Baking a Chocolate Crust
• Recipes to Use with a Chocolate Pie Crust
• More Pie Crust Recipes
• Full Recipe

Ingredients Needed and Substitutions

Here is a brief overview of the ingredients needed for this recipe. The full recipe with quantities is listed below this text in the recipe card.

• all-purpose flour 
• cocoa powder (either dutch or natural is fine)
• powdered sugar
• unsalted butter
• egg

Step-By-Step Recipe Overview

I find making this recipe in the food processor to be the easiest method. It's done in a matter of minutes and the clean-up is minimal since it's all made in one bowl.

Here is a quick visual overview of the steps needed to make this recipe. This is not the actual recipe, which is located at the end of this article and has much greater details to ensure success.

I know many people are afraid of making pie crust (especially pie crust by hand), but please trust me when I say it is a very simple task, especially when the recipe calls for making it in the food processor. You can do it!

The longest and most difficult part of making this recipe is simply measuring out the ingredients. Everything else is just a simple push of a button with the food processor.

Making it Without a Food Processor

If you don't have a food processor, it can be made in an electric stand mixer (like this Stand Mixer Pie Crust). To make it:

1. Blend the dry ingredients first with the paddle attachment.
2. Then add the butter, and mix on medium-low until the butter is mostly blended in. It should look somewhat sandy.
3. Add in the egg and mix on low speed until it's completely combined, and then immediately stop. Do not overwork the dough.

Tips for Rolling Out Chocolate Pie Crust

Unlike a traditional butter pie crust made in a food processor, you’ll want the chocolate dough at the end of the process to be one cohesive ball, without any large butter pieces remaining. If you do have a large piece of butter, it can create problems when rolling it out and baking. If by chance you happen to see any large pieces of butter after you’ve made it, you can fix it by gently working the butter into the dough, so no large chunks remain.

• Chocolate pie crust has more sugar than traditional Flaky Pie Crust, so it tends to stick a bit more. You can roll it out between two pieces of plastic wrap (I wouldn't recommend parchment). Or you can flour it enough so it doesn't stick, but not so much that it's covered in excess flour. This is my preferred method.
• Do make sure to brush off any excess flour so the chocolate pie crust doesn't bake up with splotches of white on it!
• You could roll it out in cocoa powder if you were afraid of the white splotches, but I find this unnecessary so long as you don't excessively flour the dough and neglect to brush it off.

How to Use It

This chocolate pie crust goes pretty well with most styles of pies. It works equally well for a cream pie (as in, Chocolate Cream Pie) and as a baked custard (like this Coffee Custard Pie.)

You can use it as a blind-baked pie shell, or you can bake a pie directly in the raw pastry. Reference the recipe of the pie (filling) you are planning to make to decide on how to bake it.

Tips for Blind Baking a Chocolate Crust

Speaking of blind baking...Blind baking a chocolate pie crust is essentially the same as blind baking a regular flaky pie crust.

If you are completely new to blind baking, check out this Blind Baking Guide I've created to teach you more about it.

There are a few reasons you would need to blind-bake a crust, but the main one is that the pie has a no-bake filling (like this French Silk Pie). In that case, you’ll need to fully bake the pie crust before adding in the filling.

How to Blind Bake Chocolate Crust:

1. Start by rolling out the pie dough. Dock the pie crust with a fork all over the bottom so the steam escapes while baking (unless the recipe you are using for the pie filling does not instruct you to do this).
2. Place the rolled-out pie crust in the freezer for 30 minutes while the oven preheats to 375ºF. To prevent the pie dough from slipping into the tin before it's fully baked, you’ll want to weigh it down. Place a round piece of parchment inside of the crust. Add in some pie weights. I use dried rice and lentils that I reuse for a few years! This weighs it down just enough to prevent the pie dough from slipping or puffing up while baking.
3. Because there is sugar and cocoa inside the dough, it needs to be baked at a lower temperature than traditional flaky pie dough. Bake at 375ºF for 20 minutes.
4. Remove from the oven, and remove the weights and parchment. Return it to the oven to finish baking, another 5 minutes or so for a par-baked crust, or 10 minutes for a fully baked crust.The baked pie crust should be fully matte looking and dry to the touch.

Recipes to Use with a Chocolate Pie Crust

• Hot Cocoa Pie
• Malted Milk Chocolate Pie
• Mint Chocolate Chip Pie
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
• Candy Cane Pie

More Pie Crust Recipes

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