The Simple Ingredient Swap That Will Take Your Pumpkin Pie To The Next Level

Over the holidays, we're all for preserving tradition. But sometimes, even the best tried-and-true treats need a little refresh. For instance, to take your average (albeit delicious) pumpkin pie to the next level, there's a simple ingredient you can add to the mix: cocoa powder. Adding a bit of cocoa powder to your all-butter flaky pie crust creates the perfect chocolatey contrast to the custardy sweet pumpkin pie filling. Since cocoa powder will contribute to the dry ingredients in the pastry, you'll want to swap it for some of the flour (or add more ice water) to the mix so the pie crust bakes up nice and flaky — without drying it out.

To add cocoa powder to make a chocolatey pumpkin pie crust, all you need to do is whisk in about 2 or 3 tablespoons of quality Dutch-processed cocoa powder, swapping it in for some of the flour in the recipe. Then, mix in salt and sugar before cutting in the butter and adding a bit of ice water and apple cider vinegar to form a dough. Though your typical pumpkin pie crust usually doesn't call for sugar, adding in a couple tablespoons of the sweet stuff goes a long way when making chocolate pie crust. Since cocoa powder on its own has quite a bitter taste, a combination of sugar and salt in the recipe helps to uplift and balance the flavor to be nice and chocolaty.

Anyone who's tried pumpkin chocolate chip cookies or pancakes knows that the flavor combination is a match made in heaven. Giving your pie crust the chocolate treatment by swapping in a bit of cocoa powder is just what's needed to bring new life to classic pumpkin pie. While chocolate cookie crusts are great for no-bake pudding pies, adding cocoa to all-butter pie crust creates a crust that is perfectly flaky, rich, and holds up to the wet pumpkin pie filling. For best results (and to avoid a soggy bottom pastry), just remember to par-bake your chocolate pastry crust before adding the raw pumpkin pie filling and transferring the pie to the oven.

And if after adding cocoa to your pie crust you're still craving more chocolate, you can add a chocolate layer to your pumpkin pie by mixing cocoa powder into some of the pumpkin pie custard batter and layering it over the regular pumpkin filling before baking. Or, cover a baked and cooled pumpkin pie with a rich layer of ganache or melted chocolate drizzle. Once you try experimenting with chocolatey twists on the classic autumnal dessert, it's likely you'll want to try other chef-approved tips for elevated pumpkin pie, such as brown butter pie crust or using roasted pumpkin in the custard. Pumpkin pie might be baked into the tradition of the season, but the creative variations on the recipe are endless.