The first snow ghost of the season waits for his chance to steal a piece of pie.
Newsflash for you: We love winter.
And we love snow even more. Every year, in a bid for the weather Gods to answer our prayers for the first snow, we make Snow Ghost Pie. It originally appeared—along with a legend of the snow ghost— in a Hershey’s ad circa 1972. I clearly remember reading the story then, and of course making and eating the chocolate pie which, incidentally, requires no shmancy ingredients. The pie is as brilliant as the story, which convinces kids to offer up the pie to the snow ghost (who in the story was really the creepy handyman who had enlisted the kid to steal a piece of his grandma’s cooling chocolate pie). At any rate, if the ghost takes a piece of the pie, it will keep snowing and you won’t have school the next day. Not surprisingly I am asked to make snow ghost pie—and jumpstart winter— a lot this time of year. The filling also makes a great chocolate pudding on its own, but it’s the decorating and ghost-baiting that makes it fun.
The story of the Snow Ghost, as told by Hersheys
The original Snow Ghost Pie ad
Ingredients
1 (9 inch) baked pastry shell or graham cracker/shortbread crust
1/2 cup Hershey cocoa
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
3 cup milk
3 Tbsp. butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 sweetened whipped cream
Method
Combine cocoa, sugar, salt and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Gradually blend milk into dry ingredients, stirring until smooth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until filling boils; boil 1 minute. Remove from heat, blend in butter and vanilla. Pour into pie crust, carefully press plastic wrap directly into pie filling. Chill 3 to 4 hours.
Garnish with whipped cream, creating a cute little snow ghost if you like. And now for the totally unnecessary step that is key to keeping the legend alive. Set pie outside again to “cool” after decorating. Do your best to forget about it for a bit then check to see if the snow ghost visited and took a piece.
Apres ghost. He wasn’t very hungry this time.
Pre-ghost pie
Bringing it:
This is an excellent dessert to bring to a family or kid gathering. Whip the cream and bring it separately so you can decorate the pie there and then set it out to “cool” before dessert. Just make sure it is not anywhere enticing to dogs (or squirrels).
One note of caution: do not expect children to provide useful help create the Snow Ghost pie. The little ghostbuster I worked with to bake one of these pies failed miserably at his task of reading the instructions. We left out the sugar in error (OK, maybe I should have been paying attention…). In an attempt to rectify the situation (and cheat cooking chemistry), we poured the pie out of the shell and back into the saucepan to cook some more, then returned it to the crust. The pie never solidified properly and the wedge we took out of it just provided a place for the rest of the pie to schlump to. As mentioned, though, it’s a fine pudding. Chocolate, butter, sugar–how can you go wrong?
All good safety tips. And here I was about to say even kids can make it. I guess they can as long as another kid actually reads the recipe. But it was still good I’ll bet.