Baked Cocoa Pie—Prototype 1:
 
In late July of 2025, while recovering from surgery on my left elbow, I had 9 eggs on hand that were destined for expiration in the near future. But I did not have any cheesecake plans for that soon. I had made a key lime pie shortly before this surgery and used 3 eggs for that. Afterward, however, I became too reluctant to zest and juice (especially zest) limes, reasoning that doing so would be too labor intensive for my recovery.

This led me to strive to come up with something for which I could put my remaining eggs to good use. Thus I considered something similar to key lime pie, but a chocolate version in this case. The recipe presented here would be the result. Prototype 2 of my key lime pies was my primary reference for this effort. But because I was replacing wet, key lime juice (and zest) with dry cocoa powder, I completely omitted the xanthan gum.
 
Batter:
3 eggs (brown recommended, large; note—both yolks and whites are used here)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

Pour the batter into a graham cracker pie crust (one of those retail, ready-to-use crusts that come in "pie tins", about 9") and bake on a cookie sheet at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Afterwards, remove the pie from the oven and cool it down at room temperature for about an hour, then refrigerate until firm.

Cocoa Pie—Prototype 1

The taste of the pie was very delicious, greatly to my liking. I had beforehand considered adding some vanilla flavoring, but I also gave some thought for a slight bittersweet or "dark chocolate" taste (and as it turned out, I forgot about the vanilla anyway upon preparing the batter).

On the other hand, the batter turned out quite runny. I thought that I did not need xanthan gum for this particular flavor. But the drier difference between key lime and cocoa wasn't sufficient. Another idea came to my mind—should I use a chocolate cookie crust next time?
 

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