Chocolate Pecan Pie Crust

Chocolate Pecan Pie Crust

Everyone knows that pastry is not very good for you.  Even when I have used whole wheat flour, the predominant ingredient is either vegetable shortening or butter.  I wanted to make my delicious dark chocolate protein pudding into a pie for Thanksgiving this year, and so I knew I had to come up with a healthy and high protein crust to go along with it.  So what did I use?  Nuts!!  You could easily use walnuts as well, as I had intended to do, but I found packages of pecans already ground up at the grocery store near my in laws' house in Canada where I was at the time and figured pecans would probably taste even better.  The combination of nuts, coconut oil, cocoa powder and a little sugar is a perfect compliment to the creamy chocolate filling.  Although at first I thought the crust was too crumbly, once the pudding is placed inside and soaks into the crust a bit, the slices definitely held together just fine. Unfortunately the availability of ingredients in Canada was slightly different than I am used to, so I had to change up my recipe a little and it did not come out as good as it has when at home.  But I plan to make my regular protein pudding again this Christmas and will certainly update with more photos once I do.

Chocolate Pecan Pie Crust

2 C. ground pecans or walnuts

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt
2 T. cocoa powder

1/4 C. organic white sugar

1/4 C. organic virgin coconut oil, melted

Mix together the ground nuts, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and sugar until thoroughly combined. Add the coconut oil and stir well.  Scrape the mixture into a pie plate and using a spatula or your fingers, press into the bottom and up the edges carefully.  Aim to make the crust thinner across the bottom of the pan and thicker around the edges of the crust.

Place the pie on a cookie sheet in order to prevent burning and bake at 350F for 15 minutes. If using a no bake filling, let cool and add filling, if baking again, fill and bake according to recipe instruction