Today's recipe for No-Crust Fudge Pie comes from an old outdoor cookbook called, appropriately enough, "The Outdoor Cookbook" (by Favorite Recipes Press out of Nashville - no copyright in the book) that has a lot of recipes for barbecues, picnics, and camping. This might have originally been my mom's cookbook, and is the one that has my recipes for both Black Bottom Cupcakes and Round Steak Marinade in it.

I hadn't looked through this cookbook since high school. It's where I found the marinade recipe, and that was it (and I also found the recipe for the cupcakes in there - I don't think I knew that's where that recipe came from). For some weird reason I hadn't looked through the whole book for a very long time. Well, I did just that recently and found this recipe in the chapter called "Make-Aheads and Take-Alongs". This recipe is so ridiculously easy, I can't believe I haven't tried it before now. I decided to try this now, as I have a decided love for chocolate (specifically brownies) as my valentine treat of choice. I hope you'll make this one for YOUR valentine!

No-Crust Fudge Pie

Here is the recipe as I made it:

No-Crust Fudge Pie

Place in a medium saucepan:

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup margarine (I used butter)

Heat over low heat just until melted.

Remove from heat.

Add to chocolate mixture:

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons self-rising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Stir until completely mixed.

Pour into greased pie pan.

Place in cold oven (Yes - no preheating here).

Turn oven on to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.

Cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

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This is the first step - the unsweetened baking chocolate is in the baking section of the store. It's really a hard chocolate, but it melts nicely with the butter.

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Here we go - I just threw all the other ingredients into the saucepan with the melted chocolate/butter mixture.

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That's it! That's how easy this is!

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Just pour the batter into the greased pie pan and bake.

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I wasn't sure how this looked after baking. It says to put it in the cold oven and then bake 30 minutes, so that's different. It worked out all right.

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This is not a cakey brownie pie. This is a fudgy, almost gooey brownie pie. Fudge pie, to be exact. For some reason I keep referring to this as a "brownie pie", but it really is more of a "fudge pie". It just reminds me of a brownie, but it isn't very thick and is more like fudge.

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I waited (it was hard) the obligatory 10 minutes before cutting. The slice was very gooey, but if you like a warm, gooey brownie pie, this is it. I saved the rest of the pie to serve at a Sunday family dinner, and the slices were more solid like a regular pie. This is how I would serve the pie to company or guests, with a nice scoop of ice cream. Get ready for warm, melty deliciousness.

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But this is how I served it for Sunday family dinner - with the works - slice of pie, scoop of ice cream, drizzle of Chocolate Sauce, squirt of whipped cream, sprinkles. Wow. This ridiculously easy recipe is already in the treat rotation (and my oldest daughter, the chocolate lover, already has the recipe before this post goes out). It's so fast to pull together that I know you're going to love it for a quick treat anytime. But this will also make a lovely Valentine's Day treat. Bonus - you probably have the ingredients in your pantry! No running around last minute when forgetting to buy some dumb stuffed animal or something. We all know everyone (mostly everyone) wants chocolate for Valentine's Day. This pie is where it's at - you might want to show this recipe for No-Crust Fudge Pie to your valentine!