Black Bottom Pie

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade), fully baked and cooled
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar, divided
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 4 large egg yolks
• 3 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 tsp unflavored gelatin, softened in 2 tbsp cold water
• 2 tbsp rum
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tbsp sugar (for topping)

Method

1. If not using a pre-baked crust, blind-bake the crust at 400°F (205°C) with pie weights for 15 minutes, remove the weights, and bake 5 more minutes until golden. Cool completely.
2. Whisk the milk, half the sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks together in a saucepan and cook, whisking constantly, until thickened, about 8 minutes.
3. Divide the custard in half. Stir the chopped chocolate into one half and spread it in the crust; chill until set, about 20 minutes.
4. Stir the softened gelatin and rum into the remaining plain custard and let cool slightly, then pour over the set chocolate layer.
5. Pour the warm filling into the cooled crust and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming.
6. Refrigerate at least 4 hours, or until fully chilled and set.
7. Top with sweetened whipped cream before serving.

The Tale of Black Bottom Pie

Story updated September 15, 2026

Black bottom pie's origin is genuinely contested. It's sometimes described as a Southern creation, its name evoking the dark, swampy lowlands along the Mississippi River, while other accounts trace it to Louisiana or Oklahoma City in the early 1940s. The most frequently cited inventor is Monroe Boston Strause, a Los Angeles baker known as the 'Pie King,' credited with devising it in the late 1930s, though a recipe published in 1931 predates his claimed version, muddying that story too. Some food historians also connect the name to the Black Bottom, a wildly popular dance craze that swept the country in the mid-1920s, appearing in Broadway revues and selling sheet music by the thousands. Whatever its true source, the pie itself became a Southern classic: a layer of dark chocolate custard, the 'black bottom,' topped with rum-spiked cream filling and finished with whipped cream or meringue.