French silk pie recipe modern family heirloom

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Lisa Barndt with her
French silk chocolate pie. (Photos: Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune)

WAYNE – The Barndt family’s favorite pie recipe has remained consistent for decades.
Since way back in the 1950s, nothing has been able to knock this French silk chocolate pie off the
pedestal.
It’s beginning to look like nothing ever will.
When Lisa (Steinman) Barndt married into the family in 1984 she acquired the recipe along with her
wedding band, in a manner of speaking.
"In 1959 my in-laws, Barb and Charlie Barndt, got married. This recipe came from my father-in-law’s
sister, Phyllis Cotton," who lives in Navarre, Ohio. "She passed it along" to the
newlyweds in Wayne.
Barb began making it herself, and the French silk pie became a staple, "generally for birthdays.
"I know my husband Doug – from his earliest years – remembers (his mother) making it for his
birthday," said Lisa Barndt.
"And when we married 30 years ago, I started in making it" as well. To this day, "I
continue to make it for Doug’s birthday in December every year."
At a minimum, then, "we’re looking at 55 years" of the delectably light, soft, yet rich
chocolate pie nudging a cake with candles from the dominant position it occupies in most other families.

Admittedly, the couple’s own children, daughter Dannielle, 24, of Pemberville, and son Brian, 26, are
willing to have mom "mix it up a bit" for their own birthdays. "But they do enjoy it when
I make it for their dad."
The recipe has changed in one regard since the early decades.
"We used to buy the chunks" of semi-sweet chocolate "and you’d melt ’em down" in a
saucer on the stovetop, or during later decades, in the microwave.
"Now, with these packets, you just soften them down by kneading the packets. It’s very
convenient" Barndt said of the Toll House Nestle Choco Bake Pre-Melted Packet she likes to use.
For a successful French silk chocolate pie, readers must keep two things in mind.
"They need to use real butter, softened," and not margarine.
Just as critically, "when they beat the eggs, the eggs need to be cold – so don’t set the eggs out
ahead of time. And they need to be beaten five minutes. It’s key.
"I messed that up one time. I started beating the eggs for one minute and the doorbell rang. When I
came back, I didn’t finish beating the five minutes. And I ended up with a soupy pie. It didn’t set
up."
Since light, airy texture is key in a French silk pie, her culinary efforts that day went for nothing.

Barndt and her husband have both ends of the lifespan covered by their careers.
She is supervisor of obstetrics at Wood County Hospital, while he operates Barndt Funeral Home, the
Wayne-based business his parents founded in 1961.
Lisa Barndt is one of the organizers of a hospital-wide employee cookbook project now in the works.
It’s being tied to Nurses Week, an annual event that occurs the first week of May and celebrates the
birth of Florence Nightingale. This year it falls on May 5-12.
"It’s probably been a good 10 years since the last (hospital) cookbook" so they expect a good
response.
The plan is to treat the cookbook as a fundraiser in support of activities for next year’s Nurses Week.

"We have asked all employees to submit their favorite recipes, not just nurses," said Barndt of
the cookbook committee. "We have gotten 250 recipes. We had a really good response."
Her own French silk chocolate pie recipe will be included among the favored 250.
"We will then sell that cookbook at a good price" in the hospital gift shop.
A 1981 Elmwood High School graduate, Barndt got her nurse’s training at Owens and later, a B.S. in
Nursing from Spring Arbor.
She’s been on the nurses roster at Wood County Hospital for 18 years, spending her first six months in
the medical-surgical wing before switching to the OB unit in January 1997.
There she has remained ever since.
"I love OB. It’s a different scenario every single day, and it’s the joy of witnessing life-altering
experiences for families. It never gets old, when you place that baby in their arms" and watch the
new parents’ "elated" response.
Barndt won the hospital-wide Nurse Excellence Award for 2013 and last October made the transition from
staff nurse to middle management.
She describes the change as "a good challenge" in this high-tech era of electronic charting
paired with electronic fetal surveillance, while being sure not to lose the human touch.
"The last couple years we’ve been averaging around 330 to 350 babies born a year" on the unit.


French Silk Chocolate Pie
½ cup softened butter
¾ cup sugar
Toll House Nestle Choco Bake Pre-Melted Packet (unsweetened chocolate flavor)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
Homemade or ready-made pie shell
Gradually cream softened butter with sugar. Blend in Nestle Choco Bake packet. Add vanilla and eggs, but
add (1) egg at a time and beat each egg for 5 full minutes with beater.
Turn in baked or ready-made pie shell and cool 1-2 hours.

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