Start by putting 1 1/4 cups of flour into a bowl. Now cut up 1/4 cup of COLD butter, and 1/4 cup of COLD butter-flavored shortening into dice-sized chunks. I buy the sticks for this sort of thing. They also come in handy when you are deep frying things. YUM.

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Toss these into the flour, and also toss in 1/4 tsp salt.

Now, using your fingers, squish the butter and shortening down into smaller pieces until they are about marble-sized chunks. You can flatten them out a bit, too. What you want is smaller pieces of butter mixed into the flour, but not incorporated into the flour. The chunks of butter and shortening are what create the flaky layers.

Now take 1/4 cup of water and toss some ice cubes in it. Let this sit for 10 minutes, and while it is sitting put your bowl of flour/butter/shortening right into the freezer to chill for a bit.

When the 10 minutes is up, remove the bowl from the freezer and slowly pour some of the water into the flour/fat mixture. Stir it around with a fork, continuing to slowly add water until the mixture starts coming together into a ball. You want it to be slightly crumbly, but able to stick together.

You might need slightly more, or slightly less water.

Now dump the content out onto a lightly floured counter, press into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour. Longer is okay too.

Next you are going to unwrap the disc on a lightly floured surface, press down slightly, and then roll out into a large circle.

One thing that helps me is stopping after a couple of rolls and reshaping into a round shape. You can also seal any cracks that may form on the edges during the rolling process.

When the crust is about 1/4 inch thick, roll it up onto your rolling pin and then gently put it into the pie plate. For a single crust pie like this one, trim the edges to about 1/2 inch off the edge, and then fold under the sides and crimp.

There are all sorts of fancy things you can buy to blind bake a pie crust, but here I use some parchment paper and two pounds of dried beans. This keeps the bottom from bubbling up and the sides from slouching down during the baking process.

Put your crust into a preheated 425 degree oven for about 15-18 minutes, or until the sides begin to brown. (Individual oven vary wildly. Start checking all recipes you make about 5 minutes prior to the listed time just to be sure.)

Once the side begins to brown, carefully remove the crust from the oven and remove the parchment and beans from the crust. Put it back into the oven, reduce the heat to 375, and continue baking until golden brown.

Start mixing up your custard while the pie crust bakes.

To make the custard, place the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt into a medium sauce pan. Stir them up to combine them well.

Place your egg yolks and milk into a bowl and whisk very well until the yolks are fully incorporated into the milk. Slowly pour the milk/eggs into the flour mixture, whisking to make sure no lumps form.

Next, chop up your chocolate. Don’t wait like me thinking I could chop it while the custard heated and ALMOST burn and wreck the custard because you are trying to chop chocolate AND stir custard. Not smart. Set the chocolate aside.

Heat your custard mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once this gets heated up a bit it goes quite fast. Make sure you are stirring well and scraping the bottom. Once the mixture is thickened, remove it from heat.

Now stir in your chocolate, butter, and vanilla. Mix well until the chocolate is melted fully. Pour the chocolate into your pie crust, cover, and put in the fridge to cool.

You are going to want to chill this overnight ideally. I made this the same day we served it, and I have to say that I preferred it the next day when it was FULLY chilled.

After it is chilled, whip up your cream and sugar until stiff peaks form, and then spread it over the chocolate. Want a lower-sugar option? You can use this recipe for low-calorie whipped cream instead!

Toss on some mini chocolate chips, and chill until you are ready to serve it! You could serve it immediately at this point, but I am a stickler for consistency and prefer this to be all the same temperature.