This is yet another take on my favorite chocolate-coated phyllo pie, but this time, featuring my signature chocolate tofu mousse, chocolate-flavored phyllo dough, and bruleed bananas on top for a pleasant, caramel-sweet contrast to the dark, bitter chocolate. Hilariously, I made both phyllo and a chocolate tofu mousse during Back to Win, and both were fortunately well-received. So I figured, why not combine them together? I learned how to make phyllo back in college when I challenged myself to learn Montenegrin food; making phyllo from scratch became a second nature technique for me, after having used that to make pita. And the chocolate tofu mousse was another college-learned recipe, from when I was first told about it from my accounting professor(shoutout ot the incredible Professor Zoe Ho!). After she had informed me about a three ingredient chocolate mousse(being chocolate, tofu, and sea salt), I practiced all kinds of ratios between the three ingredients until I got it right. With this dessert, I was going for something that is rich and decadent, but also 100% vegan. Vegan pies sound like a rarity, since pie crust is typically made with butter, and while you can use vegetable shortening for a vegan pie dough, it can taste waxy. However, with this phyllo pastry, you can get bake a crispy and crunchy crust and have it be 100% vegan as well! I used olive oil between my phyllo layers in lieu of melted butter, since I love the combination of grassy olive oil against bitter chocolate. It has an almost savory quality to it that balances out gorgeously with sugar. Especially bruleed sugar on top of fresh banana slices. This dessert has a lot of fun textures, with crunchy, rich, creamy, and crispy, despite lacking animal products, and you would not even notice those ingredients missing whatsoever!

In terms of technical difficulty, the biggest challenge is definitely the crust. Phyllo dough takes a lot of time and patience to make, from rolling out the dough to baking it through. Take your time with the dough, since it will need time to rest before you can roll it out really thinly. And the dough itself does need a decent amount of time to bake, not because it needs time to cook through, but rather time to crisp and get crunchy. And in the case of this recipe, just to preserve that crispiness, you will also have to spread melted chocolate on the inside of the baked phyllo, just so that when the pie gets filled with the chocolate tofu mousse, it does not go soggy. For the tofu mousse, a food processor or an immersion blender will make this recipe come together in minutes. The fun thing here is that you can double down on the melted chocolate, using some of that to line the inside of your phyllo dough, and then the rest to make the chocolate mousse with finely pureed silken tofu and sea salt! The mousse itself will need a decent amount of time(1 hour) to set, just so that you have a pie that slices cleanly. I also topped the pie with some bananas bruleed with sugar; if you do not have a blowtorch, you can always just do plain sliced bananas. And if you are not in a banana-y mood, try doing orange segments for something brighter and zestier(and while you are at it, add 2 tsp of finely grated orange zest into the mousse to make this a chocolate-orange phyllo pie!).

For the chocolate phyllo:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp black cacao powder
1/4 cup cold water
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup olive oil, in eight parts
1/4 cup granulated sugar, in eight parts
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

In a bowl, mix together the flour, cacao powder, cold water, salt, and vanilla until a smooth dough just barely begins to form. Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes before dividing it into eight pieces. Roll each piece out on a lightly floured cutting board until they each reach 6 inches in diameter. Brush on top of seven of the eight pieces your olive oil, and then sprinkle sugar on top. Stack the pieces on top of one another, placing the unbrushed piece of dough on top to seal the oil and sugar between the layers. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible, getting it to at least 10 inches in diameter. Place the dough onto the back side of a pie tin. Brush the other side with the remaining oil and sprinkle over that the last bit of sugar – prick the center of dough with a fork at least 3 times, but no more than 5 times. Then bake the phyllo at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Allow the crust to cool.

In a double boiler, melt 3/4 of your chocolate fully and then take it off heat. Stir into that the remaining chocolate chips until they are fully melted as well. Pour the chocolate into the baked phyllo shell, using a pastry brush to spread it in an even layer on the insides of the phyllo crust and transfer it to the freezer so that the chocolate can fully set.

For the chocolate-tofu filling:
8oz dark chocolate, melted
8oz silken tofu, pureed
a pinch of salt

In a bowl, mix everything together over a double boiler until the chocolate is fully melted into the tofu. Pour the filling into the phyllo crust and refrigerate the pie for another 60 minutes.

For garnish:
1 fresh banana
granulated sugar

Cut the banana into wedges and sprinkle granulated sugar on top of each slice. Using a blowtorch, carefully heat up the sugar on the bananas until it melts and turns a dark amber color. Carefully arrange the banana slices on top of the pie to finish.