Why did my pie separate?!
Answers: I made a chocolate buttermilk pie and it separated into layers. The layers are not that distinct and it still tastes ok, but it doesn't look as good as the last time I made the recipe. I combined all the wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, vanilla) in my kitchenaid mixer then added the combined dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt). I mixed that until incorporated and then added the melted chocolate. I let the chocolate cool before adding it to the mixture so it would not cook the eggs, but some of the chocolate still seemed to clump together. The bottom of the pie had a lot of chocolate and then the upper part had some chocolate but was mostly the other ingredients. I usually make this into one deep dish pie, but this time used two regular pie shells. Any ideas why the pie would do this?
You probably should of tempered the batter with the chocolate.
You do this by taking about a cup or so of your batter (that has egg in it) and slowly adding it to your hot chocolate to cool it down. This will keep your eggs from coagulating, and everything will bind together
Well, I went to foodnetwork.com and the pie does have a top "crust". I think you did everything right, maybe just didn't mix it enough at the end? Check it out anyway, it might help.
The temperature ? The conduction ?
The heat transfer might have done something..