Flaky pie with chocolate and mini pears

Is pie the first thing come to your mind when I ask you your favorite Amercian food? I wasn't surprised when someone told me there's a pie in Asia actually called Amercian Pie. I do like Amercian pies, especially those with flaky crust. To accomplish an ideal flakyness requires a lot of practice, so the saying easy as pie is not always true :P But please don't let the first few not-so-perfect crusts let you down, everyone of us has gone through this phase and now, I'm not shy to tell you I expecting oooh-ahhhhing from my family and friends every time they taste my flaky pie :D For the fillings (chocolate + poached pears) I don't think they're popular in my area, but since I've seen many Italians always pairing these two together, so I gave it a try.

The pie crust recipe is from Gale Gand's, and hers is very well written.

To make the pie crust:

1. halve the Perfect Pie Crust
2. Follow her directions, except I used a 10" x 6.5" pan (17x26cm)
3. Make the leaves from the left-over dough, place them in a separate tray. You can bake them at the same time with the pie crust, but they don't take long to brown.
4. In the last five minutes of baking time, I egg washed the whole pie. Send it back to oven to complete baking.
5. Once the crust and the leaves are done, place them on a rack to cool. Set aside.

To make the chocolate filling:

1. You'll need: 100g semi-sweet chocolate (finely chopped), 2 table spoons butter, 2 egg yolks, 2 egg whites, 2 tablespoons powder sugar
2. Melt the chocolate over a double-boiler, add in butter. Once combine, mix in the yolks until well blended.
3. Remove the chocolate mixture away from the boiler, add in the whites and powder sugar, stir to cooperate.
4. Immediate pour the chocolate mixture into the pie crust, let it cool in a room temperature. You can keep it in fridge for later use.

To poach the pears:

1. I peeled 4 mini pears (I think they're Seckel Pear (?)) they're about the size of a walnut.
2. In a pot, combine half bottle of sparkling white wine, a cup of sugar, some lemon zest, a cinnamon stick, and bring to boil. Taste, and add water if necessary
3. Submerge the pears in the liquid, simmer until the pear tender but not mushy. But I like mine pretty firm, so it took less than 5 minutes.
4. Transfer the pears on a cutting board and let cool. I halved them and took out as many seeds as I could. But if you're not going to serve the pie right away, you can chill the pears in the poached liquid.
5. Only arrange the poached pears (and the leaves) on the pie right before you serve.