This year I’m taking a new neutral stance with the dessert: I suppose this could be construed as vaguely French (a people who are never vague and never neutral).
White Chocolate Mousse Pie
Except for Easter basket bunnies, white chocolate used to be relatively difficult to find, but the Nestle Company produces a “baking bar” carried in most supermarkets. Because it contains no chocolate liquor, it is illegal to label this “chocolate” of any kind and the Nestle people carefully designate it as something called “premier white.” Since I don’t expect any one to sue me about this, we’ll call it white chocolate as most people do. Makes a large nine or ten-inch pie.
Pie Crust
1 cup flour
4 Tbsp. salted butter
2 Tbsp. Crisco
2 tsp. lemon juice or white vinegar
Approx. 2 Tbsp. ice water
(Note: addsalt if sweet butter is used.)
Cut fats into flour coarse with processor. Add lemon and ice water and pulse a couple of times to a shaggy mixture. Remove and shape into a flat cake. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate an hour or more before rolling out on a lightly floured cloth or board.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Fit the rolled pastry loosely into a nine or ten-inch glass pie pan. Flute the edges up high, prick the crust all over, then cover it with a sheet of foil. Weight this with either rice or dried beans and bake in the oven center 15 minutes. Remove the foil and weights and continue baking another ten minutes or until pale gold and firm. Cool completely before filling.
White Chocolate Mousse Filling
If you have one, a microwave rises to its finest hour melting chocolate — otherwise use a double boiler for this purpose.
1 cup toasted, skinned, chopped hazelnuts
2 1/4 cups heavy cream, divided
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
6 ozs. white chocolate
2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
Spread out the nuts on a shallow tin and toast in a hot oven (about 400 degrees F.) for about five minutes. Put these into a small paper bag and twist the top shut. Rub it between your palms to loosen the skins, then remove the nuts and chop them coarsely with a knife or very carefully in a food processor. Set aside.
Put 1 1/4 cups cream in a small, heavy saucepan and sprinkle over it the gelatin. Let it rest five minutes. Break the white chocolate into pieces and add it to the cream and gelatin. Put this saucepan into another saucepan of boiling water and cook, stirring until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Scrape this into a large chilled bowl and stir it over a bowl of ice water until cold.
Beat the remaining cream to stiff peaks, then add the vanilla extract. Beat the egg whites and salt to soft peaks, gradually beating in the sugar. Fold the whipped cream and egg whites into the white chocolate mixture and blend in the hazelnuts. Pile this mixture into the baked pie shell and chill it for several hours before serving. Cover the pie lightly with plastic wrap while it is refrigerated so that the cream does not pick up other odors.
