White Chocolate Peppermint Mousse Pie

Disclosure: I received a copy of “Southern Living Christmas All Through the South” at no cost to me, for a fair and honest review. Southern Living/YC Media is providing the giveaway item. All opinions are 100% my own.

I’ve had a really rough past week. Two deaths in my family (one being my grandmother and the other being the family dog) happened, and I just don’t know how to stop randomly crying when I start thinking about a world without either of them. I know that humans > dog, and my grandmother and family dog don’t compare. They don’t. Just two large pieces of bad news, and I’m terrible at grieving. I do know that they are both no longer suffering ,and that gives me a bit of solace. It’s just really hard with the holidays around the corner.

I’m an early holiday celebrator. I just love the holidays, as I’m sure this is no secret to y’all. However, when my husband offered to take down the decorations this week (the same husband who is firmly in the post-Thanksgiving decorating camp), I said no. I’m just not feeling the holiday spirit right now. The idea of taking everything down and making the house Christmas-y is suddenly making me a bit overwhelmed. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I would be perfectly content just taking down the gift wrap and not decorating at all this year. This is so not like me. I’ve tried watching “Christmas Vacation”, listening to Christmas Pandora, and I’m just meh about it all. I know this has a lot to do with our family’s losses, so I’m hoping my mini holiday funk will pass.

In another attempt to get the holiday spirit back, I decided to make something with holiday flavors. I was sent a review copy of Southern Living Christmas All Through the South, and I picked out the most seasonal sounding recipe to me at the time to whip up: White Chocolate-Peppermint Mousse Pie. Peppermint Bark is one of my favorites around the holidays, and I thought with the chocolate cookie crust and white chocolate peppermint mousse, I couldn’t go wrong with this recipe. Something about whipping egg whites and heavy cream into fluffy goodness is oddly therapeutic. Just watching the components come together distracted me enough to forget about the bad news for a while. It was really pleasant…

Hopefully, I’ll shake out of this mini funk soon. I’m just going to take this weekend to relax a bit, since I feel like this has been the longest week ever. I need Monday.

Now, about this pie. This pie is very light in texture. It has a slight peppermint flavor, and the white chocolate offers a nice sweetness to the pie. I could only eat a small sliver since it was pretty darn rich (which is saying something for a mousse), but that small sliver was just delicious! This would go perfectly with a nice, warm cup of coffee or even cocoa. Just FYI, this is a make-ahead recipe. It needs 8-12 hours of chill time in the freezer before serving, so it would work nicely for a holiday meal if you are looking to take care of one less thing the day of your holiday meal.

White Chocolate-Peppermint Mousse Pie
Source: Southern Living Christmas All Through the South

Ingredients:

• 24 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, finely crushed
• 6 tbsp. butter, melted
• 2 (4 oz.) white chocolate baking bars, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp. heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp. mint extract
• 3 large egg whites
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 12 drops red liquid food coloring (if you use gel coloring, you won’t need nearly as much)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream, whipped
• Optional garnishes: frozen whipped topping or fresh whipped cream, hard peppermint candies/candy canes, sprinkles white chocolate (I grated some with a microplane to get the snowy effect.)

Directions:

1. Stir together the chocolate cookie crumbs and melted butter in a medium bowl. Press the crumb mixture firmly (using your fingers) into an un-greased 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.
2. Heat the white chocolate in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl on high for 1 minute, in 30 second increments, being sure to stir well after each microwave cycle. Remove from the microwave. Place the 3 tbsp. whipping cream in a glass measuring cup, and microwave it on high for 30 seconds. Remove it from the microwave and pour the hot cream over the white chocolate. Allow the mixture to stand for a minute, and then stir the mixture until smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract, and allow the mixture to cool for 10 minutes while you work on the other components of the pie.
3. Add 1 inch of water into the bottom of a double boiler (or just use a small pot/heat safe bowl combination) over medium heat. Bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, placing the egg whites and sugar in the top of the double boiler (or bowl if using the DIY method). Cook the mixture, whisking constantly, for about 3 minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Using a handheld mixer, beat the egg white/sugar mixture over simmering water at medium speed until soft peaks form. Add in the food coloring, and increase the speed to high, beating the mixture until stiff peaks form.
4. Gently fold in the white chocolate mixture to the egg white mixture. Then, fold in the whipped cream, until no streaks are left in the mousse.
5. Carefully spoon the mousse mixture into the pie plate. Cover the pie plate and freeze the pie for 8-12 hours before serving.

Image provided by Southern Living/YC Media.

When Southern Living reached out to me to review this book, of course I had to jump on the chance. The book features holiday recipes, decorating inspiration and stories about Christmas traditions in the South. The book is full of gorgeous photos, as well as mouth-watering recipes, which are planned out by meal type from casual cocktail suppers to Christmas morning brunch to the formal Christmas dinner, with complete menus for you to use. It’s really well done. I feel like it’s not only a recipe/inspiration book…it’s also a book where you could put this on a coffee table for you and guests to sift through the pages. It’s just lovely.

The generous folks at Southern Living/YC Media are offering a lucky reader of The Nifty Foodie a copy of “Southern Living Christmas All Through the South”.

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