Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pie

Who loves velvety, smooth and mouth watering chocolate?!  Hopefully everyone raised their hands.  If not, this is not the post for you!  This is another dessert that is a combo of a couple, so I figure it's a Kathy original!  I'm pretty horrible at creating recipes from scratch but pretty decent at making changes to recipes to hopefully make them even better.  This is one of those.

I had seen a picture of a strawberry lined Oreo crust and they were pouring in chocolate pudding.  At this point I had already found and used this amazing chocolate mousse and knew the combo would make an amazing dessert, and I was right!

What's nice is that by using a pre-made crust and strawberries don't take long to rinse and slice, the time and effort all goes into the mousse filling!  I have made desserts that each layer takes time and while the end result is still amazing, something that requires a little less time and effort is even better!

Now, that being said, mousse isn't as easy as instant pudding and it does dirty several bowls and dishes, but is so worth it!

I start by getting my chocolate pieces, butter and water in the double boiler.

The key for melting chocolate is taking your time.  If the water isn't already hot and I put it on low, I can have it slowly getting warm while I start whipping up the whipping cream.  For my hand mixer it usually takes me about 10 minutes to whip up a batch.  If you plan on doing this, keep this burner as low as possible!  You are running a risk when trying to multi-task of burning the chocolate, so if all else fails, whip up the whipping cream, refrigerate and then start melting the chocolate.
For the chocolate, slowly melt the ingredients together until the chocolate pieces are all melted and everything is smooth.

Let this cool for about 10 minutes.
The third piece to this mousse puzzle is the egg yolk, water and sugar combo.  This can be cooked up while the mousse is cooling.

The saucepan you use to mix these 3 ingredients will most likely end up being the same pan that everything else gets added to so this needs to be a medium to large sized saucepan.  This only needs to reach 160 degrees.  I don't have a candy thermometer so I cooked it on medium low for a couple of minutes whisking the entire time.

You now have all 3 pieces, pretty much ready to go.  Add the melted chocolate to the egg mixture, stir and then put in an ice bath of some sorts.  I fill a metal bowl with water and ice and rest the saucepan inside of that.  Making sure that none of the water gets into the pan!

It was while this was cooling that I placed my sliced strawberries into the crust.

Once the chocolate mixture is cool, fold/stir in the whipped cream.

You will want to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed together.  This is when I switched from using a whisk to a spatula and it was a great time to taste test the mixture, and it was good!
Pour that into crust, you will most likely have a little extra.

This will need to set up in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving.  It is pretty rich so you are gonna want to garnish with some cool whip, or additional whipped topping that was sweetened.  Add some extra strawberries if you have them and prepare to indulge in this truly wonderful dessert!

Note: This would also be a perfect filling for the French Silk Pie from this post!: http://lifeloveandsolace.blogspot.com/2014/05/french-silk-pie.html

 

 Chocolate Covered Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:

1 Oreo cookie crust
1 cup sliced strawberries
8 oz semisweet baking chocolate (typically 2 boxes)
1/2 cup water, divided
2 Tbls. butter
3 egg yolks
2 Tbls. sugar
1 1/4 cups whipping cream, whipped
Cool Whip for garnish

Directions:

1. Slice strawberries and line Oreo chocolate crust.  Refrigerate until ready.
2. In the top of a double boiler, heat chocolate, 1/4 cup water and butter until the chocolate and butter are melted. Let cool for about 10 minutes.
3. In a medium to large saucepan whisk egg yolks, sugar and remaining water.  Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches 160 degrees or 2-4 minutes.  Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate mixture.  Set saucepan in ice and stir until cooled, about 5-10 minutes.
4. Fold in whipped cream until completely blended and pour into prepared crust. (If making as a stand alone mousse, pour into 5-6 dessert dishes).  Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight before serving.  Garnish with Cool Whip or sweetened whipped topping.