Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Pie (no bake!)

This pie was a gamble.  I used a lot of ingredients and tried a lot of the steps in here for the very first time.  There were little complications along the way (i.e. they don’t sell pre-made pie crusts here!  So I made one using vegan cookies and margarine).  But in the end it turned out GREAT so I needed to pass it along asap.  It is creamy and delicious an if you like peanut butter and chocolate together you will adore it, I promise. 

Like some other recipes, I got the general idea and outline of a recipe from another source, but I tweaked it to improve it along the way so I will link to the original but below write the way that I did it that I think has some minor improvements.

Original from Kathy at Healthy Happy Life: http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2010/12/peanut-butter-chocolate-mousse-pie.html

Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

Ingredients for pie crust (if making your own.  If not making your own, I think graham cracker or chocolate would be best here):

-1 ¾ cups crumbs from your favorite cookie

-1/4 cup melted margarine

Ingredients for chocolate mousse:

-1/2 cup soy milk or almond milk

-1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

-3 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)

-3/4 cup sugar

-3 tbsp arrowroot powder or cornstarch

-1 ½ tsp salt

-1 16 oz. block of silken tofu

-dash cinnamon

Ingredients for peanut butter swirl:

-3/4 cup coconut cream (chilled in fridge)

-1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

-3 tbsp agave syrup

-1/4 tsp salt

-dash cinnamon

-dash cayenne

Method:

First, if you aren’t chilling a can of coconut cream, do so for a while.  It needs to be cold (not frozen).  If you need to make your own crust, do so first by mixing the crumbs and melted margarine in a bowl and then patting it firmly down into a pie pan with your fingers.  Make sure it’s as even as possible and there are no holes, then put it in the fridge to chill and harden up.

Then start making the chocolate mousse.  On the stovetop, heat the soy milk over medium heat.  Once hot, dissolve the arrowroot powder/cornstarch and sugar.  Then add chocolate chips and cocoa powder and stir until it thickens.  Remove from heat.  Once it’s a bit cooler, put it in the food processor or blender with the silken tofu and remaining mousse ingredients (salt, cinnamon) and blend very well.  Set aside to let cool some more.

Then make your peanut butter swirl.  Start with gently opening your coconut cream can and spooning off ¾ cup of the cream (which should now be very thick/hardish from the cold) and set it in a large bowl.  Add the peanut butter and other swirl ingredients and beat with an electric mixer until it’s fluffy or buttery like cream cheese.  If you need to water it down and smooth it out, use some of the leftover liquid coconut milk, tablespoon by tablespoon, until you have a nice thick consistency.

Pour the chocolate mousse into the pie crust about ¾ of the way full.  Then spoon the peanut butter swirl over the top and using a butter knife swirl it into the chocolate a bit.  Put the pie in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight.

You may have extra chocolate mousse or PB swirl – I put these in little martini glasses and made parfaits.  These too must be chilled a while to achieve the best thick consistency.