Brie Pear Mousse Napoleon

• More super recipes!

This is truly my own invention. When Carolyn heard that she gave me the skeptical eye. However, upon masticating this tower her eyes lit up. Bob and I had seconds, to my later regret - this is a very rich dessert. And it is so easy to make. My one regret should be obvious in the picture; I should have piped the mousse (really more a ganache I think) over the cheese instead of spooning it on. Nice lines from a big pastry bag tip would make this look very special indeed.

Serves 4

• 12 oz good semi sweet chocolate, chopped (try Sharffen-Berger, or Ghirardelli chips)
• 8 oz of heavy cream
• two Bartlett pears
• 6 oz of good brie cheese
• 1 frozen SaraLee pound cake

First, some notes.  The chocolate: it has to be good stuff. This is a major component of the flavor. If you cheat and get crummy chocolate, then don't even make this.  For the brie, high fat content is key; you'll want the brie and mousse to melt together in your mouth. Low fat cheese won't do this. One way to find high fat cheese is to look at the U.S. nutrition label. Find out how many calories in a one ounce serving come from fat. Take the brie with the highest count.  Lastly, the pears. Any pear will do, but ripe ones are best and they cannot be hard. The pear should dissolve on your palate with the other flavors. I wouldn't do this with a hard Anjou pear.

Set the pound cake out to defrost.

Heat the cream in a heavy pot over moderately high heat. Stir occasionally and bring it just up to a boil. Remove from the heat. Add the chopped chocolate and stir a lot until the chocolate is mixed in completely.  Use an electric mixer or Kitchen Aid to whip the mixture into a froth. As it cools the mixture will tighten up. 

Slice the pears in half and remove the stems. Slice the pears thinly. (You'll see in the picture above that I cut the pear into one quarter inch thick slices. I regret this now.)

Slice the pound cake into quarter inch thick slices.

On a plate assemble two pieces of pound cake side by side. On top of this arrange 1/4 of the pear slices. Add an eighth inch thick slice (or spoonful) of the brie. Top this off with a healthy serving of chocolate mousse. Serve immediately. (Ok I lied, you have lots of mousse left over. So what?)

Some things I wish to try next time:

• As mentioned above, use a pastry bag and pipe the mousse onto the dessert.
• Top it all off with two raspberries.
• Maybe a little Pear William in the mousse?
• This was lovely when cut down the middle. I wonder if I could assemble it in a plastic coated loaf pan, freeze it, cut it and thaw it. It just might look dramatic.

More super recipes!

See the map of this site