Holiday Idea: White Chocolate Banana Spice Mousse from Marcel Desaulneirs

If you do have a Christmas dinner, and most of us do, how do you go about planning for it? There is always that resistance to just “do Thanksgiving over again” right down to the pumpkin pie.

Yes, heresy. Let’s start over for Christmas. From Marcel Desdaulniers’ I’m Dreaming of Chocolate Christmas here is a bold idea. No pie. No cake. Mousse. No pumpkin. No chocolate. Banana.

This dessert idea actually harkens back to a century ago when bananas and other fruits were exotic and often provide only during the holiday season. They were rare, expensive and often new to our plates.

Thankfully, we can enjoy the world’s fruit abundance year round. The trick now is how to go from simply “eating a piece of fruit” to “forging a sophisticated dessert.” This banana mouse is, if anything, the definition of sophistication.

White Chocolate Banana Spice Mousse

Yield: serves 8

Ingredients:

For the mousse:

2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons banana liqueur
10 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped and melted (see Techniques, page 191)
1 ripe medium banana (peeled and mashed)

For the whipped cream:

¾ cup heavy cream
2
teaspoons sugar
⅛ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the holiday spice blend:

⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the garnish:

8 red or green maraschino cherries with stems

Preparation:

MAKE THE MOUSSE:

Place the cream into the bowl of a stand electric mixer fitted with a balloon whip. Whisk on high until stiff, about 2 minutes. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the banana liqueur. Add about 1 ½ cups of this whipped cream to the melted white chocolate, and use a whisk to vigorously whisk together until thoroughly combined. Add this and the white chocolate back to the plain whipped cream; use a rubber spatula to fold together until smooth. Add the mashed banana, and use a rubber spatula to fold the mousse until well combined.

Refrigerate the mousse in a tightly sealed plastic container for 2 to 3 hours before serving.

MAKE THE WHIPPED CREAM:

Place the cream, sugar, and vanilla into the clean bowl of a stand electric mixer fitted with a balloon whip. Whisk on high until stiff peaks form, about 1 minute and 15 seconds. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and fold the cream until smooth and completely blended. Insert a star tip into a pastry bag and fill it with the Whipped Cream. Refrigerate until needed.

MAKE THE HOLIDAY SPICE BLEND AND SERVE:

Sift the cinnamon and nutmeg through a small sifter into a small bowl.

Fill a pastry bag without a tip with the mousse. Pipe the mousse into eight 7-ounce champagne flutes to 1 inch of the top. Pipe the Whipped Cream onto the mousse. Sprinkle with the Holiday Spice Blend and top with a maraschino cherry. Refrigerate until just a few minutes before serving.