If you need a pie to brighten up the week after Christmas, here’s a good one. It’s called Elegant Raspberry Chocolate Pie and it’s from The New Joys of Jell-O. It’s perfect for the new year because it’s retro. You can think about olden days as you ponder the future.
Fuzz made the pie for the family yesterday. She’d never had a gelatin based pie and was curious as to how the texture would be. I think it was also her first time to ever fold soft ice cream into warm Jell-O juice, so having folded plenty of things into gelatin, I had to assure her everything would be okay. And it was! The filling set up in two hours just like the recipe promised.
Once the filling set, a ganache was spread over the top of it and garnishing ensued. Fuzz is already better at decorating pies than I am and was pleased that her Elegant Chocolate Raspberry Pie was prettier than the one on the cover of the book. Or at least we thought so.
A Few More Notes
Our pie was a little thinner than the original since the recipe calls for a packaged crust (they’re usually a little smaller) and ours was a full 9 inch made with crushed Famous Wafers. We weren’t sure if if we’d like the texture of the Jell-O filling, but it was pretty good! You can tell there’s Jell-O, but the ice cream softens it somewhat and it doesn’t jiggle or feel overly gelatinous in your mouth. The original recipe says to top the pie with a mixture of melted margarine and chocolate. We went with a 1 to 1 ratio of cream and chocolate, so basically a ganache. For the whipped cream garnishing, we used Cool Whip. All in all it was a fun pie! Not sure I’d call it “elegant” but definitely fun.
Elegant Raspberry Chocolate Pie
Ingredients
- 1 pkg chocolate crumb crust
- 1 package raspberry flavored Jell-O 4 serving raspberry Jell-O
- 1 1/4 cup boiling water
- 1 pint vanilla ice cream softened
Ganache Topping
- 1/4 cup heavy cream OR 3 T. margarine**
- 56 grams semisweet chocolate, chopped
Garnish
- Cool Whip, enough for piping
- Chocolate pieces or Cookie pieces optional
- raspberries optional
Instructions
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In a mixing bowl, dissolve Jell-O in boiling water.
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Spoon in softened ice cream into the Jell-O and stir until melted and smooth.,
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Chill until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.
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Pour into crust and chill until firm (2 hours).
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Make the chocolate topping. You can choose from a chocolate ganache topping made with cream and chocolate or a mixture of melted margarine and chocolate. To make the ganache, heat the cream in the microwave or over the stove. Add chocolate to hot cream. Let stand for 2 minutes, then stir until smooth. If using margarine, melt margarine with chocolate by heating in the microwave and stirring at 30 second intervals.
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Spread whichever chocolate mixture you've chosen over pie and allow it to chill until the chocolate hardens.
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Garnish with whipped topping, chocolate pieces and fresh raspberries.
Notes
For the chocolate topping, you can make a ganache using 56 grams of whipping cream and 56 grams of chocolate or you can melt 3 tablespoons of margarine with 2 oz of chocolate. I’m sure butter would work as well. We were glad we used the ganache topping because it was easy to fork into.