Pie-Day Friday Part Deux

It's Friday which means one thing during MoFo, Pie! Today I chose the Little Lemon Mousse Pies from Vegan Pie In the Sky and wowzers, I am seriously impressed!

When I was picking this weeks pie I definitely felt a little intimidated by this recipe, the picture in the book's so pretty & I wasn't entirely confident that I could make something look that good! I decided to go for it anyway though and I'm glad I did. This recipe has three parts to it, the Gingersnap Crust, a filling, and a topping. I actually started prepping for the recipe last night, the cashews needed to soak for a while & I knew that it'd be too dark for photographs if I started in the morning! 

I decided to half this recipe both to save money on ingredients (I can't spend as much money on food as I did last MoFo without making a nasty dent in my Vida Vegan Con savings) and I also didn't own any mini springform pans, buying two was obviously half the price of four. That's a saving right there! Whilst the recipe does say that you can make these in a 9" springform pan for me part of the appeal was that they're cute! I love little (and not so little!) individual desserts and I decided that if the recipe turned out well I could justify buying the other two pans!

The gingersnap crust was a snap to put together & it pressed into the springform pans easily. Last Friday I pressed the biscuit base into my pie tin using my fingers but today I decided to find something circular & a similar diameter to my springforms, I thought that this might make the crust firmer & much less crumbly upon slicing - I was right & I'll definitely be using that technique again.

After baking the crust for 10 minutes it was time to whip up the filling. This creamy coconut mousse was easy to put together and it looked amazing as soon as it hit the tins. 

If you look closely you can even see perfect moussey air bubbles. The next step required a lot of patience as it needed to cool for FOUR hours. Bloody hell! Whilst I waited I tidied the ridiculous amount of mess I made... 

...went to a spin class (the instructor played metal and power ballads!), picked the Vegan MoFo Vegusto competition winner and tried and failed to fix my kitchen light. Yep, my kitchen light decided to break during MoFo - nice comedy timing kitchen light, I'm gonna enjoy trying to take pictures only using the light from a single lamp!

The topping for the pie was just as easy to make as the mousse filling and after another hour chilling in the fridge these were ready to pop outa the tins!

I actually took a few pictures whilst they were still sitting on the base of the springform pan; I've never gotten anything with a biscuit base out of its casing without kinda ruining it before but as you can see these came out perfectly. It even looks like the one in the book!

As well as looking totally perfect this pie tastes amazing. The coconut flavour from the beautifully light mousse filling is really subtle, it doesn't overpower the lemon at all, and the gingersnap crust compliments the lemon flavoured pie beautifully.

Todays Pie-day Friday has been an unmitigated success! I don't think I've ever made such a beautifully delicate, fancy looking dessert before and next time I have a dinner party this'll definitely be on the table!