Frozen Lemon Pie with Pecan-Chocolate Crust

Good friends were coming to dinner and I decided to combine two of my favorite dessert recipes --  the pecan crust from Frozen Chocolate Pie with a frozen lemon filling -- basically a Lemon Semi-Freddo but actually the same frozen filling my mother used back in the Fifties in her popular Lemon Freeze on a Vanilla Wafer Crust. Oh, and some chocolate chips melted on the pecans, just because...

Pecan Crust

2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons melted butter

Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Stir first three ingredients together and press firmly onto bottom and up side of a 9 inch pie pan.

Bake at 350 F for 10 or 12 minutes (after 5 minutes, sprinkle on a handful of chocolate chips then finish baking.) Cool.

Lemon Filling

3 eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar

Grated rind of one lemon

1/4 cup lemon juice 

1/2 pint whipping cream

Cook together yolks, sugar, lemon rind and lemon juice, stirring till thickened. Cool.  Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and whipped cream. Pile into pecan crust and freeze.

 

Top with grated chocolate. You may want to make a little more whipped cream and top each slice with it to increase the level of decadence.

 

Lemon Semifreddo

Dessert for 25 - 30 people.  A quart and a half or thereabouts of whipping cream plus the juice and grated rind of a dozen or so lemons, sugar, toasted almonds, and twenty one egg yolks cooked to thicken.

The lemon, egg, sugar mixture gets folded into more whipped cream than is probably legal in some states, then poured into a container lined with plastic wrap and sprinkled with toasted almonds.

I made it Friday afternoon so it would be good and frozen to take to the party Saturday night.

The frozen delights traveled to the party -- an hour away -- in a cooler with ice. When I removed the aluminum foil, a good bit of the delicious stuff had stuck to it.

Never fear! Our hostess (the one who'd requested this particular dessert in the first place) knew what to do!

The lemon semifreddo was served topped with blackberries and on a hot summer evening, it was a Big Hit.

If you're interested, the original recipe (serving 8-10) is HERE. (I tripled it.)