Many people come to our site each day (especially as we get closer to St. Patrick's Day) looking for traditional Irish dessert recipes, especially ones that contain Baileys Irish Cream.*

As far as "traditional" goes, this is always going to be a sticky subject... especially in Ireland, where the label is usually applied to recipes that have been around for hundreds of years. Can you have traditional recipes for anything that's only been around for thirty-five years? Locally, at least, the jury is still out (Though there's no problem with Baileys as such. Lots and lots of native Irish people love it.)

But there's no question that there's a tendency in North America to put Baileys in all kinds of desserts. The problem is that some of the desserts are distinctly dodgy. And this tendency manifests itself most fully in a whole lot of the recipes for "Baileys Mousse Pie" that are out there on the Web at the moment.

The worst thing about them -- the most un-Irish thing, anyway -- is probably their tendency to contain non-dairy toppings, either instant or frozen, as a major ingredient. One of our County Wicklow neighbors stopped EuroCuisineLady in the pub one evening a couple of months ago, knowing that she was an American, and asked her, "What exactly is Cool Whip?" ECL explained that it was a whipped topping that didn't contain any dairy products except the very processed milk chemical casein, and that its main attraction was probably that you could keep it in the freezer for a long time and just get it out when you needed it.

The neighbor then showed ECL a typical Baileys Mousse Pie recipe he'd found that contained nothing much but a graham cracker crust filled with Baileys, sugar, and Cool Whip. "What's this stuff doing in an Irish pie?" ECL's neighbor said: possibly with some reason, since Cool Whip does not exist in Ireland. In fact, no non-dairy topping has ever taken off successfully here, as native Irish people seem to think that there's no point in wasting your money on some weird overprocessed fake-cream product when there's perfectly good real cream all over the place. And the neighbor was very confused as to why -- if these recipes were being pushed as something Irish -- why the people inventing these recipes didn't make them the way Irish people would, with ingredients that you could normally find in Ireland. "They don't mind the cream in the Baileys," the neighbor said. "So why do they have to put this bogus chemical junk in?"

EuroCuisineLady had no quick answer to this. The conversation then wandered off into other territory, especially the question of non-bake versions of such a pie that might actually keep the Irish whiskey in the Baileys inside the pie instead of letting it be driven off by an oven's heat. ECL then went home and started to experiment, to the point where EuroCuisineGuy started wondering why the milkman was leaving so much cream every other day. (The EuroCats, however, did not complain at all.)

After several tries, EuroCuisineLady finally constructed a Baileys Mousse Pie recipe that fulfills these requirements:

1. It contains no ingredients that are not available in Ireland.
2. The alcohol stays in it.
3. Native Irish people, after tasting it, have agreed that they don't mind it being called "Irish", and have declared it to be Not Bogus.

Please be clear on one point: though the amounts of alcohol in the pie as a whole are not huge, you probably should not eat this pie and then drive. Other than that, all you need to know is that it's rich, it's yummy, and it freezes nicely if you have any extra left over. (Not very likely.)

Ingredients:

• 1 pre-made or homemade 9-inch graham cracker crust (if you're a UK / Irish cook, use digestive biscuits to make the crust)
• 1 envelope powdered gelatin
• 1 cup heavy / whipping cream
• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 fluid ounces milk
• 3 fluid ounces Baileys
• 3 fluid ounces Irish whiskey
• 2 teaspoons coffee crystals
• 2 teaspoons cocoa

Prepare the crust and set it aside.

Blend the Baileys, whiskey, and half the milk in a small bowl and set them aside as well.

In a small microwave-resistant bowl or saucepan, mix the remaining milk with the coffee crystals and cocoa: whisk until completely blended.

Whisk the egg whites until the soft-peak stage. Add the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon until stiff peaks form. Set the egg whites aside.

In another small bowl, whip the cream until firm. Set aside.

Heat the milk/coffee/cocoa mixture until just about to scald: or microwave until steaming hot.

When hot, sprinkle the gelatine over the surface of the mixture and whisk in until completely blended. Transfer into a larger bowl and continue whisking until the mixture cools a little. Then add the Baileys / whiskey / milk mixture and continue to whisk together until completely blended.

Add the whipped cream to the egg whites and fold together a little. Then add this mixture to the liquid in the large bowl and fold in gently until completely combined with the liquid ingredients.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust and chill for at least several hours: overnight would be better.

The next day, about an hour before you're ready to serve the pie, stick it in the freezer. At serving time, cut the pie into as many serving portions as desired, whip fresh cream, and top each serving of the mousse pie with it. If you like, grate a little chocolate over the top. Stick the rest of the pie (if any...) back in the freezer: it will keep there for a week to ten days before the cream starts losing its flavor to the freezing process.

*Or Bailey's, or Irish Creme. People spell it that way too, even though officially Baileys doesn't have an apostrophe.