Piña Colada Mousse

If you love piña coladas (and getting caught in the rain), you’ve got to try these mousse cups. Crispy coconut crumble, pineapple mousse, and boozy whipped cream are layered for a cool and creamy dessert spin on everyone’s favorite beach cocktail.

The mousse:
This mousse is made by folding a pineapple pastry cream that’s been stabilized with gelatin into whipped cream. If the sound of gelatin scares you, I promise it’s not. Here’s a quick walkthrough of the process to help you overcome those gelatin nerves:

—Bloom the gelatin. Before adding the gelatin to the hot pastry cream, you’ll need to bloom it by sprinkling it over 1 Tbsp. cold water, stirring gently to combine, and letting it sit for about 5 minutes. During this time, you’ll notice the gelatin dissolve into the water and almost gel-ify it; that’s what’s supposed to be happening.
—Dissolve the gelatin into hot (but not boiling!) liquid. To incorporate the gelatin into the pineapple pastry cream, add it to the cream when it’s still hot and stir until dissolved. The pastry cream will have been bubbling, but it’s important to make sure that it’s stopped before adding the gelatin; if the gelatin boils, it will lose some of its strength.
—Don’t refrigerate the stabilized pastry cream before folding in the cream. The pastry cream should be cooled to room temperature—otherwise it will melt the whipped cream—but resist the urge to speed up the process by putting it in the refrigerator. You might end up with pastry cream that’s already started to solidify, and that will make it much more difficult to fold the cream in.

The booze:
In honor of its namesake, these piña colada mousse cups have quite a bit of rum added to both the mousse and the whipped cream. If you’d prefer to make them virgin, feel free to leave the rum out; they will be just as delicious.

Storage:
Once the crumble and the mousse is assembled in the glass cups, it should be eaten within 1 day, as the crumble will tend to get soggy with time. I would also avoid whipping the boozy cream until just before serving, since the rum will cause the whipped cream to break down sooner.

If you’d like to make some of this dessert ahead, the crumble can be made up to 3 days in advance and stored in an airtight container at room temperature. A word of caution, though: It’s pretty irresistible, so you might want to make a double batch to ensure you’ll have enough for the mousse after you’re done snacking on it!

Did you try making this? Let us know how it went in the comments!