Nutella Crème Icebox Pie

                                                                                            Difficulty Rating: Easy
Pecan Crust (make the crust before you make the pie filling so it has time to cool)

·         1 ½ cups pecans (finely chopped)

·         1 1/2 T sugar

·         4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted sweet butter – melted

Nutella Crème Filling

·         2 cups heavy cream

·         2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese – room temperature *

·         2 1/2 cups Nutella (hold about 1/3 cup of the 2 1/2 cups out)

·         1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar,10x

·         1 Tablespoon vanilla extract  

* Note - I made this on Sunday (8/5/12) for my sister Cathy's birthday.  My son Marc said that he would prefer it with less cream cheese.  I like it the way it is, but we each our own taste. He would like it 'mousse-ier', but I don't now if that could still be a pie - it might might have to served in individual glasses - nothing wrong with that! Up the whipped cream, lower the amount of cream cheese, chill the crust mixutre in dessert or wine glasses for an hour or so, spoon in the filling, chill and voila!

Preparation

Combine butter and pecans in a medium bowl and mix by hand

Pecan Crust

In a 9” pie dish, shape the crust by pressing into the pie pan, making sure you push it up the sides. It will be crumbly

• Bake for 10 minutes until the pecans are toasted – you’ll notice that the sides of the crust will look like it s   shrinks down the sides of the pie dish
• Using the back of a Tablespoon, gently push the pecan crust up the sides
• Cool to room temperature
• When the crust is cool, spread the 1/3 cup of Nutella on the bottom, well, you can't actually spread it, use a teaspoon to drop the Nutella around the bottom of the crust.  If you try to spread it, it will pull the crust up.

While the crust is cooling, beat the heavy cream in the mixer using a whisk attachment on medium until stiff peaks form, about 10 minutes. Set aside

In another bowl, using the paddle attachment on medium-high and beat the cream cheese until it’s smooth. 

Once it’s smooth, add the sugar, 1 cup of Nutella and vanilla and mix in well. 

When the Nutella is smoothly  combined with the cream cheese (use a rubber spatula to ensure that the bottom is well blended), add the second cup of the remaining Nutella - just a little don’t mix it in too thoroughly because people will want to taste big tastes of Nutella.

Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until combined.  While you're doing this, gentlry drop in 1 Tablespoon (this can be approximate) of Nutella at a time and fold with the whipped cream.  You don't want the Nutella blended. Do this until you've used all the Nutella. 

Spread the filling in the cool pie shell. Smooth the top.

Store in a covered container and refrigerate for about 5 hours (or overnight) before serving.