What did you do for New Year’s Eve? We spent the evening with dear friends. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and libations and good company. We brought oysters and dessert. Laury made an amazing Vietnamese caramel fish with rice and Asian vegetables.

As a decadent finale to the past month of indulgent eating, I made Gianduja Mousse from Food & Wine. That’s Chocolate Hazelnut in Italian.

This super-simple dessert was both light and rich at the same time. First, Nutella and crème fraiche are mixed together with some Frangelico. Next, you whip cream until firm. Finally, the whipped cream is folded into the chocolate mixture until fully blended. The mousse is spooned into individual serving dishes, and it’s dessert! I doubled the recipe, which is supposed to serve 4, which made a total of 6 bowls of mousse.

The recipe suggested serving the mousse with chocolate wafer cookies, which inspired me to make a batch of World Peace Cookies. While I’m not a huge chocolate fan, this recipe is so good that these are, hands down, one of my favorite cookie recipes. Another slice-and-bake recipe, so they are easy too.

The gianduja mousse was a hit! It’s a company-worthy dessert that I’m adding to my repertoire. Trader Joe’s has their own spin on a chocolate spread. Theirs is cocoa-almond. I plan to try a version of this with TJ’s cocoa-almond spread with Amaretto to see how that turns out.

The mousse having been enjoyed, now it’s time for some lighter eating for a while…