Friday Food: Chocolate Mousse

In the interest of my blog, I will be girding my loins and tasting the chocolate mousse in an hour. Purely for research you understand, and only a teaspoon full. Still, I am looking forward to it. I have peppermint tea at the ready...

I watched Rachel Khoo make this mousse on Little Paris Kitchen yesterday and was intrigued. I've made a lot of chocolate mousse over the years, but never one based on a thickened chocolate sauce.

The recipe is fairly straight forward, there were no cocoa nibs to be had in our supermarkets, so I used chocolate sprinkles. You do need 1 hour cooling time and then at least 4 hours or more after that in the fridge, but if you can't wait then 1 hour will suffice.

You can watch Rachel here, but beware the terrible spelling error:

20g/1oz cornflower

I have emailed the BBC to let them know it is 'cornflour'.

This recipe is all about the whisking, but I did use my mix-master as well.

The recipe makes about 2 1/2 cups of mousse, so you could easily make 6 or even 8 servings. It would be great with fresh berries and a little cream or a posh quenelle of ice-cream and no doubt a sprig of mint!!

 

Chocolate Mousse serves 4-6

Pastry Cream

• 3 egg yolks (keep the whites, see Meringue below)
• 50g caster sugar
• 20g cornflour
• 250ml full fat milk (it's only 4%)
• 1 tbsn unsweetened cocoa powder- I used 4 tspn Dutch cocoa

Chocolate Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• 50g pure icing sugar
• small squeeze of lemon juice
• pinch salt
• 150g 70% dark chocolate, chopped finely
• 200ml whipping cream
• chocolate sprinkles to decorate if you wish
  

Separate the eggs. Leave the whites at room temperature until you are ready to use them in the meringue. Whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until they are pale and creamy and then whisk in the cornflour.

Heat the milk in a pan over a low heat. As it heats, whisk in the cocoa. Keep an eye on the milk and when it is just about to come to the boil, take it off the heat.

 

Whisking all the time, pour a thin stream of the milk into the egg mixture. Continue to whisk until it is all combined. Pour back into the pan and continue to whisk briskly. The more you whisk, the smoother the pastry cream will be.

As it comes to the boil it will begin to thicken, whisk away until a few bubbles pop on the surface. Remove from the heat, whisk a little more and then pour into a bowl and cover with cling film. Refrigerate for 1 hour. I had no cling film so I just pressed some baking paper firmly on top. It is there to prevent a skin forming.

It sounds like a lot of whisking, but it probably only took 5 minutes. Then you have an hour to have a cup of tea and read a book.

I weighed my egg whites and they were 105g, so I poured about 50g into my bowl along with the icing sugar, a squeeze of lemon and the salt. I always wipe over my bowl with a cut lemon and make sure the beaters are free from grease too. Beat until the whites are white and then pour in the rest of the egg whites. Beat until stiff peaks form. This means that if you lift the beaters out of the meringue any peaks, or troughs, stay where they are and don't fold over.

Remove the chocolate pastry cream from the fridge and whisk to make sure it is smooth. Melt the chocolate the way you prefer, over some simmering water in a bowl or in the microwave. Either way, stop the melting before all the lumps are gone and stir to finish off. Pour the chocolate into the pastry cream, whisking as you go.

Now add 1/3 of the meringue and fold in gently, but thoroughly. Add the remaining meringue all at once and fold in till no white streaks can be seen. Don't wash up the meringue bowl or beaters, you can just pour the cream straight in. You only whip the cream until soft peaks form, and having the cream cold really helps. It helps so much that I turned my first batch of cream into butter!!!

Add the cream in two halves and fold into the chocolate mixture. When it is uniformly chocolate coloured it is done.

The instructions say to brush the glasses with a little soft butter and then put some cocoa nibs in. When you roll the glass around the nibs stick to the sides. I found the butter looked like, well, butter and was very obvious. I just ran the glass under a little warm water, shook out the excess and then poured in some chocolate sprinkles and rolled them about inside. Enough of them stuck to the sides, so I'd recommend this option.

Spoon the mousse into the glasses or ramekins and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. I think they should be covered or in an airtight container. I popped a few chocolate sprinkles on top. It looks very posh and I shall now taste it. Oooh, that's nice, really rich and smooth. It has thickened up slightly. Oh yum. OK, I can really recommend this and I have to put the glass in the sink and run hot water in it or I'll eat it all. Too late.......

 

PS. That's just a tiny sherry glass, so not too much chocolate damage was done!!!

Comments

[Judy Edmonds]

OMG!! I'm sure it was wonderful! Personally my all-time favorite chocolate mousse is made just from chocolate and eggs, but I am always interested in reading about variations.

[Linda]

Looks divine, especially in such lovely green sherry glasses. No calories in just admiring the post.

[Lois]

Oh yum.....if my arms were stronger I'd make this!!

[Linda]

this does look delightful and I do love the Little Paris Kitchen, I love anything Paris but I forget to watch it and forget to link it so I watch it online which I may just do in a minute now you have reminded me. I am guessing this may not work too well with my Orgran Egg Replacer!!!!! I have to say I am sooo impressed you noticed Little Miss Giggles in front of the whole series of Death Note dvds,she thought it was funny for some reason! they certainly aren't funny. very dark and very Japanese and even all the cute Japanese I think is a way of covering up the darkness they have ie Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth! am I reading too much into this whole kawaii thing even though I have to admit I love a lot of the cutness as well, I need therapy

[Marj]

Wow that looks amazing and you put a lot of work in to it! Yummy!

[DrK]

mmmmmmchocolatemoussedrooooool

[kgirlknits]

yum!

chocolate mousse always makes me think of dinner parties, cos that's what my mum would make when we had company :)

[RoseRed]

Ha ha, I was pretty much going to type exactly what DrK said! YUM YUM YUM.