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Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate and eggs with no cream in it at all, where the chocolate must be warm when the whites go in or it seizes into grains.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (cream).

Ingredients

Method

  1. THERE IS NO CREAM IN THIS. Chocolate, eggs, butter and sugar. A cream-based mousse is softer, paler and much more forgiving, and it is a different pudding; this one sets to something dense and almost truffle-like and tastes far more of chocolate.
  2. THE CHOCOLATE MUST STILL BE WARM WHEN THE WHITES GO IN -- about 40C, warm to the lip. Cold chocolate meeting cold whites seizes into hard grains through the mousse, and nothing disperses them. If it has set while you whipped the whites, warm it gently again before folding.
  3. AND A THIRD OF THE WHITES IS SACRIFICED, beaten in hard to slacken the base before the rest is folded. The same rule as the soufflé: folding stiff whites into a stiff base knocks all the air out.
  4. Chocolate and butter melted together in a bowl over barely simmering water, or in short bursts in a microwave. Stirred smooth and taken off while still warm.
  5. Yolks beaten in one at a time. The mixture will thicken and go glossy.
  6. Whites whipped with the salt and cream of tartar to soft peaks, then the sugar added a spoonful at a time and whipped to FIRM BUT NOT DRY peaks -- they should curl at the tip.
  7. THE CHOCOLATE CHECKED FOR WARMTH at this point. If it has cooled past blood heat, 20 seconds over the water again.
  8. A third of the whites beaten into the chocolate vigorously, with no care at all.
  9. The rest folded in with a large metal spoon in two lots, cutting down and lifting over, stopping while a few faint streaks remain.
  10. Into glasses or one bowl, and chilled at least 4 hours.
  11. Taken out of the fridge 20 minutes before eating. Straight from cold it is hard and tastes of much less.
  12. It keeps two days. Raw egg, so not for anyone who should avoid it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes