HHDD #11 : Chocolate Mousse

chocolatemousse.jpg

Helen’s choice of Mousse as a theme for HHDD #11 had me thinking about all the many and varied types of mousses (meese?) there are out there. From lemon to salmon, and beyond. Despite the myriad possibilities, what I really felt like having (because I’m boring and also because I haven’t eaten it in awhile) was some good old fashioned chocolate mousse. Not chocolate moose, mind you, like the Swedish Chef would have you make.

Most of the chocolate mousses I’ve made in the past involve a considerable amount of whipped cream being folded into the chocolate base to lighten it. This time, I thought I would try a new recipe and adapted one by Gabriel Gate, so that aside from the dark chocolate which doesn’t have much lactose anyway, this mousse is as dairy-free as possible (thereby rendering it more edible for the other member of this household). The resulting velvety and airy cushion of chocolate doesn’t suffer one bit from the lack of cream. In fact, if you wanted to dress up this sumptuous spoonful of pure chocolate, you could serve it as a generous quenelle on a plate, with trailing ribbons of dark chocolate sauce, surrounded perhaps by a little blobble or two of Pedro Ximenez jelly and for that crunch factor, glassy sails of coffee bean nougatine perched atop the mousse.

Or, you could do like I did, and have the chocolate mousse straight from the glass as it is. Now.

Chocolate Mousse :

200g dark chocolate
2 tablespoons lactose-free milk
4 yolks
1 tablespoon espresso coffee
1 tablespoon Kahlua (or other liqueur)
6 eggwhites, at room temperature
small pinch cream of tartar
1 teaspoon caster sugar

Melt the chocolate and milk in a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Remove from the heat. Add the yolks, coffee and Kahlua, and whisk until smooth.

In a separate clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks form. Gently combine in a quarter of the eggwhites with the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining eggwhites.

Divide the mousse between serving glasses. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours or until set and well chilled.

6 Comments »

  1. Helen said,

    April 18, 2007 @ 11:49 pm

    Looks so silky and smooth. Now that you describe the other plating option I am going to request a do-over! Any mousse with a crunch factor is great.
    Good luck in the voting.

  2. barbara said,

    April 25, 2007 @ 3:14 pm

    This does sound wonderful. The other plating option sounds fun too. Thanks for joining HHDD.

  3. arfi said,

    April 25, 2007 @ 7:05 pm

    Velvety smooth finished. Love it!!

  4. Dolores said,

    April 27, 2007 @ 10:07 am

    I love this lactose free take on the classic dessert. And I agree with those before me — your plating suggestions for jazzing this up are absolute brilliance. Pedro Ximenez jelly?!?!? How and where can I get my hands on *that*?

  5. Y said,

    April 27, 2007 @ 6:44 pm

    Dolores, it involves having to whip it up in the kitchen yourself, and I plead laziness as my excuse for not making it, and going with plating option #2! 😀

  6. Tee jay said,

    October 6, 2009 @ 8:30 pm

    Thanks for this. more of it.

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