Here’s my recipe for chocolate mousse. I’ve been making it for the past 17 years and it comes from the book “Les Recettes Faciles” by Francoise Bernard (given to me by a friend in Luxembourg). This is a bog standard French recipe for chocolate mousse – pure and simple, using very few ingredients. None of that nonsense of adding cream, which seems to be the way the Brits and Americans always make it!
You’ll need:
- 125g of dark chocolate (make sure it’s not too rich, you can also use milk chocolate)
- a knob of butter
- 4 pasteurized egg whites and 4 yolks
- a pinch of salt
Break up the chocolate and melt it, along with the knob of butter, in a large bowl (trust me, you need a large bowl for this). I always heat chocolate in the microwave – just remember to take it in short bursts because you don’t want it to burn…
When it’s almost melted remove from the heat or remove from the microwave and keep stirring until the last lumps have gone and it’s beginning to cool down again.
Now it’s time to add the egg yolks. Stir them in really quickly so that they don’t start to cook from the heat of the chocolate and keep beating hard.
Then you beat the egg whites along with a pinch of salt in another – also large – bowl.
Beat them until they’re very stiff.
Stiff as in “I can lift this bowl upside down, and the egg whites don’t fall out” – ta da!
Now it’s time to start adding the egg whites into the melted chocolate. Add one large spoonful of egg white to the choc and give it a good mix – this will help to loosen up the chocolate mixture, which is much denser than the egg white.
Then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites, a couple of spoonfuls at a time. The colour of the mousse will turn paler and paler.
Once it’s all incorporated, pour the mousse into a bowl, cover it and put in the fridge to chill. It’ll be ready to eat after an hour. But it will also sit there happily for a day or two if you need to make it in advance. We always make a double portion. Just to be on the safe side… ;o)
Bon appétit!
Hope you have a terrific Tuesday! 🙂