Chocolate mousse is - for me - one of those kind of desserts I always try to better, and I am always trying out new recipes for it; sometimes it’s something with cream, with rosemary, with honey etc. you get the picture.

Sometime ago I stumbled into Julia Child’s recipe for chocolate mousse on David Lebovitz’s site. He had named the post as Julia Child’s Perfect Chocolate Mousse Recipe which already got me intrigued just by the title alone, and the ingredients were so decadent and rich that I just had to try it.

After taking some time to make it, and trying to follow the instructions literally, I had my first bite and I was truly impressed - this recipe makes such a good chocolate mousse that it’s ridiculous, it’s everything a chocolate mousse should be, dark, rich and with a light enough texture.

I must confess that I haven’t tried anything new after making this. The obvious reason being that I felt like this was it, this is the perfect recipe for chocolate mousse.

I of course tweaked the recipe I saw on David’s site a bit; I changed some of the sugar into muscovado which is something I almost always do when it comes to chocolate recipes, the husky liquorice hinting taste of muscovado sugar gives more depth to the darkness chocolate, giving it another layer.

I didn’t include coffee or vanilla in the recipe, you can click on the link above to see how much coffee to include if you want to use it. Also, I usually always top a chocolate mousse with toasted pine nuts drizzled with some good quality honey. Pine nuts are best here, but toasted almonds are good too.

Good quality chocolate is always important when making chocolate mousse, I usually try to use something special, but often end up using just Fazer’s premium dark baking chocolate which isn’t that bad and I can get it everywhere here. When trying to be more refined in this aspect I always check that the chocolate I am using is organic and doesn’t have lecithin in it. I find that it melts differently into your mouth if there isn’t any lecithin, so I avoid it. Checking that the chocolate has cocoa butter and no weird veggie oils goes without saying, I never use chocolate which has any other fat than cocoa butter, really never, and I don’t consider those kind of chocolates to be chocolate. It’s a sad thing to bite into some chocolate and find a taste of rancid veggie oil and a sensation of eating rubber. It should also be at least 70% cocoa when making chocolate mousse.

Take into consideration that this recipe uses raw eggs. We don’t have any salmonella here, so I can use raw eggs freely and therefore I am not familiar with alternatives to it, but David Lebovitz mentions in his post that pasteurized egg whites that whip can be used.

Chocolate Mousse Recipe

serves 4

-85 grams, 3 ounces, of good quality chocolate

-85 grams, 3 ounces, of unsalted butter cut into small pieces (or fermented and salted butter, that’s what I like to use)

-2 eggs, the yolks and whites separated

-4 tbls of muscovado sugar

-2 tbls of caster sugar (use a bit more for a sweeter mousse)

-1 tbls of dark rum

-pinch of salt

-toasted pine nuts and honey for serving

In a bain-marie melt the chocolate and the butter together. Put aside when melted.

Take a separate large bowl and fill it with ice water. It should be big enough so that your yolk and sugar mixture bowl can fit into it.

Whisk the egg yolks, the rum and the sugar together in a separate bowl placed in a bain-marie, until they melt together, about three minutes. The texture should resemble runny mayonnaise. When ready place the bowl into the ice water and keep on whipping until the mixture cools and thickens, then carefully mix it with the chocolate mixture.

Take another bowl for the egg whites and whip them with a pinch of salt until frothy, then add a tablespoon of caster sugar and whip until the egg whites are thick and shiny.

Very carefully fold one third of the egg whites into the egg yolk and chocolate mixture, you will need to be careful because the beaten egg whites are the ones giving the mousse some air and texture, it will be more like a chocolate cake, if the folding isn’t done carefully enough. After folding in the one third, fold in the rest of the egg whites carefully.

Transfer the mousse into the serving dishes, I like to use shot glasses. Let it sit in the fridge for 4hours, or more before serving. Top with some pine nuts and honey before serving.

I know the recipe is handful when making it the first times, I ruined my first batch completely and had to do it again, but it’s worth the try. Just try to remember that first you melt the chocolate with the butter, then you mix together the yolks and sugar, then you whip the whites, it’s basically three stages which then need to be mixed together.

So quiet

The reason why it has been so quiet here is that we bought a new apartment, a really lovely big (well, Helsinki standard big) apartment in a house which was built in 1930. After spending last autumn renovating, it seems like I am spending this one doing the same thing. Our new one needs a new kitchen, some paint, but luckily that is all.

Although it doesn’t seem like much, it feels like a lot, and my mind is constantly on the apartment, what it needs etc. I have a deep dislike for the kitchen there at the moment for example and can’t wait to have it replaced, but how to choose the new cabinets, countertops, everything basically. All I know for sure is that the floor is going to be a oak parquet floor. You can see the kitchen here, it’s not horrible, it’s just old and not in a good way old, but more like laminate floors and countertops, and cheap cabinets from the 90s.

Picture from here

In some good news related to the place where I live, we have a new food shop here in Töölö, Helsinki, it’s called Anton & Anton and it has a concept which is sadly not so common in Finland; it basically sells mostly organic and local produce.

I have found some locally grown chicken which has not been fed on soy, some Charolais beef, fresh scallops, fresh wild fish, some wild boar sausages (which have real lard in them!) etc. also they sell lots of local veggies.

One of my favourite new finds include gluten-free (made in a wheat free factory) buckwheat and sweet potato noodles made by King Soba; I don’t know how common these are elsewhere, but for me they have been something new. They have just the right kind of chewiness and taste delicious. I’ve been eating stir fries with noodles almost non stop since finding these.

I am so happy about this and feel really blessed about the fact that I can get such good quality produce right around the corner.

I opened up the comments again after tweaking the spam thingy, hopefully it will work now, I’ll open the rest of the old posts if this works.