Bring on the chocolate mousse

Oh my.  This is divine.  Or as Master M says.  This is so scrumptious mummy.

 

I've been trying so many things lately.  I seem to have channelled some sort of cooking goddess in a frilly apron.

 

That's not a bad thing though and my family aren't complaining.  I quite enjoy cooking and baking to an extent but I'm certainly no Master Chef and usually just do some basic and well loved tried and true recipes.

 

I've been branching out lately and trying things I've wanted to have a go at for years. 

 

Things like chocolate mousse.

 

 

 

 

Completely and utterly DIVINE!

 

The first thing you do is to melt the chocolate.  Now there are two ways to do this.  The traditional way is in a double boiler and the modern way is in the microwave. 

 

On any rare occasion when I've had to melt chocolate before I've done it in the microwave because quite frankly, a double boiler seemed a little scarey to me.

 

Trust me.  It's not.  In fact I think it's so much easier than a microwave and the chocolate melts evenly and stays silky smooth for longer.  You also don't have to stop what you're doing every 30 seconds to stir it like you do when melting it in the microwave.

 

So how does a double boiler work?  You put some water in a saucepan (not even half full), bring it to the boil then turn it down to simmer.  Then you place a heatproof bowl on top with the chocolate in it and leave it to melt, stirring occasionally. 

 

 

Trust me, it only takes a few minutes for the chocolate to melt beautifully to a lovely silky smooth mess.

 

 

 

Meanwhile you beat the eggs and sugar.  (Most recipes separate the eggs to make a really light and fluffy mousse but that was an extra step I couldn't be bothered with so I found a recipe that beats the whole egg.)  Beat the egg mixture until peaks form so a bit more than what I've done in the below photo.

 

 

 

You also need to whip up some cream.

 

 

Be careful to keep an eye on it and not whip it a little too much like I did.  I've never whipped cream in my mix master and didn't realise how quickly the peaks would form!  Disaster averted though.

 

 

Then you fold everything through the egg mixture, first the chocolate and then the cream.  Spoon it into whatever dishes you have around whether they be ramekins, glasses, plastic cups, festive cupcake moulds or just one big dish.

 

The next step is most important.  You give your son the bowl to lick out.  You are not allowed to have it yourself (well maybe one tiny little swipe of the finger for quality control).  Your son and husband will then fight over the bowl and you can serenely put your filled moulds in to the fridge to cool down.

 

 

 

Give them a few hours to set (or overnight) and enjoy.  This is very rich so I recommend small moulds.  I just have to remember that for the second batch that I'm now required to make for Christmas and then the third batch for Master M's birthday in a couple of weeks.

 

..and yes, it really is SCrUMPtiOUS!!!

 

xx Susan

 

P.S.  The recipe I used is this one here if you want to give it a go.

 

P.P.S.  I promise I'll stop with the cooking blog posts soon but that's all I seem to be doing lately so that's what you get.  :)