Chocolate Mousse

I don’t know what do to this time, so why not chocolate mousse?

Here’s a tip for this: use an electric mixer. It can be one of those little hand mixers, I think you can get one from Target or Walmart for $20 or so. It’s a very useful tool to have.

Me, I’m going to my boyfriend’s house and borrowing his mom’s nice stand mixer. I’ve been craving a KitchenAid for years, but borrowing one is good too.

When I made this, I actually spilled half of it on the floor. Disappointing. But the other half turned out great!

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

6 oz semisweet chocolate

3 tbsp unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 large eggs, separated (that means separate the yolks from the whites. For the best way to do this, see the notes)

¼ cup plus 3 tbsp sugar

¼ tsp cream of tartar

½ cup heavy cream

In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water, combine the chocolate, butter, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of water. Stir with a wooden spoon until chocolate is melted. Remove the bowl from the heat and set it aside.

In a second heatproof bowl over boiling water, combine the yolks of the eggs, 3 tablespoons of water, and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Whisk constantly until thick and puffy.

Add the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture, and whisk to combine.

As this cools to room temperature, beat the egg whites using an electric mixer.

When the egg whites are foamy, add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. This means when you lift the beater out, a peak will form but the tip will fall over.

Gradually beat in the ¼ cup of sugar. If you add it all at once, it will fly out of the bowl and make a mess, so add a bit at a time. Beat until you have stiff peaks—that means the tips don’t fall over anymore.

Add ¼ of the egg white mixture to the chocolate mixture and stir thoroughly. Then add the rest of the egg whites, but fold them in. This means stir very gently, ideally with a spatula, the very minimum amount you can for the two mixtures to be combined.

Using the mixer, beat the cream until you have soft peaks. If you’re using the same bowl as you did for the egg whites, thoroughly wash it first.

Fold the cream into the chocolate mixture.

Refrigerate for at least four hours before eating.

Notes:

The best and easiest way to separate eggs is to do them one at a time. You should have three bowls. Let’s call them A, B, and C. 

Gently crack the shell of the first egg. You want two neat halves, not a shattered mess. Pour the white into bowl A. Carefully pour the yolk between the two shell halves, letting some of the white fall between them into the bowl. It’s easy enough if you go slowly.

Dump the yolk into bowl B and pour the white into bowl C. Repeat with each egg.

The use of the third bowl as the workspace is so that if you mess up one egg, you can throw it out and not ruin everything. A tiny bit of fat in the egg whites will ruin this.

For those of you concerned about using raw eggs, don’t be. You are cooking the egg yolks just enough to lose any risk. Also, the egg whites do not contain any bacteria.