Steve's Recipes

Chocolate Mousse

for 4

This tastes good with a supermarket’s own brand dark chocolate. But it tastes even better with the slightly bitter 70% cocoa chocolate that is so fashionable. This is not a particularly sweet pudding, so if you’re making it for children or adults with very sweet teeth, replace the sour cream with more double cream, and use ordinairy milk chocolate (but not cooking chocolate, which tastes horrible.) Even then you may want to add a little caster sugar. It is best to taste the recipe and add sugar before you fold in the egg whites.

The mousse really benefits from being left in the fridge for several hours. It sets, becoming less goey and more aerated - you can see the bubbles when you spoon into it, like an aero bar.

150g - 3 oz dark chocolate
4 eggs
1 pint double cream
142 ml / 5 fl oz sour cream.

Break up the chocolate, and set aside a couple of squares. Put the rest into a small bowl with a tablespoon of cream and melt it over a saucepan of simmering water. I expect some people have a bowl and saucepan that fit and were bought expressly for this purpose. If you don’t, improvise - an old Christmas pudding container is good. If the chocolate is overheated it may become hard or bitty - in this case beat in some more cream very well, and everything should be OK.

Spoon the chocolate into a large bowl and leave it to cool.

Separate the eggs. Put the egg yolks into a food processor along with 3 tbs cold water - or some brandy if you prefer. Now beat them until they are very very pale yellow - this may take up to 5 minutes. Then fold the yolks in with the chocolate.

Wash your food processor and whisk the cream until it is thick. A note about this. If the cream is whisked to maximum thickness it will be difficult to prevent there being lumps when it is added to the chocolate. However, if you under-whip it, the mousse will be less thick and more runny than it could be. I’m afraid this is one that can only be worked out by trial and error. Whatever you do, the mousse will still taste good. Now pour in the sour cream and whisk it all for 30 seconds more until the creams are well-blended.

Stir the cream in with the chocolate. If you want to add extra sugar taste and do that now. Then wash your food processor again and beat the egg whites into stiff peaks. Fold them gently in with the chocolate mixture using a metal spoon.

Spoon the mousse into a glass bowl and grate over the remaining chocolate. Don’t eat it now - leave it in the fridge.

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