Recipe: Chocolate Mousse

This is a recipe I've been following for years, and I thought I'd finally put it down somewhere more concrete. I can't remember the original source, possibly a magazine article? Anyhow, here's some photos from my last attempt, and a brief explanation.

Ingredients

  • 6 eggs
  • 225g plain chocolate
  • 100g sugar
  • orange zest/orange flavouring
  • 300ml double cream

Method

Chocolate. But, all melted like.

First, melt the chocolate (I use a microwave, like a heathen), and put it aside to cool a little.

'Take pictures of cooking, it'll be great'. I just about managed to crop out the chaos around this – my natural cooking state is not very photogenic!

Then, separate the eggs – whites into one bowl, yolks into another. I like to do each into a mug first, then if I accidentally break a yolk, I haven't messed up everything!

Eggs are amazing things, I still find it incredible that you can make egg whites do this.

Now, whisk up the egg whites until decently stiff. The egg whites will beat up better the less other contaminants you have in there the better, hence why it's a good idea to be pretty on-point with your separating!

The beaten yolks and sugar mixture

Now add the sugar to the yolks, and beat those together. You don't need to go crazy here, just mix them well, and whisk until they go slightly pale.

The combined chocolately mix. It took a fair bit of beating to get everything into a consistent state, but the 'chuck everything in and hope for the best' technique worked out OK here.

Now, technically you're supposed to beat the cream separately until slightly stiff, add to the chocolate, then add that to the sugar/yolks mix. However, I'm a bit short on mixing bowls, so I combined the cream with the sugar/yolk mixture, then dumped the chocolate in as well before mixing together. It mostly worked, but I suspect you'd get a bit more of a stiff mix if you do it properly.

The mixing process is not the most appealing sight. It has some strong sea foam vibes... very appetising!

Now fold in the egg whites. It'll look kinda messy here, but just keep folding gently, and it'll gradually combine into something more appetising, I promise! Here is also where you add the orange zest or flavouring, to give it some extra zing.

Well, that looks a bit nicer!

And complete! This isn't the fanciest presentation nor photography, but I'm making it for me, so meh! It tasted good, which is the main thing.